There are times when I think that, once we finish all of the phases of re-opening, everyday life will just pick up where it left off. The world looks normal. Is it really possible that danger lurks behind such a placid surface?The flowers are blooming and the lake is often a beautiful shade of blue. And then, there are times when I think that a return to normal will never happen. The world has changed too much. I have changed so much since the shutdown began in March. Four months ago. It feels like a lifetime, but it's not. Simply understanding the truth and getting a grasp on what is truth and what is propaganda is very difficult. This has been my challenge.
The covid 19 virus is most definitely not under control, especially in the United States, where official response has varied dramatically, depending on who the official is. And, now, because the infection rates are spiking in a number of states, Americans are banned from a variety of countries, including the European Union, Mexico, and Canada ("essential travel only"). I think that the governments of these nations (and groups of nations) are wise to be cautious as the tweets from the White House flow ceaselessly:
"SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!"
Your chest may feel tight. You cannot get enough air in your lungs.
"Mail-in ballots will lead to MASSIVE electoral fraud and a rigged 2020 election.
"We cannot let it happen."
You fight for every shallow breath.
"According to the PC Coronavirus Police, protesting America is safe, but celebrating America is unsafe."
Your temperature is spiking.
"Cases, cases, cases! If we didn't test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases. If you test 40,000,000 people, you are going to have many cases that, without the testing (like other countries), would not show up every night on the Fake Evening News..."
If you never have a test, you are not sick. Even if you struggle to breathe and have a temperature that is spiking.
"A great day in Arizona."
Staffed ICU beds are unavailable in Tucson. Patients are being sent to Phoenix.
People traveling to New York from states with high rates of transmission must self quarantine.
We struggle to deal with so much loss, so much sickness. The names of the dead are recited every Saturday at the Washington National Cathedral. The numbers of the dead can be counted, but the loss of those people creates a void that cannot be filled. Our hearts break at the loss and even the flowers seem to be weeping. How can we ever return to "normal"?
7 comments:
I wonder the same thing! And sometimes I feel like a kid on a car ride. "How much LONGER?" Other than not having to wear a mask, the first thing I hope will happen is being able to hang out at Barnes & Noble occasionally, and have one of their big cookies while pouring over books and magazines.
I agree, it's a crazy wild ride, like those outrageous roller coasters - and I don't like roller coasters!
The "news" (if you can call it that) is so all over the place that I've stopped watching & reading because it makes me sick & angry.
I think it's going to be a long time before things are "normal" again....
Until then, enjoy your flowers!
Unless and until there is a vaccine- that virtually everyone gets- there will be no return to the life as we knew it before. (Even with the vaccine, since it will be at least months down the road, the definition of normal will have morphed to be something else. Unless, of course, you are TheDonald who creates his own history that never happened and wants us to believe his lies.)
This is a strange time - and the endlessness of it is among the most challenging for me. I have been telling myself it is like wartime. People living where there is war raging never know when it will stop. In a way, we have been in a war for a while now and we don't know for certain when it will stop... for me because the trust has been almost irreparably broken. I am sheltering in place for the most part. I do curbside pick up and do not socialize in person.
Thank you for writing from the heart.
I feel there will be many changes to the way Americans and the world population looks at life after this pandemic (which we are not sure will ever leave and quite possibly might be a reality we have to live with for many years (different viruses, plaques etc).....the world needs to listen to Mother Nature. She is very angry and is showing us what the world could and should be like without all the pollution, showing us how humans should and could be living with more time spent together with families, reflections, time in solitude listening to our inner voices. The planet population living as one on the planet not separately in our own countries. The Earth is breathing again, pollution has cleared considerably, cities can be seen, animals are roaming farther, the planet is growing now not dying as before the virus. We must realize we need to work together as a planet in order to survive as a human race and in order to keep the Planet alive and healthy. One thing I am very afraid of is more people will be "sacrificed" so the economy can go back to normal, so the rich and make more BUT this will be at the expense of the elderly and those weekened and most vulnerable. Far worse is what has taken place at the meat packing companies where Trump issued an executive order for them to remain open and go back to work without modifications to the make their workplace safer. How many died? How many of the workers family got sick and or died? The president should be tried for endangering the welfare of American workers for what he did to those workers at the Pork processing plant.....It is murder.....
There will be no returning to what we considered normal in the past, it will take years to find a new normal and that is a sad fact we must all accept. As long as the head of the country keeps trying to shove the blame onto others and make himself look like a great person we are left to find our own normal, My normal will be different from your normal and that is the way it goes. We can only hope that in a year the virus will be controlled and that there is not another one following right behind it.
We could say that the world returned to normal after the 1917-21 flu pandemic (which my parents and most of their siblings were alive during) but we never experienced that old normal, only the "present normal" of what existed during our childhoods. I am horrified at the number of people who were willing to toss the elderly into the volcano of sacrifice so the economy could get going - on top of it, those elderly are the last of the Greatest Generation. So many uncaring/selfish people in our country, who voted for the man who is currently in power, and still support him to this very day. Now all we can do is hunker down, Alice, because the cases just in my county increased today from 74 to 106. Small numbers, true - but too many of us are learning the math of what I think is called exponential growth. (I'm sure Roy knows the correct term).
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