June was a heavy yet hopeful month. As the atmosphere surrounding racial injustice shifts from outrage to action, I'm hopeful these events won't fade into the chaos of the year but will lead to long-lasting changes. Taking action looks different for everyone - praying, listening to others' experiences, examining ourselves for any prejudice we hold toward our neighbors of color, donating to justice-centered causes, learning about culture and law and criminal justice, and protesting, among others - and all are important.
In other updates - the DMV area is slowly, slowly reopening. I have found unexpected moments of joy in ordering food from a real person at a real counter, visiting parks further away from home, eating at restaurants outdoors, and cautiously seeing a friend in person for the first time since March. I drove out to Fredericksburg, Centreville, and the outside edges of Fairfax County to enjoy different greenways than the ones near my home that I've walked dozens of times during this quarantine. Local travel is a big part of my normal life that's been absent the last few months, and it's refreshing to do it again, even if in a limited way.
I'm in Raleigh now, having left the D.C. area for the first time since January to visit my family. Working remotely gives the freedom to work away from home indefinitely, and I'm enjoying spending a few weeks somewhere else, with different trails to run and cafes to eat at and faces to see and people to talk to for the first time in months.
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