Pandemic Chronicles #8: And suddenly, our worlds became very small
Approaching Boston’s Logan International Airport (photo: DY)
I was listening to a favorite album the other day, a collection of Gershwin songs by Michael Feinstein, one of the most devoted and talented keepers of the Great American Songbook. I reminded myself that I first owned this album in cassette format, back in the early 90s.
I further recalled a trip to London in 1992, a quick spring break visit across the pond when I had just began teaching as an entry-level legal skills instructor at New York University, my law school alma mater. Feinstein’s Gershwin album was among four or five tapes that I dropped into my backpack, along with my Sony Walkman portable cassette player. As I traipsed around London that week, I marveled at how entertainment technology now allowed me to listen to favorite albums in the palm of my hand. All I had to do was flip and swap out the tapes!
Fast forwarding to today, I’ve got several dozen albums loaded onto to my iPhone and iPad, downloaded via the MP3 platform. With this latest technology, we can carry a huge digital music collection in our pockets, bags, or backpacks. Way cool.
But here’s the rub: Suddenly, my need for such portability has decreased markedly. I venture out of my home infrequently. I have no idea when I’ll hop onto a plane again.
I’m sure that many of you can relate. If you’re in a part of the world heavily hit by the coronavirus, then you know how our lives suddenly became very small when stay-at-home advisories and social distancing became our everyday norms.
It’s hard for me to grasp that we’ve been at this for only two months or so. This has become a self-experiment of sorts, observing my daily moods while remaining mostly within the confines of my modest condo. So far, I’m doing okay, better than I expected, in fact. Over the past few years, I’ve done a lot of traveling and spent so much time out of my home. It has left me feeling exhausted at times. So in some ways, this solitude has been good for me.
I know I won’t feel that way for much longer, but future choices are largely out of my control. Advancements in public health and medicine will disproportionately shape those options, and for now the timeline is uncertain. While I am genuinely optimistic that we will get a handle on this virus, like most everyone else I must strive to be patient.
Pandemic Chronicles #7: Adventures lost
Our study abroad group at Coventry Cathedral, England, 1981
A couple of weeks ago, our study abroad group from college met for a Zoom-enabled happy hour/mini-reunion. It was the latest gathering of our spring 1981 semester abroad cohort from Valparaiso University’s program in Cambridge, England.
I can think of no other chapter in my life that so instantly flips on my personal nostalgia channel. I’ve written about that special semester many times on this blog (such as here, “First-time sojourn across the pond”). Here’s a snippet of what I wrote in 2016:
I was embarking on the most formative educational experience of my life. The semester would create enduring memories, new perspectives, and lifelong friendships. The seeds it planted permeate my life today, ranging from the way I live, to my choice of vocation, to how I spend my typical day.
One of the great sadnesses of the current coronavirus pandemic is how many thousands of college students may be denied similar opportunities. Right now, it’s highly questionable whether their main campuses will even be open for residential classes in the fall, much less offering study abroad options. Even when those possibilities begin manifesting themselves again, a lot of students (and their parents) may understandably be hesitant to take the plunge.
I dearly hope that a combination of smart public health practices and new developments in medicine will control the ravages of this virus sooner than later. Saving lives, preserving health, and re-opening our economic and civic society are, of course, our main priorities. The return of life-changing opportunities to spend meaningful time in other parts of the world would be welcomed, too, along with a renewed sense of adventure to take advantage of them.
Pandemic Chronicles #6: The new normal is fluid and still surreal
Looking out the screen door.
In The Year of Magical Thinking, author Joan Didion opens her widely-acclaimed memoir about loss and grief with these words:
Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
I find myself coming back to those words in trying to comprehend the hard and sudden changes in our lives compelled by this pandemic.
And I’m one of the lucky ones. As a professor, I have a good job with a steady paycheck that I can do largely from home. Of course, that’s for now. We don’t know how long this pandemic will last and what its extended impact will be on higher education. I’m expecting, maybe sooner than later, pay cuts or required furloughs in response to what I anticipate will be reduced enrollments until the public health situation works itself out.
For many of us, various uncertainties mean that the new normal may well be a very fluid one, where life changes fast and in the instant on multiple occasions. A lot of these changes are communicated by way of social media and the internet: Emails, texts, public pronouncements, breaking news, and so forth. You log on and sometimes hold your breath.
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In the meantime, I’ve been diligent about following public health guidelines and directives. On Saturday, I did go into my university office for the first time since mid-March, in order to gather materials that I need to do my work during the next month or two. Donning mask and gloves, it was pretty surreal entering the nearly empty subway cars. Thankfully almost everyone else was covered as well.
I must say that as I sorted through papers, printed out documents, and the like, it felt somewhat normal to be back in the office. But even as I did my work, I couldn’t quite shake the reality that things have changed dramatically and that I probably wouldn’t make the trip back for at least another month or so.
As for downtown Boston, it was pretty empty. I did manage to score some toilet paper, spray disinfectant, and other sundries at one of the drugstores, which made it a useful trip in multiple ways.
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Above, I share a view looking out from my screen door. I opted to use a shot that focuses on the screen lattices rather than on the outdoors, because it says something about the way we’re all living these days.
Musings of a Gen Joneser 
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