Perhaps, like me, you've had a moment in the last couple weeks that reset your perspective on the pandemic. What we thought was being wrapped up is now being stretched out.
My moment came after I gazed, agog, at a photo of Lollapalooza, the annual music festival in downtown Chicago. Thousands and thousands of people stood shoulder to shoulder before a stage, creating a nearly solid canvas of multicolored dots. I felt queasy looking at that many people packed into one space.
"Surely this isn't from this year?" I wondered to myself. And yet, as I read the caption on the Instagram post and then Googled for verification from other sources, I discovered that, yes, Lollapalooza was happening that weekend, and despite the increasing threat of the delta variant of COVID-19, 100,000 people were expected to attend each day.
As jaw dropping as the photo itself was, I felt everything shift as I read a comment from Phoebe Robinson, a comedian and publisher whose work I love.
She said, "This is so fucking ignorant," punctuated with four face-palm emoji. "This damn pandemic is gonna last five, six years because of consistently bad choices."
I stopped, and caught my breath. In all these months, I had not yet heard someone say so plainly what a mess we are in. It was shocking and demoralizing, and strangely, grounding.
In the days since seeing the post, Robinson's words keep surfacing in my mind. I oscillate between catharsis—this nonsense is real and others see it, too—and despair—I mourn this world where too many of us deny the value of the rest of us.
None of this is fair. I am angry. I feel betrayed.
In between feelings of despair, I feel empowered. Recognizing that this isn't going to be over soon gives me the option to live differently. Not to live recklessly, not to stop taking the precautions that I believe are both responsible and loving, but perhaps to be more creative with how I find connection in the months to come than I would not have otherwise.
I am looking ahead. I am trying to find out how I can make these days less of a pause and more of a detour. I am trying to figure out how to be a friend and start a family and be a partner and be a writer in—not despite—a pandemic. The path may not be as scenic as I had hoped, but at least we’ll still be moving. At least by seeing the present clearly, I’ve been given the chance to decide.
I'm working on all that, and I’m still mad.
Mentioned in this issue: concert Lollapalooza and comedian Phoebe Robinson (who is not associated with the former besides calling out its truth).