The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
A different sort of Memorial Day weekend
Memorial Day weekend, when I was in high school, meant driving with a carload of girlfriends from our town in central Connecticut all the way to Hammonassett Beach State Park for the day. The smell of suntan lotion amid the warmth of sand attested — the start of summer!
Later, as a young mother, Memorial Day weekend meant marching with my daughters in the local parade with a civic group. And now in my life Memorial Day is time for a big family picnic to celebrate the May birthdays of my two stepdaughters.
This year, obviously, will be different.
Beaches will be regulated to avoid crowding (will anyone really wear a mask while sunbathing?), parades everywhere are canceled, and gatherings of more than five people — even family members who don’t live together — are discouraged.
As Connecticut reopens this week, among the last of states, we long for life to get back to normal, back to before a deadly virus seeped among us and affected all facets of everyday life. But we’re not there yet, and may have to redefine normal.
Much as we wish, the coronavirus did not suddenly slink away with the resumption of outdoor dining and mall shopping. It’s out there, and we must remain vigilant in protecting ourselves and each other. We cannot ignore that close to 3,500 people have died in Connecticut since March. Think about that number. And more will.
This easing out, cautiously, might be harder than our initial hunkering down in mid-March. It’s like having one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. Our friends need to get back to work — if jobs are still there — and children need to play with other kids. We want this to be over — but it isn’t.
How this nebulous time has morphed into an affront to civil liberties is beyond me. When government acts on the data-based conclusions of the best scientific minds — acts to protect the population — how does that infringe on one’s rights? Wearing a mask in public and maintaining six feet of distance is not so onerous when you consider it saves lives. Possibly even your own.
This morning as I was doing my daily run-walk around the neighborhood my mind wandered to that conundrum — people protesting temporary government policy, but who probably accepted the government’s hand when it came to the stimulus check. At least I haven’t heard of a single person returning it. So government is good when it works for you, but evil when it asks for behavior to protect each other?
Though the illogic gave me steam to run a little farther, I had to shake it out of my mind. Too much just doesn’t make sense these days — read that as whimsical musings about drinking bleach to kill the virus.
Better to focus on the intense blue of the morning sky, the chatter of birds in shrubs, the heady scent of lilacs. (Is it my imagination or is the fragrance much stronger than usual this spring? Honeysuckle, too.)
Better to focus on the positive ways people are coping. Denied the opportunity to march in canceled Memorial Day parades this weekend, the Celtic Cross Pipes and Drums of Danbury decided members would instead play “Amazing Grace” with the pipes and drums individually in their hometown at noon Monday.
I hope to hear that tribute from my yard.
At times in the past two months I have felt guilty at enjoying the simple pleasures while so many are terribly sick and dying. Or out of work and out of money for food.
Other times I’ve had to silence those middle-of-thenight fears: What will the next few months look like? Will the virus be stronger in the fall, as some have suggested? Will we survive? They won’t be silenced.
Instead, the uncertainty heightens questions not easily confronted: Why are we here? What is our purpose?
Just before dusk the other night we heard something wondrous for the first time this spring — the call of the wood thrush. It’s an extended flute-like song that I cannot recreate in mere words.
The effect inspires awe. You have to stop whatever you are doing and listen. Be in the wood thrush moment. It’s a mysterious moment as the songster is difficult to spot; I’ve never seen one. I just let the song surround me.
A gift is this moment because the wood thrush’s habitat is woods. Our house in Bethel sits not two miles from downtown in a settled suburban development. Not dense woodlands. But two miles in the other direction is Tarrywile Park in Danbury so maybe we had a visitor from there, traveling far in search of a mate.
In this strange time of the coronavirus pandemic we look for natural graces, such as the rare wood thrush tune, to carry us, to raise us above the fears and frustrations. To give us wonder.