The smartest people have responded in pandemic specific ways and I am honoured to know so many and to do what I can to help. I have learned how to be a pandemic public speaker and other organizers and organizations have enhanced programs and systems to be pandemic proof.

To the educators who go the extra mile, who honour relationships with their students, who provide increased access to resources with no shame and provide safe spaces for connection that are increasingly valuable to the mental health of students: thank you for being so extra! We see you and appreciate you!

All this information is overwhelming especially as many systems seem to go on pause over the holiday time. It is odd because it is also a time when many people feel we need our systems to be operating at an increased capacity the opposite is happening. So how do we respond when it feels like we have already been responding to the maximum of our abilities over the last 2 years?

Once a year Selkirk Avenue gets fancy and celebrates the holidays in style. This year, Indigenous Vision for the North End partnered with sahikiwe festival for some awesomeness that brought out the neighbourhood and provided opportunity for community, and connection.

Not touching things, not coughing/sneezing in public and keeping space from people who may be sick kind of sounds like a good way to be to me. Not because of a virus, but because of respect for other people, because of safety, because of health. Let's include those precautions in whatever the new normal becomes.