I’ve been here before. When our son died suddenly and shockingly in an accident thirty-two years ago, the ground shifted, the air smelled gray, there was no sun in the sky. Things that had once seemed so important ceased to exist a world that had shrunk to the size of a snow globe. Eating, sleeping, interacting with others became robotic endeavors; desire to do anything but grieve my lost boy, go to his grave and talk to him, stay close to my husband and older son and those who had known him, his friends, our families—all dissipated. We no longer wanted to go anywhere or socialize outside our home.
The world as we had known it had spun loose from its axis; the center no longer held.
And so it is today. People are reassessing all that they’ve taken for granted in their daily lives. Habits of behavior, routines and classes, schedules, jobs, school attendance, travel, sporting events, socializing, all are being challenged. Financial markets are tumbling and fear is infecting the whole world as we all face our own possible deaths and losses from COVID-19. Minute by minute, alerts pop up on my phone, emails on this computer, closings, warnings, excoriations of our loathsome president and his inexcusably incompetent handling of this health pandemic.
We have lived in a world where the real “fake news” is that everything will be okay, a world of denial in which we can feel a false sense of safety, in which we can believe bad things happen to other people, in which we choose not to believe that anything can happen, at any time, and it will, and it has. That despite all current reliable information to the contrary, all will be well. That the stock markets, our 401K’s and retirement income, the government and political situation, our health, our livelihoods, our churches, schools and social lives will all return to “normal.”
Though it’s not end times or Armageddon, as many religions are warning, we are being thrown into a brand-new place. Reactivity seems to be the rampant response. A friend just told me about being shown his neighbor’s newly retrofitted closet, filled with toilet paper, biohazard suits and masks, surgical gloves, first aid supplies, food for months, gallons of Purell, and even weapons, including two swords, a machete and knives, even a crossbow pistol. “They are intelligent people, liberal Democrats” he says, “They have master’s degrees from Yale. How could they think they will need all this stuff?”
And there are the responses from Fox News watchers, at the other extreme, saying it doesn’t even exist, or that they’ve had it, it was mild, and no big deal. VP Pence states that “Politicians shake hands, that’s what people in our field do,” defending the childishly oppositional actions of our president, who publicly pumps the hands of donors and world leaders, when the CDC and other health experts are telling us physical touch is a way to transmit this awful virus.
Wisely, though, most of the country is shutting down—Disney World, St. Patrick’s Day parades, the Boston Marathon and baseball spring training, my grandson’s colleges. My yoga classes, Broadway, public schools in many states, my son’s travel business, air bnb’s —all and many more, are suspending current operations. Self-employed workers are out of luck; those in small businesses are at risk of losing their livelihood. People without insurance may avoid going to get tested, unless the Democratic measures to give it for no cost pass House and Senate. As usual, the wealthy will weather all these with ease, that is unless they get ill. Viruses do not respect income levels.
Perhaps karma (“what goes around comes around”) is showing itself; something has been awry in the world for a long time now, and the consequences of that unbalance are arriving. Perhaps people will wake up to this fact more readily now that their daily lives are profoundly affected.
So perspective is shifting as people begin to see that uncertainty is the norm rather than the atypical. And really, this has always been true. We just choose not to see it. Since Geoff died, I’ve tried to live with what John Keats called “negative capability,” the capacity to hold two opposing concepts at the same time. I think we need to live as though we could die any moment, or that we could live forever. That notion has been hard to take in, harder still to truly believe, but also strangely comforting.
Theory is morphing into reality. I, my husband, many of our friends, all in or seventies and eighties, could die from COVID-19.
So what should my response be? As Mary Pipher, noted writer and psychologist, said in a recent NYT op-ed, “I love the world, but I cannot stay.” I hope I am prepared to leave if I have to. I hope I can accept what may come. In two weeks, when the virus is more virulent, I’ll be getting on two planes, walking through two airports, in order to get to my rural home. I have no illusions that surgical gloves and the facemask I will don, the wipes with which I’ll clean my seat and tray tables, will protect me from COVID-19. But I’ll still use them with the possibility that they may mitigate what of its germs may cling to my body.
I hope I will become kinder rather than more self-protective—or maybe both. I hope some of the wisdom I’ve gained since my son died will support me through the tough times we are living through, that some measure of compassion for myself and others will leaven my days, however many there are left.
And I hope my perspective will once again shrink to only hold what is truly important as long as I am living in this world.