Sit on your hands on a bus of survivors / Blushing at all
the Afro-Sheeners / Ain’t that close to love?
It’s not exactly “Silent Night,” but as Christmas
approaches, that improbable lyric has been kicking around my brain. We’re all sitting on that bus. Survivors, bruised and butt-hurt by the bottomless
sack of ennui that is 2020. COVID has
kicked our asses. As though that weren't enough, our discomfort (or
rage, depending on our personal value systems) at the current state of
race relations, and politics in general, is also front and center once again. 2020, in a word, sucks.
And yet, we try. We
do our part. We wear our masks and stand
in our much-longer, slower, socially distanced queues. We get our sinuses probed to the point where
we’re sure to have alien abduction nightmares.
We cry along with the long-suffering front-line workers on TV, who have
held the hand of one too many dying COVID patients. Ain’t that close to love?
Bowie’s line from “Young Americans” resonated with me in a fresh way when I heard him perform it the other night in a taped 1974 appearance on the
Dick Cavett Show. I’ve been entertaining
myself late at night by exploring the libraries of old TV shows that are now on
streaming services. You can catch Dick
Cavett on Amazon Prime. Rowan and Martin’s
Laugh-In, too. Lots of old content that folks of a certain age find entertaining. Like so many others, I’m experiencing 2020 in
a way that blurs time. I’m gravitating
closer to becoming a nocturnal being who is increasingly unaware of what day it
is.
My immediate family and I have been very lucky – we’ve
managed to stay healthy this year, and for that we are very, very grateful. Our personal
touchpoints with the pandemic have been pretty typical, and thankfully benign. I had the odd experience of traveling to
Maryland for a reunion with old friends during the second week of March – which
was precisely when the media bubbled over with panic-inducing coverage of the “Coronavirus”
(or China Virus, depending on your sources).
The wearing of masks was, at that point, discouraged; reason being that
only N-95 PPE masks were of any use at all, and those were in short supply and should
be reserved for medical personnel. The
evolution of guidance throughout the year has been fascinating.
En route home, I spent one night in New Jersey, where local
NYC TV news outlets were blaring warnings about potential imminent closures of
state borders. The hotel parking lot was
empty, as though the building had been evacuated and closed. Except for me. Literally, there was my car and one other,
also from out of state. It was
creepy. My one regret is that I didn’t
stop to see my beloved 94-year-old Aunt Helen while I was in town. I had planned to, but in light of the news it
seemed more prudent to put it off for another time and get the hell home. That ‘other time’ never came, and she passed away
in October.
Back home, my wife, Lana (an elementary school special education teacher) was scrambling, together with her colleagues, to figure out how to teach remotely. About a month into that, parents in the city where she works arranged a parade to show their support for all the teachers. We decorated our car with banners and I drove, so that Lana could wave to all the families standing and cheering on their front lawns and sidewalks. They all seemed so appreciative; it was touching.
But as the months wore on, and schools
reconvened for the Fall session, support seemed to wane. Lana’s teaching job became a crazy-quilt of
bureaucratic directives and reversals, with no constituent group (parents, teachers, students,
administration, state government) ever being satisfied.
There were no more parades. While some parents and families continued to express their appreciation, others called to complain because they no longer had
baby-sitting coverage, or couldn’t figure out how to work their students’
laptops, or wanted their particular children to receive in-person rather
than virtual special education services (the scheduling of which is entirely out
of teachers’ control). This was nobody’s
fault; for these parents, the initial spirit of “we have a crisis, we’re all in this together, I
appreciate all that you do” had given way to “this has gone on too long, I can’t
take it anymore, you have to do something.”
We are seeing that phenomenon far beyond education, in pretty much every
context. People are exhausted. Fuses are short.
With fortunate timing, I had retired from the corporate world a short while back, which made things easier for me than they otherwise would have been. In the early going, back when we were all wearing gloves, afraid to touch our mail or doorknobs or groceries or whatnot, I started getting up very early(!) to stand in line at supermarket “senior hours”(!!) to buy toilet paper(!!!)
There are so many wrong things to unpack there, starting with that “senior”
designation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m
glad I squeaked past the cutoff, but I’m in denial about the old age thing. I’ve been ripping up AARP solicitations for
ten years, and reality notwithstanding, I refuse to accept the label “grandfather.” I’m a Goom Goom, because that’s what my
granddaughter calls me. In any case, I
abandoned “senior hours” fairly quickly.
I don’t do alarm clocks or early mornings anymore, so I’ll take my
chances with the regular people.
Thankfully, we never actually ran out of toilet paper.
Our daughters have carried on with their lives, making necessary adjustments like everyone else. Our granddaughter amuses and entertains us. Her awareness of others has grown at a time when "normal" involves everyone wearing masks and keeping distant. I wonder what she'll think when we revert to our "old normal."
So this is Christmas / And what have you done / Another
year over / A new one just begun
There it is – an actual Christmas lyric. John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas (War is Over).” A more obvious musical selection to fit our current
situation. War is over, if you want it. The war against COVID has taken more American
lives than the Vietnam War, by orders of magnitude. But now, as then, there is hope. Vaccines are already rolling out. My daughter, who works in a nursing home, has
been designated a front-line worker and will receive the vaccine next
week! Teachers, like my wife, will
follow soon after in the vaccine pecking order. I’m happy to wait my turn (seeing as how I’m not
really a “senior” after all).
My heart goes out to all who have lost loved ones to this
horrific pandemic. Truly. There is nothing more to say. My wish for you is that, with time, you will
find some peace.
2021 will be better.
It has to be.
A very merry Christmas, and a happy new year / Let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fear.
