The most amazing part of the pandemic's impact on me is the recognition of how incredibly different people's spheres of experiences are. This is nothing new, but Covid has exacerbated the distinctions. Attending protests, speaking to friends who work in hospitals, and phone banking for the election has left me in a position to feel like our country is a wreck and teetering on the edge of true disaster. Add in the front row seat to a fire that demonstrates the urgency of our climate crisis in action and panic sets in. Yet, scrolling through social media or speaking to far away friends is always a discordant experience. I see people doing business as usual, like community theater performances (albeit done in innovative, socially distanced ways). I see people doing normal, everyday things like eating out and baking bread. None of these things make sense to me right now.
I occasionally get together with friends and my kiddos to play online games or Among Us. It is always a lovely distraction, but is a million miles away from the realities of the rest of my time. I am reading about oppressive systems and how to dismantle them. I am having conversations about how society has recovered from catastrophes and discussing the ethics of voter suppression. We are studying the Southern myth built after the Civil War. We are dissecting ableism, racism, misogyny, classism...so many isms. I am in a fairly new place, with new people with nothing familiar and no history. I am untethered and saturated in dismantling everything that once grounded me. How can there be places left where things are as they usually are?
In 10 days, it is the election. This feels like a momentous thing. All my worlds are invested in a particular outcome, and genuinely worried about potential violence no matter who gets more votes. Today was an all time high for Covid cases in the US. Police shootings continue unabated with incidents in Waukegan and San Bernardino in the last day. 545 children, who were viciously ripped from their parents, and are still unable to be reunited due to our own government's cruelty and ineptitude. With all this, (and I have only mentioned the tip of the iceburg) how can anyone's life continue in a regular way?
I told my dear friend, Kristin, that they most frightening part of the fires raging nearby is how easily we all continue on with life. Some people find this comforting. I do not. I feel like it speaks to our absolute disconnect to our emotions and core values. I play my part by nodding and smiling with friends, doing a bit for my chosen-son's show, going hiking, but inside I am screaming. This. Is. Not. Okay. I fear that our insistence on going about our business as if everything is ordinary will be the very reason everything goes to hell. I see this reflected in the media and their stubbornness in reporting extraordinary and world crushing news in a bizarrely neutral tone, as if there is not a contingency of behavior that is completely out of whack.
The next few months could be some of the worst in our history. Reports of the pandemic getting worse, more factious violence on the streets, more and more people facing being unhoused and food insecure. We need to face our own reality. I truly fear we are not.
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