As restrictions lift, we’re in no mood to rejoice
Our mixed feelings about COVID-19’s ‘long goodbye’
Like most of humanity, The Economist has been agonizing over when the seemingly endless COVID-19 crisis will be over. “The long goodbye to COVID-19,” read a recent headline in that magazine, floating above an article born of profound frustration.
The phrase was striking. The apt term “long goodbye” often is used when persons develop Alzheimer’s disease, reflecting the experience of those who care for them.
As anyone who has been through such an experience in their family will tell you, Alzheimer’s not only has a slow but sure progression, its ceaseless trajectory usually eradicates much of what we think of as conscious personhood, eventually even the ability to communicate in the simplest ways. Rarely do things happen quickly, the experience is a lot like watching someone precious quietly disappear into a kind of mist. It takes near-impossible fortitude to come to terms with the slow erasure of the very essence of someone we love.
You find yourself wondering if they’re gone when they are really still here. You wonder if what is now visible is even close to the full picture. Thinking of your own future, you wonder if this is better or worse than a quick and definitive exit.
Nobody loves COVID-19, so the analogy has been flipped on its head. But our profound human difficulty with these
lingering exits remains.
It has been striking how so many of the planned celebrations of a post-pandemic reality have felt either fake, hollow or both. For all the relief that many people feel about now being able to see family again for a meal in a restaurant, or hear live blues music, or sit on a lawn and listen to an orchestra, few people are in the mood to throw a party. It’s just not the vibe.
A lot of people thought it would be by now. And not so long ago, either.
The Biden administration initially heralded July 4 as a kind of touchstone of new freedoms, but that date passed without fancy speeches or victory celebrations. The City of Chicago reintroduced its July 3 fireworks, but it did
so quietly and with little advance notice. There was clearly a fear of too large a crowd and too raucous a celebration. It was fireworks without fireworks. Aptly oxymoronic for the moment.
Even though city and state regulations allow for full-capacity theaters, shows are resuming only with extreme caution. The mood is one of recovery and a sense of relief, but this hardly feels like VE Day. Wise heads realize that the enemy is still among us.
And, of course, it did plenty of damage already, and we’re all going about our business knowing that.
Those with vested economic interests are, of course, anxious to say that everything is behind us. This desire to build confidence is understandable.
Even necessary. But everything is proving to be incremental. And the conditions on the ground remain unsettled.
People are traveling again, but they’re not exactly cheering out the windows of their Uber as they head to O’Hare Airport. Life is resuming, but quietly so. Most people are trying to discern what is appropriate, trying to gauge the mood in their communities and among their friends, trying to find some kind of new center, hoping that the trajectory of the moment remains in forward motion, instead of regressing back into lockdown.
People want their kids in school in person, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worried. People feel good about the vaccine progress
in the nation, but they also see the holes in the safety net.
Will there be a real definitive moment of postCOVID-19 celebration? Is it just a matter of adjusting the date of the party? Almost certainly not. Politics intrudes, for one thing. It has throughout the crisis. How we feel and what we now do depends on our ideological allegiances. Those divisions, fueled by the ravenous needs of social media, seem bigger than really is the case in a country where common sense still has plenty of currency. But they’re present, and they mean that, should there ever be a final goodbye, not everyone will be waving at the same time. Or even in the same direction.
So. Things are improving
exponentially all around us. Sacrifices made have paid off. Scientific advances have proven to be our saving grace. And artists are busily engaged in telling us what all of this means, where we now stand, how things will pan out.
But the best of them are finding that it really is much too soon for any such contextualizing. It will take more week, more months, more years.
We just don’t know. For one thing, we’re still saying goodbye.
And don’t even think about coming back, COVID-19. Wherever you came from.