We are now in the third year of the pandemic. I say this at the start of 2022, since we are in an apparent surge as the Omicron variant has once again forced the conversation back into the forefront. I say this as my dad has recovered from his own bout with COVID-19, and in acknowledgment at the loss of Gene Pelletier, a close family friend who with his wife suffered through it at the same time. I say this as my place of work has elevated its response level back to where it was, nominally, at the pandemic's peak. I say this knowing that vaccines and boosters and masks remain sources of deep contention. I say this knowing I had plans to travel this year. I say this knowing, even though I've known many people who have traveled, as far back as 2020 (which indeed seems like a long time ago, somehow), that one of the clearest ways to combat the spread, as far I'm concerned, is not to travel. I say this as someone who wants to travel, who wants to see family, in person, again...
Gene and his wife were key figures in my mom's battle with cancer. When she died in 2015, they were certain sources of support. When I spent my year with my niece, they were again pillars of my life. Gene was the kind of person who I didn't know very well, but for whom it didn't matter. He was my kind of guy. He knew his way around a joke. I'd known him, tangentially, before ending up living in the same park, when he was not only friend but neighbor.
His memorial service was yesterday. I wish I could have been there. If I owe anyone that it would be Gene and his wife.
I'm kind of sick of the pandemic. I don't honestly know how anyone wouldn't be. I'm sick of it. I think even those morbidly fascinated with being "right about it" have lost steam. They want to move on, too. Obviously the American/global box office somehow managed to find enough people to make history with Spider-Man: No Way Home, so there may yet be an end in sight. Hopefully.
Hopefully. And, again, we're nowhere close to a true reckoning with the experience. It's barely begun. There will be pandemic stories for the rest of our lives. Fifty years from now there will be generations for whom it's only a matter of history, something they're forced to learn in school, and for most of whom it will barely register as real. But for us, it's an everyday fact that will remain fact, something we are going to have to deal with, long after we've sorted out all the immediate fallout, the ramifications, and yeah, the virus itself. Probably it's a shot we're going to get annually. Probably? Definitely. It's the next flu shot. Of course it is.
In my blogging community, everyone seems to have remained pretty steadfastly silent on the subject. I guarantee, in a few years even these bloggers will be talking endlessly about it. In fifty years it might be the only thing anyone knows about this era. Except those pesky students. Doing whatever delinquent things kids will do in the (20)70s...
To get there, to see that, I would have to live into my nineties. This is hardly impossible. I've known a few people who did.
I've already taken a stab at writing pandemic fiction. I imagine I probably will again in the future. But perhaps once life has decided normal looks like normal used to. If that's even possible anymore...
