After a week of gloomy weather, it had been gloriously sunny all weekend in Southern California. But as evening approached on Sunday, March 22, it was raining heavily again. It was the kind of weather that makes you shelter in place. Pandemic weather.
Seemed a poetic end to a weekend that was a big, stormy test for a lot of us.
It’s not that it was the first weekend that was impacted by coronavirus. Everyone with an ounce of awareness (and zero tolerance for bullshit conspiracy theories) has known for a while that things were getting serious. Even those who were inclined at first to nod along hopefully at the platitudes coming from our leaders, had come to grips with the magnitude and gravity of a crisis that could no longer be glossed over with worthless—and worse, dangerous—assurances that everything wasn’t so bad. New cases of infection were being confirmed daily all over the world, by the thousands. Media coverage of the virus was now overshadowing Joe and Bernie. And the term “social distancing” burst onto the scene like the fucking Kool-Aid man and took up residence at the top of our cultural lexicon in an inescapable way.
All of this, and it wasn’t even St. Paddy’s Day yet.
But, going into this last weekend, I think a lot of us* felt like it was the first weekend we’d be living through since shit got really real with the coronavirus pandemic.
I’m right, right? In the last week or so, hasn’t it felt like a year’s worth of drastic headlines has been packed into every single day? Pro sports leagues suspended their seasons. State and local governments began shutting down life as we know it. Schools closed. Then restaurants. Your favorite bar last-called for the last time until who knows when. Several states postponed their primaries, and campaigning all but ceased with less than 8 months until what is probably the most important presidential election of our lifetimes (if it wasn’t before, it’s certainly shaping up to be now). Millions of people whose livelihoods depend on physical interaction with other people were suddenly boiled down to “essential” or “non-essential.” And for those of us who are fortunate enough to still have jobs at all (non-essential though many of them are, evidently), the majority are now working from home. I mean, I’ve been working from home for 10 years, so for me, the work isn’t the weird part; it’s that home workplaces are suddenly the norm.
And amidst all these changes blazing our way at warp speed last Monday through Friday, our attention was incredibly steadfast somehow. The world’s infectious disease experts, who have been trying to warn us for, oh, EVER, were now suddenly being listened to. (And by the way, even though those scientists and doctors would have every right to spew a hearty “We told you so, you shortsighted nut sacks!” at the world, I haven’t heard a single breath of that kind of smug righteousness from them, because smug righteousness takes time, and there’s no fucking time.) Epidemiologists, mathematical modelers, and vaccine researchers are working their fingers to the bone trying to get a handle on this thing. I bet they wish they didn’t have to keep looking up from their work every 30 seconds to warn us AGAIN about the seriousness of it all, and beg us to please, for the love of whatever you hold dear, DO YOUR PART.
And most of us are getting it, thank God. Stay inside. Don’t go out unless you absolutely have to. Wash your ever-loving hands. Over the last week, most of us fully joined the ranks of the Flatten the Curve army. Widespread changes and limitations, unimaginable four months ago, are now not only reasonable and doable, they’re CRITICAL, even if we still disagree on some of the fine points (even with lingering disagreements, can we all at least concur without exception that these buffoons are unquantifiably horrible?).
For me, last week was crazy busy, work-wise. The need to focus on work was good, and I imagine it was the same for a lot of you (given also that “work” could be substituted with your suddenly home-schooled kids, or your spouse-turned-office mate, or all of the above). Monday through Friday was about adjusting to a new normal, but one that, blessedly, was still rooted strongly in routine. Get up, make coffee, do the thing(s) for six or eight hours without ever leaving the house, repeat. Routine meant familiarity, even in a new setting, and even though the days were long and the pace was non-stop, when it was quittin’ time, we barely cared or even noticed that there would be no baseball practice to get to, or happy hour with friends to attend, or March Madness game to tune into…we were tired and needed rest, because tomorrow was going to be the same.
Until Friday.
The routine of the work/school week was paused, and the schedule was wide open. Consequently, a new uncertainty emerged, exhilarating and scary: what would we all do with so much time when out-of-home options were essentially nil?
