i am too much in the sun
If you can’t acknowledge that all life is to some extent sacred, stop reading now.
I have been thinking a lot about the “before time.” Until this week, it hadn’t popped up much, but I think people are beginning to see that this, this pandemic time, is here to stay. People can talk about this being over in the spring, or being over soon (whatever that means), all they want. They can start going out again, insisting that, pandemic or not, it’s time to get back to business as usual. As the U.S. heads into a third wave of cases, people fuel the spread by taking risks they wouldn’t have taken a few months ago. Folks are ready to go out and socialize in person, virus be damned. They’re tired of trying to accommodate a slow spread. With all this in mind, we can look at the mind boggling new numbers: cases are skyrocketing, the number of deaths is slowly creeping upward, and people can no longer say with certainty where they got the virus. But look, dude, we have to get back to normal at some point.
There is a reality here that people are not willing to acknowledge, and we have to start looking it in the face if we are ever going to feel relief. This virus is here to stay.
People can talk big games about herd immunity and vaccines and “it’ll all be over soon” but really, these are just little prayers we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better. They’re little pills, they numb the pain, but they don’t cure it. We don’t know if and how herd immunity will kick in with this yet, because we don’t know the speed with which this virus evolves or mutates. We don’t know if this will be like a seasonal flu or if it will be something we develop immunity to. It could be neither or it could be both. We just don’t know yet! And probably we won’t know anything definite for a few years, because collecting data takes time. The only thing we can be certain of is that microbes are fucking weird.
Herd immunity is complicated. It requires a great many people getting sick and living to tell the tale. From a scientific stand point, it appears sound. If enough people are sickened by this, eventually it will curb the spread and it’ll become a less common occurrence. Fine, sounds great. Except that we don’t know if we acquire a lifetime immunity to this or if it changes seasonally like the flu but hey it’s good science right? NO. Science is capable of being ethical, and herd immunity with respect to Covid-19 is widely considered unethical. Allowing what scientists now estimate to be around 1-4% of the sick to die (for science!) is unethical. I can’t believe that people need convincing on this. Standing there and letting people to die of a disease in the name of herd immunity is unethical. Herd immunity is a radical, weird, Darwinian argument for letting this virus run rampant. It is heartbreaking that people think this is an acceptable answer. Herd immunity also doesn’t account for the unknown numbers of people still living with being sick, weeks after they stopped being contagious. Their quality of life is dismal; we don’t know what portion of people will ultimately recover or not, let alone how many people will ever be able to make full recoveries at all. But yes, tell me more about how we should let the virus run unchecked, overwhelming medical infrastructures and destroying lives in the name of sCiEnCe.
As for vaccines, I am not an anti-vaxxer. I’m the exact opposite. I’ve gone back to getting yearly flu shots because there are people in my life who could get the flu and die. And there are always more folks we protect with vaccines: the little old people who touch doorknobs after us, those who look over the same store shelf we looked at 30 minutes ago, etc. We get vaccines not only to protect ourselves, but to protect others who cannot get them for legitimate reasons. Vaccines save millions of lives. However, the efficacy of these new Covid-19 vaccines is thoroughly unknown, they’re all in very early stages, and until a doctor or my pharmacist sister tells me to get one, I’m hanging back. Regardless of the safety of a vaccine pushed quickly through regulations and clinical trials, it remains that I’m like the last person who needs it. Give them to those who can’t stay home, doctors who have to play offense with the assholes who refuse to wear a mask and scream “reeeeeeeeeee my rights,” or the restaurant workers who must cater to customers who refuse to see that things are not going back to the way they used to be. Unlike these folks, I have the privilege of being able (and willing) to socially distance, and I recognize that we won’t go back to the “before time,” and never will.
I can hear a teeny scream from somewhere: “But what about the economy?” And another: “People are lonely and there’s a mental health crisis on the horizon.” First, if keeping the economy open (what the hell does that even mean?) means that untold millions die ... I mean, if my business has to close or innovate to save lives, so be it. We are adaptable and changeable creatures for a reason. Our constructs should be the same. We managed to get to the point where child rearing altered the structure of our brains. We can figure out new ways to survive. We can figure out new ways to spend time with each other, to keep in touch. It’s not just a matter of if or can. We must. We just have to. Actual lives are on the line. We’ve lost over a million already. If you can’t find it in your heart to innovate and find new ways to connect and thrive, then maybe you need to reexamine your heart. I’m not saying it’s easy or immediate, but it is necessary. And I’m not just saying this shit either. I’m unemployed and figuring out how to be present for the people in my life but at a distance. We’re all figuring out how to survive, and we all have to get better at it.
Sometimes I wonder about what a “new normal” will look like. And then I think about how people encounter their own small new normals everyday. The universe is always springing up and moving, like Heraclitus’s river. We never step in the same universe twice. Change is normal, and natural, and this complication is nothing particularly new for our species’ small time here. This is a tiny comfort lit by an obscenely hot sun: the one million we’ve lost to the novel coronavirus. One million is an astounding and large number; that’s more people than will be killed by HIV/AIDS related causes this year. And the year isn’t done yet. I feel the sun on my face. Do you?
If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I almost didn’t publish this essay because the people I wrote it for aren’t subscribers, but hey, maybe one of you needed to know that someone else felt like this too. Maybe you needed the reminder. I have a lot of folks (read: too many) in my life who are doing battle with Covid right now, and I have others who are struggling to be compassionate. The emotional labor has been exhausting and at times fruitless. This essay was an unintended result.
I’m going to be real, I’ve been Big Sad recently. My mental health, like most of us, probably, has been hanging by a thread or two. Austin and I have been home for the past week and a half because most of his office tested positive, but thankfully we appear to have been left unscathed, at least for now. This is all to say that despite all the time home, we haven’t done much cooking. We thawed some stuff: he had some steaks from last year’s farmer’s market and I had a piece of (expensive, perfect) salmon I got from the local co-op. We did a potato gratin with those. And then it was like eggs and toast or a quick pasta for much of the rest of the week. I pulled the whole chicken (also a co-op purchase) we had in the freezer out on like, Monday maybe? Whole frozen chickens take days to thaw, so we gave it plenty of time and it was ready to roast on Saturday. We did that with potatoes underneath, which like, if you’re having a shitty year, potatoes roasted in chicken drippings might be a solution for you!
I finished Eat a Peach, so I’m about to get back into some of the Marilynne Robinson I haven’t read or finished because Jack came out. Or maybe I’ll finally read Kristen Lavransdatter; I haven’t gotten that far yet. Also still reading The Information from time to time, but it demands more attention than I am sometimes able to give it. I read stuff in waves. As for watching things, I’m living for watching The Great British Baking Show on Friday nights. I also love all the new stuff Sohla El-Waylly is doing on YouTube: from a new gig at Food52 to a new show on Babish’s channel. Related: I’m still watching too much BTS content on YouTube? Don’t send help but maybe send help??
Questions, comments, cries of pain? Are you enjoying what you’re reading? Do you hate it? Is there something that you’re just dying to tell me or just dying to hear a hot take on? Please tell me about it! I’m flying totally blind and while yeah, I’m writing what I want to write and doing it on my terms, I get stuck sometimes. I’d love to hear from you, just reply to this email or leave comment below to talk to me about whatever!