Do you remember when COVID was still around?

I was thinking today about Saturday 14 March 2020. I was in Manhattan. It was a beautiful late winter day. I was working on the second of what was five drafts of my new novel, ‘Afraid of the Light’. I finished the day’s writing around 2pm. I walked all the way south on 7th Avenue to one of my favorite independent cinemas in New York: The Film Forum. I saw a screening of Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ (rather suitable under the circumstances). I met my daughter for dinner. We went to hear a jazz pianist play a set at a bar on Sheridan Square. Amelia headed home. I continued on to Mezzrow, a great jazz club allied to Smalls (and not far from the Vanguard). I heard a brilliant set by the pianist Jon Davies. I walked home, falling into bed at 2am (early for me on a NY Saturday night), wondering: is that the last time I will have a New York cultural day like the one I just experienced?
Remember when the world shut down... when we were all shooed off the streets and forced to live constrained lives... when travel was so restricted... when live culture stopped... when the world was rather closed. It seems all in the hazy past tense now... and yet it also feels like yesterday.