Here we are, one year after the words coronavirus and social distancing first entered our lexicon. One year after fear of touch and breath and each other first flared across our nervous systems. One year after our worlds shrunk and cracked open simultaneously.
Who are you now?
Or let me put this more variably…
What small corner of your home or neighborhood have you learned to see anew this year?
What person have you fallen in love with?
If you could only pick one emotion to symbolize the majority of your state of being this year, what would it be?
What grief has threatened to sweep you away? How have you stayed here?
What have you learned about your relationship to risk? What have you learned about your relationship to limitations?
What have you learned about America’s fragility and strength?
How will you feed the institutions that keep us safe, honest, together?
What small, weird project has given your life meaning this year?
How have you asked for help?
What do you need to never forget?
Pick your favorite question and post an answer in comments (or send one to me simply by pressing reply if you’d prefer not to be public) and I’ll curate a group of the answers for an upcoming newsletter. It would be edifying to see who we are 12 months later, not just as individuals, but as a community.
And from me to you: way to hang in there, way to stay together. Humility and resilience look beautiful on you.
What do I need to never forget? I need to hold onto how it felt, when everything first started slipping away and it was suddenly unsettling to see another person on the street and my wife started taking three showers a day because we had no idea if her job in the hospital would leave our entire family at risk (fomites! we were so scared of fomites!). I need to remember how, in those early moments of loss and paranoia, it was so clear that the only thing I was longing for was other people. I wanted to talk to and learn from and hug and laugh overly loud around other human beings. Family, friends, strangers, whatever. When everything felt at risk, that's all I wanted. I didn't want a beer at a bar. I wanted a beer at a bar with people. I didn't long for the income from a conference speaking engagement. I wanted to be in a stupid, offensively bland hotel ballroom with other people. I didn't want a world without challenges. I just didn't want to navigate them alone.
I would hope that i never go back to hurrying everywhere. I have learned that we have too much stuff, too many choices, and too much superfluous in our American lives. We don't need it, and we aren't served by it. I, too, have gotten to know those close to me in a more profound way because we have been stripped of the niceties, conveniences...we kinda got back to the raw of who we are. I hope we don't go back to running to, from, and worse away from eachother.