What Happens In Pandemia, Stays In Pandemia

I went to church last Sunday for the first time in 64 weeks. None of the concerns I started worrying about -- maybe I just like to worry -- ever showed up in any significant way, and I think mostly that's because we've all accepted a new reality over the past couple of weeks.  

The things that give us the creeps don't matter. People who talk too loudly or too close don't matter. People who wear their masks under their noses look ridiculous, but it doesn't matter.  

We've just added an adjustment layer to life, superimposing little subconscious actions and reactions, only tenuously attached to reality. We were all masked and sat spaced apart. Windows and doors were wide open, and mingling was taken outside (the weather was marginal but fine). 

And this is how everything feels to me now. A little sterile, and really no pun intended, as if the future has all been covered with plastic like living room furniture.  

Church wasn't like any of the re-entry stuff I've been doing, and more of a hybrid experience. We've been seeing each other on screens for 450 days. It was always going to be weird. 

And I know it's never going to be the same again, and I'm fine with that. I've been intimately involved with this organization over the past 15 months; even if you enjoy making the sausage, you're still in it up to your elbows and it changes the experience. 

But this has still been a spiritually rich time for me, and I would think that comes with the territory. At least if you're halfway aware, we've had some time to think about important things, or how important some things are, or seem, or really aren't. I mean, I'm all over the place in this regard. 

And as awful as a lot of our fellow Americans have seemed over the past couple of years, I get a little burst of pride to see all the people (MOST of the people) wearing masks when they know they're safe, their families are safe, we're all pretty much safe. Just not completely sure, but that will come, and in the meantime we'll keep wearing these cloth things because you know what? We're used to them and they were never, ever, EVER any hassle at all. Pardon the language popping around in my brain. 

But that part is over and this part is now. I took airplane rides and left home for two weeks, seeing family and completely forgetting about the pandemic because I’m on safety autopilot.  

I spent time with my siblings and their spouses, along with my mom on Mother's Day, and I actually learned a few things. Most of this was my brother's hard work on genealogy, which does not interest me at all but I do like to read the stuff he comes up with. 

Turns out he filled in some gaps I had. My earliest direct ancestor carrying my last name entered the American colonies and wound up in New Jersey around the time George Washington was born.  

And that guy was the newcomer. The other three sides all came in the early 17th century.  

Also, a big chunk of my ancestry is located specifically in Scotland, which is fun, and then the usual Germanic peoples way back when, Scandinavian to a large degree (I identify as Viking). 

But that was the warm-up to my visit with the grandson I've been seeing via Zoom for the duration of this nightmare. We rarely miss a day, and the relationship has evolved into something deep and emotional and far closer than I hoped for.  

Every weekday morning he had remote school, usually in segments, going from 8 until past noon. Then that was our time, and we played and created and walked and talked. His parents are super-busy, particularly now, and they mostly hid in their offices and held multiple Zoom calls while the two of us were perfectly content.  

They even went out together alone for a few hours, several times during my week there. Again, his diabetes is pretty much all run by machines now, and his parents were never that far away. The rest is no big deal; we hardly noticed they were gone. But after this past year, you bet they noticed. Their industry got hit with a Covid-colored tsunami, they’re dealing with putting together side gigs while stuck at home, home schooling an exceptionally bright kid who’s bored with regular school and OH BY THE WAY has an autoimmune disorder that makes everything scarier. 

So this felt like free joy, unearned but happy to help. They’ll always need some time and I'll always want to hang with this kid. 

After he went to bed, I either read this long biography I'm working through, of which I'll probably have more to say eventually, or else listened to podcasts. I completely got out of the podcast habit; I easily had a dozen I listened to weekly before the pandemic. 

Some of this was increased busyness, some the downtick in my time outside, doing chores or exercising, and the rest I'll just chalk up to the weirdness (along with everyone at home, so it's awkward to walk around with earbuds in with people around). 

But it was nice to listen to other people have conversations, and delve into nonfiction that wasn't quite so close by.  

