A Veil for All Seasons

Item

When I attended my ten-year college reunion last summer, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Since relocating all the way across the country to the West Coast, I hadn’t seen so many friends who  had once been dear in nearly a decade. Even the campus’s antique lampposts and stately brick  towers I had known so well at first seemed, again, strangers.

But humans have a way of adapting to things, and it didn’t take long for me to step right  back into the rhythm of all I had forgotten. I laughed with my former tennis teammates as we hit a  couple of balls on the sizzling hard courts where we used to compete. I reminisced about music and  mayhem with members of my blues-focused a cappella group. Even the simple act of eating  breakfast in one of the dorm dining halls brought back a cascade of fond memories I’d assumed  were long deleted.  

In addition to fresh anecdotes and old friendships renewed, I packed one additional  memento in my suitcase for the flight home: a stretchy infinity-style bandana. It was bright green— my graduating class’s special color—and I acquired it as part of the reunion fun. I had dutifully  wrapped the bandana around my wrist and cheered with pride during the alumnae parade, but  once I returned home, I tucked it away in my closet, unsure what occasion would ever prompt me to  wear it again. 

Nine months later, the pandemic arrived in Washington state. On the first day of quarantine,  I, like so many others, felt compelled to scuttle to the nearest grocery store for emergency supplies.  The only problem was, I didn’t own any masks or face coverings. The only way I could safely  venture outside and prepare my household was to check every little drawer and box for something,  anything with which I could make do. 

Necessity births invention, and humans have a way of adapting to things. After fifteen  minutes of digging, I emerged with a fistful of stretchy neon green. Finally, I’d found a use for my  class bandana.

Title
A Veil for All Seasons
Description
Alexandra M. Lucas is a freelance video game writer and co-chair of the IGDA Serious Games Special Interest Group. She won the GDC Game Narrative Review Platinum Award twice, and she has delivered gender studies presentations at GDC, PAX Dev, GeekGirlCon, and Wellesley College. She contributed chapters to Digital Love: Romance & Sexuality in Games, Pop Culture Matters, the Encyclopedia of Sexism in American Films, and Love & Electronic Affection. Alexandra's poem, "Leftover," won a Merit Award in the 2020 Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest, and her short story, "The Other Side," was published in HamLit's Winter 2020 Issue: No Man’s Land. Professionally, she has written for interactive novels, digital assistants, RTS mobile games, educational MMORPGs, and more. In her free time, Alexandra enjoys baking, playing recreational tennis at Bellingham Training & Tennis Club, and performing in local community theatre.
Rights
https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Contributor
Alexandra Lucas
Date
2020-07-17
Type
Text
Identifier
012
Item sets
Chuckanut Writers Project
Site pages
Chuckanut Writers Project
Media
A Veil for All Seasons