I’ve been contemplating the changes that this pandemic has brought, reading from the many articles written about what we are going through and knowing that the consequences of the pandemic will not be fully felt or understood for years to come. This real time disaster has revealed a lot of uncomfortable truths not only about myself but about the world around me. Like most people I have spoken with I have been working through my own patterns of grief, disbelief, and vulnerability. At the end of January, 2021, it occurs to me that we still have a long road ahead. I remember vividly my initial reaction to this pandemic. Like a lot of people I was sure that in a couple weeks we’d be out of the woods and life would resume in the manner it always has. As days passed, then weeks, with no end in sight and the reality that life may have been suddenly and dramatically changed forever, my computer news feed filled up with articles about ‘pandemic fatigue’ and people being over the shut down. Americans really have no chill, I thought at the time. Looking back, I now know that I greatly underestimated that lack of chill and how it might contribute to a breakdown of our collective civility. Many have responded to the challenges in new and creative ways that offer some hope for positive outcomes. Others are showing us that we have a lot of room to grow and a need to do so if we are going to become strong once again.
Being left to fend for ourselves in an unprecedented disaster has given birth to some good ideas. Local restaurants (who have the resources) have switched to a delivery and pick up model of service. Some have managed to stick to the old model of face to face customer service with the inevitable result that the people who continue to go out with the expectations of dining in, in general can’t be expected to be responsible for other peoples health. No surprise there, my years of restaurant service taught me that most adults have little regard for the safety of service staff. Restaurant owners have been quick to switch, adopting the, “I will throw you out if you don’t follow the rules” method of operation. Long overdue if you ask me. American standards of “customer service” have long been an oppressive concept encoded into our lives by boomers obsessed with bourgeois comforts. Watching it burn down warms my soul. Americans who do have some chill have adjusted with grace, putting on one, now two, masks, politely standing at a safe distance in line, and doing what good Americans should do, show some class and style.
My good friend suggested to me at the onset of this mess that mask style would become a fashion trend. Totally prophetic of her in retrospect. Let’s face it, showing some style in how you approach a little inconvenience like wearing a mask is the bare minimum of a standard for adult behavior anyone should aspire to. Yes, I am talking to you, adult tantrum throwers, laying down in the middle of a Target or Walmart, yelling at the staff about your freedom! People who pull that kind of garbage are the type of folks who have been ruining other peoples good days since the dawn of time. The real winner in this pandemic is the babe who coordinated her mask and outfit and is quietly enjoying not having to breathe the same air as you. Another of my many heroes rising to the moment, suburban moms immediately mastered mask making and got an Etsy store up and running while the Trump Whitehouse couldn’t , with literally all the resources in the world, manage to get the necessary PPE to hospitals. So put your American money where your mouth is, get yourself a couple masks, show some swag, stop yelling at people, and support suburban moms.
This experience has been felt in different ways by different people. I managed to land on my feet, still well fed, clothed and housed. Not without struggle, this has cost my modest savings dearly. I feel for those folks out there with kids who are struggling right now. I am single and live alone and I still have an abundance of worry. I can only imagine the weight of responsibility for parents, those with elderly or disabled family members to care for, or those with serious mental health conditions. Living single and alone in this time carries with it unique challenges to say the least. Enjoying ones own company certainly helps under the circumstances but it is not the most comforting place to be either. We have all suffered through some dark moments in recent history, while, on a more personal level, I know I have experienced some dark moments in my head. If you haven’t you might need to check in with yourself because none of this is normal. This pandemic has broken a lot of things and we will all need to be part of putting them back together again or we risk waking to an ever increasingly dystopian reality. It should be sobering. It certainly is for me because, I’m not going back. I wanted things to change. I surely do not want a second American revolution as some do, yet on some level it is unavoidable. It doesn’t have to be a revolution, renaissance might be the better concept to embrace. A re-imagining of what is possible, a surge of creative spirit which rushes to meet the forces at play head on.
Something more to think about. What is your personal renaissance look like? What influences might help you better appreciate the world around you? What strange machines is your inner Da Vinci sketching in margins? When I think renaissance I think about the painters who defined the 15th and 16th century. Boticelli, Michaelangelo, Brunelleschi, all working to better illuminate the human experience by observing it more closely and rendering it naturally with personal expression. There’s so much more to it than that but that was then. This is now, our time to think, to look to the past for what illuminated the darkness is times of antiquity, and to look to the future, and decide what role we have in it.
