That’s the phrase: “The New Normal”. The norms of life during a pandemic. Everyone is trying to adjust to them, because to not adjust means you feel overwhelmed. Even when you feel overwhelmed and not adjusted in the least, there’s something soothing about the idea that this is a normative state to which we can become accustomed. And if we can do that, then we will be okay.
But the “new normal” entails lots of things I do not want to acclimate to but which I know may be with us for a long time. Maybe long enough that there will be kids who don’t remember before. Things like shaking hands, or not using cloth bags at the market, or not going to a concert or rally, happily jammed up next to strangers, or riding a train in a big city, or going to a swim meet and hugging everyone around you when your kid finishes faster than he or she expected. I feel really sad about those things going away, for any length of time.
And there are things I am not willing to abandon in the name of adjustment. Things I do not accept as part of my normal life, going forward. Things like watching out for people walking too close while I walk my dog, or yelling at someone who is not wearing a mask, or tattling on my neighbor who has friends over for a birthday, or hoarding toilet paper and meat, or giving up on the goodness of strangers, or questioning the power of science to help us find a solution, or impugning the integrity of most of the people who serve in our government.
I am scared but doing or saying or feeling any of those things does not make me less scared. I guess I am willing to try to live in that gray, in-between place that knows I have to adjust to these conditions and rules here and now. But they are not my new normal. No.
I understand that there are things to learn in the aftermath (whatever the hell that looks like). I understand that there things which should change in the aftermath. In fact, I hope that some things will change. Things that might change are our conversations about access to healthcare, or the gift of vaccines and beauty of herd immunity, or the importance of a teacher in a child’s life (yes, she is more than a glorified “babysitter” and no, you could not do her job), or why it matters when millions of acres of forest burn in Australia or Brazil, or the concern we should feel when one neighborhood in a city 7,000 miles away gets sick with a mysterious illness.
I want to learn and change in the aftermath of every experience but there are some things which are immutable, which form a civil society, which help unite us, not divide us. Things like our shared stake in everyone’s health and well-being, or the ingenuity of our military and governmental agencies and offices to keep moving forward and not resort to the tactics of a police state, or the resiliency of our healthcare infrastructure made up of people who show up day after day, to take care of the rest of us, or recognizing that we will all know someone who becomes ill or dies or loses someone close to them, when this is over.
And if “the new normal” means I have to jettison those things, I am not willing to do it. No.