Original Essays | The Year of Living Pandemically
Essay originally published by University of Hell Press by Liz Scott
March is when 2020 started for me. End of March is when my good friend and I decided to postpone our annual joint birthday get-together, a cherished tradition where we’d pick one new, fancy restaurant each year and toast each other with champagne cocktails. Better safe than sorry, we’d wait a few weeks and reschedule. Same with my weekly bridge game. We cancelled on the last Sunday of March hoping we could resume the following week. I’ve got to cop to feeling annoyed with what was then the recommendation to self-quarantine for a couple of weeks but fine, okay, I can do that. Whatever.
Then April: It took a minute but everyone I knew yielded—even if less than willingly—to the reality. Weeks, maybe even a couple of months. For the first week or so I groused. I complained and felt put-upon. And then—gradually and unexpectedly—I could feel something else begin to germinate. Everywhere you’d hear, “We’re all in this together,” and what had once been a glib, throw-away line was now a felt reality. John Lennon sang on my Spotify and the lyrics were no longer an abstraction. I watched videos of animals all over the world freely roaming in places they probably hadn’t for centuries; saw images of vistas across the planet of striking blue skies, free from smog and pollution. The birds were singing louder, the bears were returning to Yellowstone and the skies were blue in New Delhi. In such a short time—and in supreme irony spurred by a pandemic—our planet had started to heal.
And here’s what some of you might find, shall we say, weird. I kept thinking about Joaquin Phoenix (Don’t judge!). At his speech at the Oscars in February he said, “I think we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world. Many of us are guilty of an egocentric world view, and we believe that we’re the center of the universe. We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.”
I was feeling my place in the natural world more intensely than I ever had before. And more connected too; connected to the planet we’ve been entrusted with, to my circle of friends, to my dear family, to my sweet cat and to all my fellow creatures of earth.
And these other things: I welcomed the imposed solitude. Gone was the dilemma of figuring out how long I’d have to stay at some social event before I could excuse myself and go home. My basically introverted nature became undeniable. I’ve certainly taken time in my life to reflect and be still but the mandate to stay put created a more uninterrupted ground for reflection where before, my days would be broken up by quick trips to the store or a walk with a friend or a movie. All this imposed time at home set the table for some very real, come-to-Jesus meetings with myself.
May: I Marie Kondo-ed my closet—filled bag after bag after bag with clothes I hadn’t worn in decades and was keeping exactly why? I organized my bureau drawers and my kitchen cabinets. I alphabetized my bookcase. I even attacked my museum of spices. And every single, solitary day I danced to a Zumba class on YouTube till I dripped with sweat, 45 minutes at least. Every. Damn. Day. I was on fire. Internal reflection gave way to a focus on more external things. I blew through to-do lists like nobody’s business. I don’t know when I’ve felt so organized and industrious.
And then there was May 25. Almost immediately after the murder of George Floyd my blessedly progressive city answered the call and I joined the army of peaceful protesters that took to the streets. And in another experience of supreme irony, during the most isolated time of my life I felt such a strong sense of connection and affiliation with the multiple millions of people around the globe who were marching too. It’s probably too soon to know but the pandemic has created the time, space and opportunity to finally be resolute in our attention to the national shame that’s only had piecemeal consideration up till now.
June: I have not worn pants with a zipper for over two months and I haven’t used under-eye concealer, eye liner or lipstick and you have to know that before I wouldn’t even have walked the few steps to the trash chute dark circles under my eyes because, who knows, someone might walk by. I have cut my own hair—with manicure scissors. I haven’t exercised once. Not. One. Single. Time. And don’t ask about showers! I have gone to seed. I have even less attention span than usual. With all this time you’d think I’d make a dent in that stack of books on my bedside table. You’d think I’d write even a sentence in my new book project. You’d think I’d clean the laundry room and the closet in the guest room where I close my eyes and just pitch things in. You’d think I’d vacuum or do laundry. You’d think I’d cook or meditate or, or, or.
What I’ve done instead is read the Op-Eds in the New York Times and toggle between: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Sundance Now, Quibi, Sling, Disney +, Acorn, Fubo and Lexi (I made that last one up). It’s that or MSNBC so I can scream along with like-minded folk.
July: Ditto.
