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Such distractions we are engaging in. We send each other—from coast to coast to coast—virtual care packages of humour or song, we binge-watch shows we love or shows we missed the first time around. We take to baking and bemoan the unavailability of yeast or flour ("I just scored three pounds of yeast," someone boasts. Good luck with that.)
We fill our days with cheerful trivia to mask the dread. And there's nothing wrong with that; who wants to wallow in dread the whole livelong day? But we need also to pay attention (our endless and proper work, according to Mary Oliver), and this means paying attention even to the dread.
Because it's there. It's our bitter awareness that the cocoon of security we had built around ourselves was as illusory as everything else. I always come back to Helen Keller's comment on security and how it is in no way a part of Nature. It is a construct with no reality. I can remember my shock when I read this thirty years ago, but it was exactly what I needed to hear.
Let me send you another recipe (oh, those rolls were so good). Here is a beautiful four-part a capella rendition of "Smile", recorded in 2017, when quartet members could cluster cozily to produce their harmonies. Here's another Trump joke. We race across the surface of our lives, flapping our arms as fast as we can in an attempt to fly away from this hard coronavirus reality.
In a very small way I lived through World War II. I was five years old in 1941. My few memories of the time are pretty benign: my three-year-old brother climbed on the dining room table and ate the entire week's ration of butter. My mother made long, ugly blackout curtains to cover each window, for even tiny towns like ours needed to exclude all lights lest they serve as beacons for putative enemy bombers crossing the continent in search of larger cities to destroy. But even these little memories remind me of the ephemeral nature of the ordinary.
My children and grandchildren have never seen this level of uncertainty. When will this be over? No one knows (just like a war). What will the future look like? No one knows (just like a war). We can hope and we can pray. We can follow the guidelines: wear masks, wash hands, and shelter safely. But ultimately, no one knows.
There's neither cure (and we are so accustomed to throwing antibiotics at whatever dares to invade us) nor vaccine (we're always looking for that bubble to protect and separate us from Nature). Our future is uncertain. But we are Man and we simply don't like not knowing. Isn't that what eating the apple was all about?
We could rant and rave about this (some of us do). But most of us cover up our dread and keep busy. Send another joke, song, anecdote. Take up a new project, even if it's that unreliable business of sourdough. But in our quieter moments we need to acknowledge the dread.
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
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