For so, so many of us the answer was a bizarre dichotomy: on one side, there was simplistic, analog leisure (Family bike rides! Jigsaw puzzles! Oh and look at all those books I forgot I owned!), and on the other, complete immersion in technology (Netflix and quarantine! Tik-Tok makes performers out of everyone and their grandmas! And raise your hand if you lost your Zoom virginity this weekend!).
And listen, I fully bought into #quarantinelife too, y’all. Virtual happy hours and revival of long-neglected hobbies were the weekend m.o. at my house. I even convinced my 16 and 21 year old daughters that we should learn the choreography to “We’re All in This Together” from High School Musical, because “We’re All in This Together” has pretty much become the motto for Planet Earth, and hey, it was something we could do without leaving the house. We were all acting like it was suddenly January 1 again, and the resolutions were out in force. There was no limit to the possibilities, as long as they could be done without going within six feet of anyone we don’t live with. I even began vlogging my weekend play-by-play on my Instagram/Facebook stories, not because I thought it would suddenly be interesting to anyone, but because we had all agreed to this new set of acceptable social behaviors and I was all about it.
Going into the weekend, my battery was fully juiced. So I went in hot, like so many others did. I was going to DO stuff, dammit—inspiring, Instagram-worthy stuff. Look at me, making lemonade out of lemons! Help people? Hell yeah (no idea how, given that I’m pretty much in total isolation, but I’d figure something out)! Can’t go OUT and do what you’re used to? Then stay IN and do what you never would have even considered if you weren’t inescapably compelled to. That will show this virus who’s boss!
The problem though, was that that kind of enthusiasm was unsustainable. I said it before: this last weekend was going to be a test. It was going to challenge me to adapt to big changes, accept my lack of control over about 97% of what’s happening, and come out of it with my sanity, patience, and optimism intact. But by rainy Sunday night, the battery had already gotten shockingly low. It was a mere 48 hours since that first virtual happy hour on Friday—all smiles and “We got this!” and mutual promises that we’d do it again, soon and often—and here I was, exhausted and feeling emotionally defeated. I had come in TOO hot, and I bonked with lots of race left to go.
Turns out, I wasn’t alone. By Sunday night, the same friends who had been tagging each other in quarantine memes and posting pictures of their bountiful stay-at-home wins all week, were letting the cracks show, talking about sadness and insecurity and confessing, “I don’t know how long I can keep doing this.” It was striking. We were all realizing that a single week of collective “We don’t know what we’re doing, but here we go, and we’re gonna crush it, and yay!” thinking—and successfully not murdering each other—is only the start, and in fact, a return to normalcy is nowhere in sight.
And all those dark and terrifying feelings that have been simmering under the surface all along, were bubbling up…
I miss my people. I long for boring, normal shit like pub trivia and hikes with friends and pumping gas without being in a state of borderline panic the whole time. I really might lose my job. I might lose my healthcare. I’m worried about how much food and toilet paper I have, but I’m also guilty about how much food and toilet paper I have. I’m annoyed about losing so much personal freedom, but also guilty about being annoyed, considering how little I appreciated that freedom before it was restricted. I’m scared… and I’m not guilty about that, but I am heartsick that my kids are scared too, and how can I lessen their fear when I can barely get a handle on my own? Will any of us come out of this unharmed? Avoiding viral infection would only be one win, and maybe not even the biggest one. How is my mental and emotional core ever going to recover from this?
But I can’t let that take over. Gotta keep swimming through these murky waters, as one little fish once taught me. And ya know, uncertainty is more bearable when it’s shared with others, and when it comes down to it, the rest of y’all are as clueless as me. I cope one day at a time, with deep breaths, heavy pours, crying to myself, laughing with others, and evidently, 1,700 words to express my cluelessness. Of course, the five words (and the snappy choreo) of our 2020 global motto does it more efficiently: We’re all in this together.
* I guess by “us” I’m talking mostly about middle class American families, because, as our old friend Ray Zalinsky would say, “That’s what I am, and that’s who I care about.” I mean, I care about more than just middle class American families, but then the quote wouldn’t work… Anyway, I know that the range of experiences that people all over the world are facing right now is vast, and I make no claim to speak for everyone (or anyone, other than myself, really). (more…)