Corona Chronicles 3/15/2020
I’ve been avoiding the public opinion sling on social media. Of all the things that could help during troubling times, I don’t see my opinion as a great guiding light, never have. But after listening to a host of news networks, scientists, doctors, spiritual guides, and of course, politicians at the local, state, and federal levels, I realized my opinion is something I desperately need to release from my head FOR ME.
So I will start with this…I find it seriously confusing in a capitalistic society, where we are taught, pretty much from birth, that hard work, fierce drive, competition, and tenacity will help us get ahead, meet our goals, WIN! …To suddenly forget these teachings, shift gears and leave food and toilet paper on store shelves, share…take our turns. And maybe I am wrong about this, but those who seem most entitled are the ones who are having the hardest time being told, “Thou shalt not trample, slam-dunk, outsmart, or hoard from thy neighbor.” In a pandemic, we are forced to be socialists. Not many know how to behave that way in today’s America (Boot-stomping, flag-waving-get-out-of-my-way, America) and it’s showing.
And coupled with this confusion is the dichotomy of silver lining moment the crisis is teaching us. How easy it is to take the simple pleasure of touch for granted, the underratedness of eye-contact, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. I shared what could be a last meal with my elderly parents yesterday, maybe a long pause until we flatten the curve…maybe the real thing. We laughed, we ran our model trains together, we played Dominos. I can’t remember feeling so much love, while participating in the normal, mundane rituals of our get-togethers.
I am heartbroken for the cancellations of celebrations that are now the new way to show we care. Weddings, proms, graduations, dinners, out, reunions, holidays, all terminated so the masses won’t be.
And I have tried with every fiber to avoid making this political, but we’ve all made it political as we judge each other’s reactions and demonstrate who we really are and who we believe in a crisis. Do you believe the CDC, science, doctors, politicians, the media, the President? Which horses are you going to ride toward your truth?
So here’s the political piece for me, said knowing it could stir disagreement, knowing my anger will do nothing right now, only free up the space in my brain that needs to be filled with more productive and healing thoughts. But how on earth did we, capitalistic society, believe in 2020, that our most prominent enemy was immigration, while cyber-crimes, hackers, artificial intelligence, climate change and weaponized pandemics were crawling through our windows? Wasn’t the hijacking of personal data, the tampering with election results, Ebola, SARS, Zika, enough to give us a peak? How could we have looked at China in December and treated this as “a Democratic Hoax, something that would die in warm weather,” when every analytical model was telling a different story? CDC pandemic funds cut so a border wall could be built. Seriously America, if we were going to spend such an obscene amount of money protecting ourselves from those “bad hombres,” could we not have used our great technological and scientific minds to help us? I mean a wall? It’s almost as medieval as a moat and about as useful as the highly touted coal.
Even now, we’re being told that test kits are flowing and everyone who wants to get tested can get tested. THIS IS BULLSHIT coming right from the President’s mouth, yet my relationship with someone at the test kit manufacturer provides me with the real facts. And the facts are, we are not even close to where we should be so everyone could test and self-quarantine if they lit up positive. A woman in my county has had a husband in the ER since Thursday, 102 fever, finally today got a test, and a 4-day wait for results. That, my friends, is the truth.
There is zero comfort for me in this knowledge, while the leader of our country “takes no responsibility” for where we are, hand-shaking and rolling out orders that leave airports with masses of potential contaminates, no social distance. Welcome home! Was anyone prepared for the crowds? I have to say, as a corporate manager, if I handled myself with the same cavalier attitude about glowing mistakes, I would not have a job. This man shouldn’t either.
Our national emergency is weeks late, people are dying, and our economy is teetering on the edge of a cliff. I flounder to ask are we winning yet?
Tonight, two old white men will debate to see who will run against another old white man, and whoever gets the nod will surely inherit the residue of this monumental mess. I find myself wondering what our worst problems would be right now if Al Gore got the nod so many years ago, or if we actually put the woman who won in office in 2016. This kind of thinking is why I need to get all of this out on the page and clear space for kinder-gentler. The “what if’s?” are easy from the cheap seats.
Maybe the world would be less tweetful, less in love with dictators and bullies? Maybe I could watch just one press conference where esteemed fact-givers weren’t forced to start every sentence praising the emperor, while he stood there missing his clothes, telling people the fed was slashing rates. How comforting is this while people are worried if their loved ones (or themselves) will live or die? I mean really, who the hell cares about a fat 401K from 6 feet under?
OK, so much for avoiding the political, but it does keep filtering down that way. Who do you believe got us here and who is going to get us out? I am riding the horse called science, stopping to fact-check anywhere in the news stables except for Fox, with its Trish Regan’s and Hannity’s. Those headlines are better served at Mara-Liar-Go.
Which brings me right back to the toilet-paper hoarders and survivalists…what would be their fate if, ironically, the last safe place on earth was Mexico and they loaded up their Beamers to head south, toward life, salvation, safety? Would the machine-gunned guards take their kids and toss them in cages for simply trying to live? Would you consider them criminals, outlaws? Or is this just too complicated a concept, putting one’s self in other’s shoes, here on this National Day of Prayer? Yes, that is said to every Capitalist Christian who went on a buying-bender at the grocery store.
In the space this rant has carved for me, I recognize my own predilection to put more emphasis on Edward Jones over Thomas Jones, more expectation for candidates to lead from their hearts if I don’t put my heart into their campaigns. I won’t make that mistake again if I live to see another election.
I suppose it’s easy to sit on the sidelines and complain, shake a disinfected fist at the sky. I’ll try and circle back to the gifts this chaos delivered me.
- I have not been able to sit at my computer and put a sentence together that wasn’t work-related in months. It’s good to sit close to my friend, writing, knowing the virus she’ll always deliver is hopeful, even if I have to walk through the angrier parts of my being to build antibodies.
- I appreciate the people I love, my wife the steady-minded calm in any storm, my daughter, the brave New Yorker on the front lines, my parents, who after a lifetime of volunteerism don’t even know their superpower lies in not teaching us to take our neighbor’s share of wipes, and the rest of my family and friends who will read this and love me any way.