My hair hadn’t been professionally cut for 18 months, and I left it to my daughter to give me a nudge. She’s always cut my hair, and it definitely needed trimming, at least the stringy, split-end variety, but the first question was leave it long? Super-short? It’s already falling out in a big way, this whole past year, and now there’s a big blank spot in the back of my head (I say “now;” it’s been there for a while, possibly birth). It sort of feels like that one section of hair just forgot to come into work today. Didn’t call in sick, nothing. Just a big bald spot. 

So Beth wasn’t going to grow me any hair, but as we were talking I mentioned that I really wish it’d just go gray, as that always seemed to smooth out the hairlines of men who are balding, making it all seem coherent and of one piece. We had a discussion, and so she bleached my hair and then dyed it blond to see if it would look silver, which it sort of does, but also really, really blond.  

And she was gentle the entire way, always asking me what I wanted, never pushy (even though she approved and it was her idea), and I honestly couldn’t work up the energy to care. 

Honestly. I’m not an impetuous or incautious person at all, and I’ve definitely got a sense of vanity along with a teeny bit of crazy, but to be mildly impolite I long ago gave away my last fuck when it comes to being a wuss about dumb stuff. You want to bleach my hair? Bleach away, baby. I’ve lived through a pandemic and I’m not ashamed of it. Got my Fleabag T-shirt and everything. I’ve been communicating with everyone via webcam and wearing the same pair of socks I can’t even tell you how many days. Many days. CHANGE SOMETHING. 

The airplanes there and back were nothing, routine and with no stress. Masks were worn and safety stuff was evident, although we were still crammed in there. On the other hand, and again, I'm fully vaccinated and I gotta think a lot of the others were, and then just the precautions. It wasn't a tense flight. A little bumpy on the way home but that happens. 

And what with the whole going to church 12 hours after my plane landed, and then the rest of that exhausting day trying to unpack and settle in, then writing a column in the evening and a staff meeting Monday morning...I'm really not that guy. This is unusual. I assume it will calm down but I can't guarantee it. 

So here I am, fairly loose in terms of schedule, a couple of videos to make before the weekend, maybe a longer term project to dig into. And something else, although I'm not sure what, exactly. 

I just know I'm not so crazy anymore about writing into the abyss. I spent years tossing off 1000 words first thing in the morning, whatever was on my mind, family, friends, didn't matter. And then the column, same thing, more organized but same. 

Now the column has gone to subscription only, which I approve of (and understand), and I kind of like keeping that separate. They'll be some bleeding over but not as much as maybe before. I’ve long since abandoned Facebook to anything but a couple of groups, manageable, nice people who can get into interesting conversations without hating anybody else. I’m jonesing for a platform.

But I don't really want to indiscriminately blog. I thought about locking my blog, password only, but that seems unnecessarily awkward and off-putting. I know this seems over-reacting, maybe, given that it wasn't ever the most popular blog on the block, but at least I do have a very minor public presence and people do search for me. I'd rather find a way to write thoughtful stuff to people I knew would be interested. 

And not just write. I've known for years now that there's something missing in this -- I know I can write reasonably grammatical and lucid sentences, sometimes funny ones, occasionally special, but I don't think of myself as a writer or like other writers I know. I don't really care so much. The story is much more important, and it's almost always my story. 

Through my eyes, I mean, and 15 months of intense video work has opened those eyes. I always was drawn to video, way back in the seventh grade, not because I wanted to make films but because it was so accessible.  

It was like sticking a blank sheet of paper in the typewriter; you could always erase it, or wad it up and toss it away, start over, no harm done. Videotape seemed to offer that, or would. 

Videotape? How old am I? 

Anyway, I'm thinking I'll be looking at doing some multimedia things, sort of wrapped around writing but with visual aids, let's say. Maybe a nice angle here and there, maybe a clip. Maybe some animation.  

Always me, though. This is my thing. And this will be maybe/probably a subscription thing, just sign up and get an email, unless I can think of an easier way of reaching non-troll types.  

None of you are exactly on the edges of your seats, I know. I know. I just felt like blabbing about this, because it's been forever, folks. Like pulling teeth to get a few words out, and now I have lots of words, and my teeth are so far, so OK. Watch this space. I’ll be the blond guy.