As features editor, my job usually involves sharing the lighter side of news with readers. In the Life, Food and ChattanoogaNow sections, we introduce you to people with compelling stories, recipes you can't wait to try, concerts you don't want to miss and even a few jokes worth repeating.
The coronavirus has given us a new playbook to decipher. There are still compelling stories, but so often now they must be told with undertones of health and safety - concerts canceled, movie theaters closed, families isolated.
So we look to the stories that people can tell us now, for what matters now. How restaurants and bars are stepping up to serve their customers and give employees an economic lifeline. How dormant cooks are getting reacquainted with their pots and pans. How your plumber wishes you would stop flushing those so-called flushable wipes.
Yes, our whole routine has been upended, but life chugs on. Babies are born. Loved ones die. Bills come due. Families grow closer.
We want to tell those stories. Your stories. Until these anxious times are gone and the things we once took for granted - concerts, movies, a sit-down dinner in a restaurant - become the stories of our lives again.
- Lisa Denton, features editor, ldenton@timesfreepress.com.