August: The relentlessness of it all. In my old life I had some anxiety, sure. But there were also trips to plan, holiday traditions, dinner parties, theater tickets. Now the future is worry about the impact of this lost year(s) on my 12-year old grandson. It’s no trip to Africa that we’d been planning for three years. It’s not being able to hug my friends. It’s mounting terror about November 3rd and the aftermath with all its dreadful possibility. It’s wondering if I will live long enough to see the end of this. That’s the future.
September is here and I see no end in sight. The rest of 2020? Or 2021? Does anyone think it’ll be any different? I feel my resilience dissolving. I do have a new dog and I am already deeply attached to him. I cherish my family. I know I am so much more fortunate than many. But I can’t imagine when I’ll ever wear that black dress I bought in February. I can’t imagine going to Ava Gene’s restaurant, with tables packed together, people free to sit closely and laugh loudly . Or to the movies. Or to a reading at Powell’s where I’d be sitting next to friends I’d greeted with a hug. I can’t imagine planning a trip—to anywhere! I’m glad to fully own my basic introverted nature but I also crave the liveliness of my old life. What about that?
Where I find peace these days is to pull the lens way, way out; to remember my smallness in this universe and consider this all as a reset. In my work as a psychologist I see all the time that we almost never make changes unless we have to, when our self-destructive behavior catches up with us. Change is just too fucking hard. So far, our planet has managed to rejuvenate in the more than four billion years of wars and pandemics and the rages of nature. Maybe the destruction that we humans have inflicted on our planet is finally catching up with us. About time.
I don’t know how or when but my dearest hope is that I will integrate the sense of connection and affinity that I felt in April. I will do my best to frame this as a season of rest and rejuvenation on every level; to breathe deeply and think deeply; to accept that reset is no longer optional—not for me, not for this country, not for the human race, not for the planet.
May it be so.
2020* The Year of the Asterisk
American Essays
Edited by Greg Gerding
Publication Date: October 19, 2021
Trade Paper; 254 pages; 5-1/4" x 8"
ISBN 978-1-938753-42-8
ESSAY ANTHOLOGY
DESCRIPTION
Is it over? Are we safe yet? What the hell happened? Or, rather, more aptly: What didn’t happen?
In 2020, we were deceived and misled. Each day offered a new challenge, revealed some new horror, and there was no relief in being told it was simply the nature of the world, the nature of our society. 2020 was the kind of thing that happens to people in textbooks, except it was happening in real time to all of us. We probably need group therapy to make sense of it all, to address our individual and collective wounds. This book is in pursuit of doing just that: Offer some kind of catharsis to the whole ordeal.
“2020 is shaping up to be one of the most garbage years in American history. What statement do you want to make about it?” This was the prompt advanced to writers of the essays in this collection, capturing experiences raw and personal, and attempting to make sense of the extraordinary situation we found ourselves in. Very few walked away unscathed.
Such a confluence of issues: COVID, Trump, racism, poverty, health under siege, sexism, police brutality, Black Lives Matter, protests, federal troops occupying American cities and beating on citizens, masks and social distancing, businesses shuttered, entire industries closed, schools moved online, major sports halted, and more.
As the effects of 2020 continue rippling, the future already begs to know, “What the hell happened that year?” We hope this collection will clarify, or perhaps at least de-fog a bit. Essays as testimony provide an intimate lens, a snapshot in time. And perhaps a way to make sense of some of the chaos, so we can move forward with fresh eyes.
CONTRIBUTORS
Rashaun J. Allen, Jason Arment, Rabb Asad, Joe Austin, DeMisty D. Bellinger, John S. Blake, Shannon Brazil, Tracy Burkholder, Suzanne Burns, Brendan Canty, Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, Stacey Y. Clark, Eve Connell, Zaji Cox, Alex Dang, Leah Noble Davidson, Sean Davis, Chris Dupuy, James Jay Edwards, Brian S. Ellis, Jenny Forrester, Kenning JP García, Lauren Gilmore, Dian Greenwood, Joseph Edwin Haeger, Ally Henny, Jackie Shannon Hollis, Gabino Iglesias, Ashley James, Tim Mays, Wryly T. McCutchen, Travis Laurence Naught, Dang Nguyen, Isobel O’Hare, Florencia Orlandoni, Linda Rand, Skyler Reed, Christine Maul Rice, Kate Ristau, Leyna Rynearson, Liz Scott, Kimberly Sheridan, Corie Skolnick, Amoja Sumler, Ben Tanzer, Nancy Townsley, Chris Valle, Ran Walker, Eric Witchey, Ellen Yaffa, Jason Zenobia