Corona Complacency
Is it just me?
Or did everyone else’s phone stop ringing about two weeks ago too? For the first burst of the Corona Quarantine everyone was on the phone, checking in, “How are you guys?” “Everyone ok at your house?”
Posting cheerful things on Facebook. Recipes. Funny photos with masks on Twitter. Trump jokes. End of the world jokes. Heartwarming videos. Our shared outrage machine was going 24/7. We couldn’t turn off the TV because, (heavens!) we might miss something. (Q: What would we miss? The cure?)
And now almost nothing. Crickets. We were getting calls from friends we hadn’t kept up with. And from the people we talk to every week. There wasn’t much to say, after the first hello-how-are-you. But it was nice to chit chat. Hear who had a new baby, or a new knee. And then it stopped.
At first, people were still reveling in the sort of snow day stay-at-home mode. The gift of time. Cooking a lot. Ordering everything under the sun from Amazon. Binge-watching TV. Cleaning out closets.
I admired my own discipline when I succeeded in watching every single episode of Downton Abbey, start to finish. It was a little like deciding to finish Anna Karenina in one go. But actually, no. It was more like consuming an entire quart of holiday eggnog.
I think what has happened is a generalized Group Discouragement Syndrome. The virus didn’t go away, though it’s better. But still, there is the sense of a dark fog that could sweep in through your doorstep, like the shadow of death in The Ten Commandments. An invisible ghost, and not a friendly one. No wonder Trump conjures the Chinese, or WHO or Obama. Aeorsolized particles are just so faceless.
Cuomo is still giving inspirational and tough talk updates every day. (And I love him for it.) Trump is, alas, still Trump. And yes, there are still people who are so besotted that they will follow him into the Clorox Cure. I admit that I sort of miss the drama of the White House Briefings. Will Fauci talk? Will Pence hit the magic number of ten references to the great leadership of Donald Trump in under five minutes? Will Dr. Brix wear a new Hermes scarf? And whatever happened to the nice Surgeon General?
Thank god for the journalists who feed my outrage machine. All of you. Print. Cable. Twitter. Blogs. A million thank yous for staying alert and aware and monitoring every misstep. We need you to stay vigilant even when we are too demoralized to listen to you. I have cut back my TV time recently. But still I read three papers obsessively and continue to consume much of your astute commentary on TV. Always hoping I will learn something revelatory. I watch panel after panel of ZOOM interviews and I scan the books on the bookshelves behind the speaker as a sort of parlor game. (Everyone seems to have Michelle Obama’s Becoming.) Rachel Maddow et al: Every night you find a new through line. Thank you for your service.
Yet, still the numbers of the infected rise, though more slowly. I actually caught myself this week thinking “Yes! We can crack 100,000 before June 1!” forgetting what this awful number signifies. I have clearly lost my mind.
It just occurred to me that this is my new normal for the next year or so. Focus is slowly returning. Quietly going about my business. Chatting daily only with my most intimates. Dialing back from the daily Facebook postings. Upping my ZOOM savvy. Deciding which new projects can proceed in a time where in-person progress has given way to virtual and still be worth doing.
It isn’t all bad. For example, my house is very clean. I’m composting again and I’ve made Preserved Lemons and Pickled Red Onions. And just think of the carbon off-set with my commuting at a standstill. I am coming to terms with my new complacency, making friends with Normal 2.0. Holding on til a vaccine is on offer. But I miss my old nice Normal 1.0 life. And I am guesssing, so do you.