Just like everyone else, I am figuring out how to stay safe during the post-vaccination phase of the pandemic. Where I live, the number of cases has gone way down and vaccination rates are high, particularly amongst those 65 and older. Yet I am finding it uncomfortable to venture out and resume any of my old activities. Last weekend I attended a memorial service for a friend who died in January. The room for the reception opened into a garden so the airflow was good. We sat at huge round tables to watch a video that beautifully wove together her artwork and photographs of her life. I saw some friends I hadn’t seen in real life for 14 months. Yet I still hesitated to take my mask off. But I did it. I certainly don’t know what is coming with the pandemic, but I do know, that right now I am safe to do things that were scary last summer. It is hard to do them, but I want to follow the science and not my fear.