Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Catching Up to Reality
And just like that, the pandemic is over, except people keep dying, an incidental fact scrolling along the bottom of the screen while more important things are discussed like people packing bars, drinking and laughing, exuberant, loud music playing in celebration, the thrum of the bass constant and primal, down the road from where semi-trucks are still parked behind hospitals, I guess so we don’t see them and think they are there to store people who won’t be able to belly up to the bar, and it could seem paradoxical, even ironic, to a spectator but I’m not one of those because, in the still of the night when I am blinking so slowly to remember the dream I was having, it sometimes involve an empty shelf where I might be stored if I’m not lucky.
6 Comments on “Catching Up to Reality”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
Damn. That’s it.
I read a really interesting article in the NY Times about how pandemics/epidemics end. The answer is, just like this. At some point, people say “Screw it, I want OUT” and out they go. Like Bubonic Plague which has come back many times since it arrived in 1347 (from China, so I guess we could blame that on them, too) and has killed millions of people all over the world, including in this country right up through the 1920s. It could do it again. Essentially, people get weary of being locked up and they decide to go out, get sick, and die. in this case, we are the most vulnerable part of the population and have been declared “not worth saving.” I think I’m worth saving and I’m sure you think you are too as are all your friends … but this is going to be a hard landing. I don’t think this is going away soon and there’s doubt as to whether or not there will BE a permanent vaccine. The Spanish (not really Spanish) flu of 1918-1919 ultimately became what is our annual flu, unless it flares up and becomes something more lethal. Coronaviruses are not easy to vaccinate against because they mutate fast, sometimes in a good way, often in a bad way.
For us, it probably won’t ever end. Anyone feel like getting on a plane and flying to Italy? I didn’t think so. I have to go to the hospital for a heart checkup I can’t defer anymore — and I’m wondering if I’ll come out alive.
It is just so weird what’s going on – just all of a sudden, it’s ‘oh, we’re having a pandemic, let’s have lunch’ – like the body snatchers came in the night. We figure we are just simply on our own now so still being ridiculously careful. Our motto is “No mistakes.” So, we’ll see how long that will last. Take care, both of you.
I don’t get it either. Nor does Garry. I understand people really needing to get back to work, assuming they still have work to do, but the crazed party people are right out of the Plague years.
I don’t know what will happen to our world. Things will change, but how? We too need to start doing stuff that has been deferred for months. Getting my Pacemaker battery checked, getting broken teeth fixed, getting a boiler installed before next winter.
But traveling on an airplane? Going into a crowded stadium, restaurant, or anyplace crowded with people I don’t know? Unlikely.
It won’t be the same world. Of the 30 million + people who are now unemployed, maybe half of them will get their jobs back. Many places are permanently closed. Other places will reopen, but much smaller than they were. No matter what happens, I think we will have a Depression.
Stay safe. I’ve heard the virus doesn’t read the news.
So I’ve heard. It surely is a weird time.