For me, last year was a lost year. A year when time got lost, the world as I knew it was lost, energy was lost, feelings got lost, my illusions about other people got lost, my temper got lost very badly over and over and over again, sleep was lost…and to a large extent, my contact with joy was lost.
In Pandemic Year 2021, people lost their minds, and so far, they haven’t regained them. People who used to be rational now live in a science-fiction fantasy world where secret cloning labs in apartments in NYC are producing, with the help of alien DNA, fully mature look-alike clones of a list of people in the public eye; brains were transplanted from one adult male politician’s into another’s; microchips were inserted into vaccines so “they” can track us; vaccines were going to turn us into zombies; the Emperor and Saviour of the World was going to be crowned by people long thought to be dead; immortal tentacle beings were put into vaccines to live inside us for some bizarre reason; oh, and much more.
That’s the group who went completely nutso, and they’re so very crazed they’re actually funny – except that they actually believe this nonsense, which is scary.
Another group that lost their minds and their grip on reality lives in a political thriller novel where mass voter fraud was perpetrated by a series of means that could only be taken seriously in a work of fiction. This group of people sees enemy combatants hiding in every poll booth, voter registration list, paper manufacturer, state election official, vote counter, ink manufacturer; and trickles down to classrooms, teachers, school boards, state legislatures, state officials, school boards, town officers, news agencies, reporters --- you name it. What’s imagined by these people would be truly impressive if it were actually possible to pull off. It’s a tangled scrum of self-entitlement and hate that weaves a lowery net over too many areas of our lives.
There’s another group of self-involved, selfish, entitled neighbors and relations that have jammed their heads into some hollow place I truly don’t understand; a parallel universe where their decisions about health have no connection to the pandemic we’re in. This group has somehow become immune to the reality of what’s happening around us, and also believes they’re free from any responsibility towards the rest of us, including the most vulnerable and fragile amongst us. They spout warped facts and figures to, I assume, soothe their guilty souls and try to confuse us into not paying attention to the stark damage each is doing. Each of their smoke-and-mirrors arguments are connected with a twisted, barely there, tiny thread of truth, or a truism that doesn’t pertain to the current situation, and they go on their merry ways putting everyone around them at risk of serious disease and potential death. Many of these lost souls deny it’s even happening, and many, even while they’re the ones dying, continue to deny it’s happening. They’ll tell you that it’s only vaccinated people who are getting sick, or only unhealthy people, or that because vaccinated people get sick and die from the virus proves the vaccinations don’t work, or that more people die of car accidents in a year than die of Covid, or or or – there are hundreds of claims, all warped, and none admitting that their unvaccinated selves are a major part of what’s causing the continuation of the problem. This group of people who have lost their minds tear families apart, cause untold amounts of sorrow and suffering, fear and disgust; and especially take a toll on the old folks in their families who are forced to risk serious illness and death, or give up seeing their grandchildren/great grandchildren/once dear friends again in the short time that may be left to them on earth.
Perhaps it’s because I’m tired, more tired than I ever remember being. Pandemic restrictions, fighting nay-sayers, daily friction; followed by months of sequelae from a bad allergic reaction (nothing to do with Covid) and a long-standing injury that refused to heal; followed by near-shut-down; followed by the need to put my own life on hold for several months in order to help out a friend who, it turned out, needs more than just temporary help; two dead washing machines; a gardening summer that was partly lost to time I didn’t have, partly lost to a marauding horde of chipmunks that decimated at least half the food that should have gone into my freezers for winter. Inane, on-going arguments with people in the lost-their-minds categories; an on-going flea infestation; lost sleep from pain, and heat, and having to sleep in uncomfortable places for weeks on end. Rushing, rushing, rushing to try to catch up with my own life’s chores. Perhaps it’s also from on-going self-conversations about the terrible person I’ve become: the person who will not be able to forgive a relative who puts other people and my aged mother at risk; and disappointment that more than one person I’ve liked and loved are no longer people I can care about. My list goes on; exhaustion floods it.
We’re all tired. We ‘re all dis-spirited. We are all mourning people, or lost relationships, or altered health, or sometimes violently altered circumstances. This isn’t war time; this is war time. We have nothing to lose; we have everything to lose. We are all dark spirits trying to find our ways home. And at the moment….at the moment, the circle of people we can rely on, look to for comfort, not fear, has narrowed. I no longer like those unmasked people I encounter daily, in mundane places, going about life’s business. I would no longer unquestionably ask those people for help, if I needed it. I no longer do anything but frown at them.
I want to sing a song of the new year, of new possibilities, of the under-current of joy. I want to; but I’m not sure I can, this year.
Not yet
Now it’s February, almost half-way through. I’ve been too tired and too angry to write; but life surrounds the ball of thunderclouds that usually float above my head. Disregarding me, the moon fills and empties; the birds come and eat seed and the cat food my fussy furballs reject; a friend regularly sends letters I look forward to, especially because I know the writing of them is difficult. Every once in awhile I find something enjoyable on Netflix or Acorn. Every once in awhile a book in my To-Be-Read stack proves to be just wonderful. Wild turkeys meander down from the witch poet’s hill to snack on spilled seeds and grains; my sweetest cat demands a full-attention love-up at least once a day; I make a soup that’s exceptionally wonderful. The seed catalogs are arriving; a bright red cardinal flits through the lilac tree; someone tells a story that makes me laugh and laugh. Petie the Poodle visits my office.
It could be worse!
For the blog, 10 February 2022. All photos Deb Marshall or Charley Freiberg.
