COVID Contemplations
These days, when my mind summons the word “normal,” all I get is a cloudy haze of what used to be and doubts about the road ahead. But, the local movie theater re-opened last Friday, and I was joyful beyond words to go and once again do something I so enjoy — something I would refer to as “normal.”
Who would have guessed I’d miss the sound of other people crunching popcorn, slurping drinks, and exchanging whispered comments and snickers? It was tremendous, even with only three of us in the theater. It was tremendous to do something besides *wait* and make the best of a bad situation.
I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of *waiting* recently, especially since my novel is currently in copy editing. But isn’t that what many of us are doing? Waiting. Wondering. Hoping. Laughing, perhaps, when we think back to “two weeks to flatten the curve” — not a jolly ha-ha laugh, but the edge-of-sanity cackle that questions whether it would have been better or worse to know the truth from the beginning.
It’s easy to get caught up in the present moment, especially since the present is all we really have. But, when the present moment becomes fearful, it might help to add perspective. COVID-19 is certainly a novel situation, but I’ve lived through other novel times. I’m sure you have as well.
I was born in the 1970s, so let’s fast forward to times I remember clearly. The 1980s brought the AIDS epidemic, ongoing fear of Mutually Assured Destruction in the Cold War, the war on drugs, and a recession. The 1990s brought the Gulf War, the dot-com bubble, the Oklahoma City bombing, and then Y2K. The 2000s brought a collapse of the housing market, 9/11, and the war on terror.
Even some advancements and breakthroughs were pretty scary in the moment. Consider the creation of personal computers, mobile phones, the Internet, and artificial intelligence. Advancing medical knowledge brought serious and frightening possibilities, including DNA analysis, cloning, and mapping the human genome.
Your own list of novel situations may be longer, shorter, or different than mine, but I’m certain we all have one. I’m also certain they will change over time. I hope my own list will continue to anchor me, as we all continue to be inundated with messages about social distancing, infection rates, restrictions, and everyone’s judgements about what everyone else is doing.
Is this the “new normal” we’ve been hearing about? I certainly hope not, but only time will tell. In the meantime, I’m trying to make the most of whatever I have, and I’m thankful to be able to add a visit to the movies to that list.