Claudia Thomas may finally take that road trip to California. Maurice Emmanuel Parent hopes to play Sebastian in a long overdue production of “The Tempest.” And a Canton couple who had to delay their wedding day will finally get to say “I do,” albeit with a less crowded dance floor.
Across New England, as COVID cases continue to drop and vaccinations rise, there’s an unfamiliar feeling in the air: optimism. (Just don’t ask too many questions or it might fade away.) President Biden announced there likely will be a vaccine available for every adult by the end of May, and Governor Charlie Baker has eased restrictions on restaurants and performance venues with more to come later this month — steps some public health experts said were premature.
But with hope finally on the horizon, residents are beginning to cautiously plan for a summer that might actually be fun, filled with vacations, camp, and gatherings of the non-Zoom variety. Rentals are already filling up on Cape Cod for peak summer weeks and event planners are seeing interest spike for bigger weddings in July and into the fall.
It’s a slow, careful journey, riddled with potential snags. The tremendous pent-up longing to live it up again — to entertain and be entertained, to recreate, gather with friends, eat out, travel — is running into the hard lessons in vigilance the pandemic has taught.
“This is good. This is reason for optimism and hope,” Dr. Shira Doron, hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, said of the highly effective vaccines and the lessening case counts. But, she cautioned, “it isn’t reason to act like it’s 2019.”
Some are just happy to have a shot at normal. Katie Cole and Graham Sager-Gellerman are planning to celebrate their wedding in August — a year after their initial date.
It will certainly not be the wedding they envisioned. Their smaller guest list will not include two grandparents who passed away during the last year. And their guests won’t be able to spend the night on Thompson Island, the salt marsh and heron-filled destination where Cole pictured a late-night bonfire on the beach.
But they expect all guests to be vaccinated, and after a year’s delay, they’re thrilled just to think of celebrating at all.
“We’re rolling with the punches to see what changes in terms of seating assignments and dance floors and occupancy,” Cole said. “We just want to get married.”
Baker’s recent loosening of restrictions allows indoor theaters and concert halls to run at greater capacities, and removes some limits for restaurants, which can now host musical performances, too.
But much remains unknown, Doron said, including whether vaccine production will remain on track, and how many people agree to be vaccinated. It’s also not clear how other states and other countries will fare during a globally unequal vaccine rollout. The uncertainties have made it difficult for organizations and individuals to plan ahead.
Some iconic summer institutions, like Tanglewood in the Berkshires, are paring down their aspirations and hoping for the best. Mark Volpe, the president of the Boston Symphony orchestra, said he’s looking at the possibility of a scaled-back, but in person, Tanglewood this year. Visitors would wear masks and physically distance, and there would be no vocal music. Jacob’s Pillow is also planning for outdoor, in-person performances, a spokeswoman said.
Maybe other summer performances, like the postponed production of “The Tempest” on Boston Common, will come back, too.
“There’s nothing like performing in front of so many people,” said Parent, who hopes to be back on stage in the show this summer. The audience includes everyone from fans who show up hours early with cheese plates to those who stop to watch a sword fight while departing the T station.
Summer camps, too, are trying to negotiate the uncertainties. Sarah Dowd, 22, will return to Camp Hazen YMCA in Connecticut as a counselor for her third summer. Last year they had to transform the sleepaway camp into a day camp and enforce other restrictions, too: Instead of piling into a massive dining hall, campers interacted with a small cohort and ate most meals outside.
But the spirit of camp remained, Dowd said, and she is optimistic that this year campers will be able to sleep over, with many of last year’s precautions still enforced.
“It doesn’t seem like COVID’s going away any time soon,” she said.
For businesses across the region, progress is modest. Last summer, the Dorchester ice cream shop Chill on Park was confined to takeout and delivery because of state restrictions. These days, a few people at a time can dig into their almond joy or cotton candy cones inside the shop. People are trickling in after a long winter, said the shop’s owner, Wendy Issokson. Recently, she saw advertisements for the youth baseball team across the street.
“I feel like we’re moving in a positive direction,” she said.
Individuals who had to put their lives on hold are also hoping for some respite, though they’re not sure exactly what it will look like. Nadia Ambroise, a medical assistant in Dorchester, told her 6-year-old that they just might be able to visit the Canobie Lake amusement park in New Hampshire this summer — a thrilling prospect after being cooped up in the house for months.
But her young son remains skeptical.
“He’s like, ‘Mommy, what about the corona?’ ” she said.
For others, the open road beckons. Thomas, 24, has been mulling a road trip for some time. She hopes summer will bring “the independence of young adulthood” that she has been missing while living with her family in Winchester.
A year of rarely seeing friends in person has taken its toll. A few months ago, Thomas broke her ankle roller-skating — that sport is another pandemic trend — and actually found herself looking forward to physical therapy sessions as a kind of much-needed social interaction.
Now, with vaccine availability on the horizon, she’s hopeful that this will be the summer she and her Kia Sportage take a long-delayed road trip to California. Go for it: That’s one lesson of the pandemic.
“You can lose your opportunity to do things like that at any moment,” she said. “You just gotta do it.”
Zoe Greenberg can be reached at zoe.greenberg@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @zoegberg. Emma Platoff can be reached at emma.platoff@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @emmaplatoff.
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Many of us are eager for a return to fun in the sun — could it be possible this summer? - The Boston Globe
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