I am Not Over the Pandemic

The afterglow of graduation and ensuing parties has worn off, while exhaustion and a shocking heat wave knocked me flat for a few days last week. Despite my ongoing efforts to keep gratitude at the forefront, deep-seated frustrations and bitterness caused by the pandemic have re-emerged, like prickly weeds bursting through a crack in the sidewalk.

At William's final home swim meet, already worn down by emotional goodbyes to parents, their boys, even the pool itself, I overheard junior parents talking about their sons' pending college searches. I immediately left the area, overcoming the urge to scream "test scores don't matter !" "there's no scholarship money!" and "everything has changed!"  Junior parents don't need to hear further words of warning, at least not from me. The coming year and their college search might be more conventional than ours was in a historic 2020. 

After a night of restless sleep, dreaming of missed swim races and evaporating ties to high school meets, I walked with two friends in the cool of the morning. We exclaimed over the lovely summer flowers and happy dogs out for an early stroll. But when the conversation turned to religion, I again felt lightning flashes of frustration. Online church services and regular emails helped me only marginally during the lockdown, and I now feel separated from our church, divorced from my spirituality. 

Despite good intentions to meditate, I never resumed my long-dead practice, and my early morning alone-time during the pandemic was most often spent reading headlines. I realize that my spiritual disappointment and frustration should be aimed internally and not my place of worship, which did all it could to support people virtually. That knowledge doesn't diminish my disappointment or feelings of isolation.

How long will it take me, will it take our society, to recovery from the pandemic and resulting lock downs, social distancing and revamping of social norms? Are we even out of the pandemic now?  I wrote that our graduation party for William and his friends was "post-pandemic" but I fear I spoke too soon. Headlines continue to mourn deaths in India, wail about ten thousand Olympic volunteers defecting in Tokyo. My grievances continue to emerge at odd times and to eyebrow-raising effect. I hope I'm just reflective enough to place blame on the historic virus and not the people or institutions which - like me - were just trying to survive the best they could.

Halloween, or Three Days Until Election Day

 Goblins, ghouls and evil witches can't hold a candle to the terrors of this election season. It often seems, as I scour the webpages of the nation's biggest newspapers, that there are no treats to be had in American this fall, only tricks. Rumors of election interference and pending violence battle with headlines about the record-breaking number of cases of COVID-19 (99,000+ yesterday) for supremacy. What do we hold onto when the masks don't come off and the full moon can't provide enough light?

I find hope in the stories of grad students who spent hundreds of dollars on a last-minute flight home to vote (Wash Post). Their absentee ballots didn't come in time, so they took matters into their own hands and flew home to stand in line and vote in person. Americans are on track to break 150 million votes cast in the election for the first time, and people are voting as if their lives depend on it (which they do). Our engagement gives me reason to hope.

Brave medical professionals standing up for science also give me hope, from the epidemiologists like Fauci and Birx who will not be silenced to the brave doctors and nurses who are gearing up for battle in the nation's hospitals. Unlike Trump, who believes that medical workers are inflating COVID death tolls for profit (CNN 10/31/2020) we can rationally see that these men and women are taking on high levels of personal risk to their physical and mental health in order to save all of us, from the careful to the careless.

I will put a table at the end of my driveway this evening, fill it with candy and pumpkins for the little ones who walk by, and cheer them on from six feet away. I will be simultaneously cheering on the brave Americans who give me hope in this season of terrors and praying for their success on November third and throughout the rest of the perpetual Halloween that is 2020.

Vanquishing Nightmares

For the last three nights I have been abruptly awakened in darkest hours by a horrific nightmare brought on, I would guess, by virus-related stress and exacerbated by the news out of the fire-stricken West Coast. Old friends and family members in California post pictures of an orange sky, or exclaim about seeing sunshine after a week of blackout smoke. I wake up shouting "NO!" and reaching over the covers for Rob to reassure myself that everything is still (mostly) OK. 

On Saturday morning, after one of those broken nights, I sat in my parked car facing out toward Lone Tree Parkway as I waited for Daniel to finish his taekwondo class (masked, of course). An endless parade of pickup trucks boasting huge American flags and "Trump 2020" signs passed in front of me, honking wildly and gathering volume as more vehicles added on to the back of the line.  My blood pressure and heart rate rose as I watched my fellow citizens claim the flag for Trump, for his reckless policies that have led to over 190,000 deaths in our country, policies that have rolled back protections for the environment and exacerbated the climate change that is wreaking havoc on the West and Gulf Coasts via fire and hurricanes.

If Trump supporters have claimed the flag and made it their own I have only myself to blame. I am conflict-avoidant and internally focused, an introvert, allergic to phones and to pointless driving. Though I am unlikely to start or participate in a Biden-Harris parade around the neighboring town, I can still 'wake up' from my internal state, shout "NO!" in a voice that can be heard, and make my strong views known. 

Those of us in the "silent majority" that Trump claims, but which actually belongs to the nation's moderates on both sides of center, need to re-claim our flag and our nation. We can't avoid vocal displays of patriotism just because they seem connected with the president and his supporters. Election season is growing tense, along with every other situation that has hit us in 2020, and it's time to step up to the plate.  In addition to the letter-writing and phone-banking I do at my desk, I need to put out my signs and be visible.

At this tipping point in our nation's history we have to make our voices heard and let our flags fly. Focused action and saying no to people and policies that hurt us might be the only way to vanquish the nightmares.