Coronaversary
4 years ago was nicknamed Black Monday as stocks tumbled due to investor fears over the coronavirus and oil production showdown between Russia and Saudi Arabia.
For many of us, March 2020 marked a triple shutdown: restrictions in shopping, working at-home, and remote learning for children who were suddenly cut off from their friends and classrooms. The very real fear in the early days of the pandemic made us all wonder: how bad will it get? And will there be toilet paper ever again?
As we reach this 4-year anniversary, it’s appropriate to lament the very real loss that this era represents. Discouragement, loneliness, confusion, anger, frustration, exhaustion… we’ve felt it all. Favorite businesses gone. Our schedules interrupted or forever changed. Alterations to our work/life balance perhaps. Grief for loved ones who have passed away, whether from Covid-19, old age, or something else. Because it was hard to process all the feelings when we were so busy managing life and living through the pandemic these last 4 years. And I think also appropriate to grieve for our country, for the way it feels like our sense of national identity has gone through a cheese-grater. I find myself being outraged by the “outrage machine” and pessimistic about other people’s pessimism.
But into this flying-dumpster-fire of a decade that we’ve lived through (the erstwhile flying dumpster catching on fire in 2020), there’s been beauty. And hope. And unexpected blessings and unique surprises.
For some of you, the silver lining was having to slow down, to breathe. We’re such a manic, obsessive culture about so many things that it was good to stop. Get outdoors. And look at the clouds again. And read a book. And work on a jigsaw puzzle.
For others, it was busy parents able to spend more time with their kids. While remote learning was tough (I was teaching online for 3 months), many families found each other again. My daughter came home from college for extra time with us, and another daughter got married in May 2020… the restrictions lifted from a backyard and a dozen people to 50 people in a church. We were thankful.
And of course there was a silver lining as nature responded in the pause:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/bird-songs-changed-pandemic
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-show-nature-is-reclaiming-urban-areas-amid-coronavirus-2020-4#skies-are-free-of-smog-in-some-parts-of-china--1
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/08/science/anthropause-pandemic-animals.html
What positive thing was distilled from your experience of 2020?