Five and a half months to go. 2020 feels like the year that won’t come to an end soon enough, and we have just reached mid-July. It has been over 110 days since I started working from home, and it feels as if I have not been to the office all year at this point. Maybe I won’t recognize the place when I do get back: the company has gone to great lengths to convert it into a less virus prone environment in which we can work safely, kind of like John Travolta in the movie “Boy in the Plastic Bubble” on an enlarged scale. And without hazmat suits.
When we do finally get to go back to what is termed the “new normal,” it may just look like an infectious disease lab set up shop in your office. The only problem is that none of us are trained to work in an infectious disease lab and adapt it to what our real jobs are. Technically it’s impossible to take the entire human race and seal them off from harm. When something infectious of this scale appears, it will do what it’s engineered to do, and we do our best to dodge it. But it has been a disruptive event to be sure.
This is what might be called a century event, even though it took an extra two years to actually show up. If viruses have bosses, this one would definitely have been fired. Instead it’s fired up and ready to go full throttle into our lives and make sure we’re miserable.
That doesn’t mean we have to go along. We’re adapting pretty well, and changing with whatever life throws at us. Graduation ceremonies were held this month, and people showed up. Sports are going intro controlled practices, and people are letting them do their thing without crowding around to watch and risking getting everybody sick. Sports fans hope for games, even with empty bleachers, to broadcast soon. We can still shop and exercise, and television hasn’t been too bad, even without sports.
I’ve become a fan of The Incredible Dr. Pol on NatGeo Wild, binged two weeks of shows recently and didn’t feel guilty about it, because I read an article validating “guilty pleasures” as something we all need to do to some extent. Sometimes I wonder if I could deliver a calf after watching Dr. Pol do it about 30-40 times. No, I don’t think reaching into the rear of a distressed cow in labor is my thing.
One thing online I have gotten hooked on is unusual video channels. It started innocently enough by discovering the Try Channel, where people from Ireland are subjected to international cuisine. Some things are heavenly, like Lindt chocolate, while others are barf-inducing like durian fruit (an acquired taste). From there I discovered “Tribal People,” which introduces new food to seemingly isolated village Pakistanis, and a channel featuring an American with an opinionated wife he brought over from Italy, trying to navigate what is “real” food here that she would be willing to cook or eat (the lady poo-pooed Whole Foods’ pastas, folks).
And yes, I got hooked on some cat videos from a (I think) South Korean woman who has seven cats in her home to keep her and us entertained.
Then I found “first time” channels in which folks watch movies or music videos from before their time: this resulted in quite a few newbie Star Wars fans, as well as vintage MTV hits rekindling those fond memories of the eras when nobody worried about a virus (or at least not this one).
Meanwhile, I’ve learned how to make banana bread, am brushing up on needle felting, crocheted again, re-potted some desperate plants and used Marie Kondo’s methods to tidy up the house. Well, it looks a bit better, but there is still de-cluttering left to do.
At some point I will–maybe–end up back at the office for the rest of the year, which will mean resuming rising early, timing my day, the commute, the meals and such, and perhaps some normalcy will return.
After these past few months, though, I wonder if anything we have done is actually normal, or just one more way to live life? When thinking about who has not seen Star Wars or eaten (or liked) durian fruit, the view of the world as we have seen it before has expanded. We’re living in a big world, and an affliction just as big is making this year seem like it will go on forever. It won’t. Still, I’m taking a deep breath and waiting for whatever will come in these next five and a half months.
Normal is as normal does.
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