As we hover in agitation
It’s August 18th today. I thiiiiiink.
Nothing will happen today or for the foreseeable future. Nothing that will make me say, “Today’s the big day!” The days are necessarily small.
Yesterday, Jill and I dropped our son, Charlie, off at college for his sophomore year. He goes to a pretty small college that exists on a hill in a small town in rural Minnesota. It’s as close as you can come to a fortress. He’s already been tested for COVID at least once and will be a bunch more times. The students are confined to a very narrow set of locations for the first couple of weeks and all classes are held online. I’m an optimistic guy - more on the utility of that later on - so I think there’s a 60% chance we don’t have to go pick him up in the next week or so when there’s a coronasplosion. Yes, you can be depressed and be optimistic. It’s like not being able to run fast but owning a sports car. Sports cars are expensive. Again, topic for another time.
Anyway, that was yesterday, a day circled on our calendar. Now there’s no first day of the State Fair, no day we load the remaining kids onto school buses, no first day back to work for Jill in the classroom where she teaches. I think I’ll have a first day at a new job but it will be a job that I’ll do from home even after COVID is over.
There’s no date to circle for when the vaccine finally arrives. The exact point of a return to normal (or “the new normal”, a phrase I still don’t understand) is undefined.
And so we sit in this lobby of life where there’s free coffee but it’s kind of shitty and burned but there’s nothing else to do but drink it and soon our stomachs hurt and we’re nervous. Which is where we are.
If you’re a person prone to a depressed or anxious mind, it is important to take stock of what’s going on up in your head bucket. We know that we are bored. We know that we are scared. We know you can be both. I think it’s important to recognize the dissonance that comes with this time, also. Scientists and even the president all say you should wear masks because it will make COVID go away faster and yet we see people just not doing it. Proudly not doing it, due to laziness or some horrible conspiracy theory or just to willfully be dicks. It hurts to see that because it’s like a very messy room except it’s society.
And I think it’s also important to recognize the combination of stasis and agitation that we are under. We know we are in a health crisis and a sociopolitical emergency. When faced with an emergency or a crisis, our brains tell us to act, to take immediate measures, but in this situation, there’s not much one can do. Protest, sure, encourage mask use, okay, write letters, yeah, well, maybe. But instead we are ready to spring to action but stuck in that lobby with that shitty coffee. Bouncing off the walls, unable to see a doctor or go home to somewhere more peaceful. And really Highlights magazine isn’t filling the moments.
I can’t solve all this here in the newsletter. But it’s good to know where we are, and where we were when we finally get out of this place.