In a few days, I'll return to the library as we continue curbside service and slowly expand our offerings to something resembling the "normal" we used to know. Later, in August, classes will resume at IUS and I'll teach a socially distanced room of students to sing while wearing a mask. Life will continue to be lived inside our own homes as much as possible. But beyond that, I don't know.
This time away these last few weeks has been really amazing. And I recognize that a sentiment like that can come off as tone-deaf; after all, the virus has meant the death of family members, has meant ruined lives and livelihoods, has meant inescapable terror for so many. So for me to say "it was nice to get away" can come off like a New Yorker in '01 saying "I rather like the new skyline". A silver lining too small to be tolerably mentioned. And of course the coronavirus isn't the only thing of civilizational importance going on in the world right now.
But nonetheless, it's true. Six months ago I was working four jobs - and by the way, really loving it, don't get me wrong - but even a blank day on my schedule was hard to come by. I think it's okay to be grateful that these months have been an opportunity to see family for extended periods, or to explore the outdoors, or to just allow yourself to do nothing for a day with no guilt because hey, what else is there to do?
I keep thinking forward to what the world will look like in one year's time. I suspect that by then, whether by vaccine or by the virus running roughshod throughout the entire population, the crisis per se will be over. We'll be going to gyms and bars again just as we were. The mask thing will seem out of date. Don't they know that stuff's all over? And we'll all finally be able to look back on this time as just some bizarre blip in the timeline of world history.
I actually had some much more far-reaching travel plans for this summer, to maybe a half dozen different countries, which again is not the most pressing casualty of this virus, but the inability to follow through with those plans does remind me that it's amazing what you don't know it's possible to lose until it's lost. And it forces you, viscerally, to remember that history is by no means over. Every day could be a day future schoolchildren learn about and take tests on and memorialize in songs and films and teacher workdays. And that changing history could change what "normal" is, and take away anything and everything we take for granted. It's all up for grabs all the time. Even if it feels like it's not.
But I also hope - and this is my strategy for now - that visualizing that day, imagining yourself imagining this time as the past, will help. I think of what I'll say to myself this time next year about the current crises in the world, and how I'll contextualize them in my then-present life. What silver linings will I find? What lessons will I tell myself I've learned? And it's that imagining that makes that future day feel real, and helps to remind me that it almost certainly will be. That there will come a day when this is all over.
Anyway. Huntington was nice.
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