Still waters, going over a cliff

I’ve been relatively calm since this whole pandemic started to unfold. I’ve had some teary mornings, and moments, and outrage peppering my day as the news unfolds. But I have hadn’t any major meltdowns, and I probably won’t.

Still, I feel this boiling outrage in my gut. Everyday, it sits there, bubbling and raging hot, and growing. Everyday that fuckface in the White House delays, or parlays, or does his little rally shitshow, it grows. Every day governors and county officials and people working in the hospitals and clinics aren’t getting what they need in the face of Trump’s denial, it grows.

It makes me shake. My chest presses in on me; my brain is distracted with constant alarm. I do little tasks to keep my self and my mind busy, but I lose track after a while. Switch to something else, make some headway there, bog down, switch gears, refocus, get another task partly done, bog down, refocus, rinse, repeat.

Finally it’s midnight and I can go to bed; I won’t sleep, but laying down feels good. I’ll drift off an hour or two later, whatever crap I didn’t yet figure out still swimming in my brain, feeding into the surreal plots of dreams, and then wake at dawn, to toss and turn and doze till maybe eight.

Refocus, rinse, repeat.

And always that pit of lava in my stomach, always boiling, always seething.

Courtesy

An interesting etiquette is developing between those of us who are taking physical, social distancing seriously.

We step around each other. We smile and acknowledge each other… from a distance. On my daily walks with the dog, or to the post office, I’ve noticed many people very specifically making a point of saying “Hi, how’s your day?” or making eye contact, with a quick nod of the head.

It reminds me of how a lot of women shopped, you know, in The Before Time. We’d back our carts off, make room for each other, lean away to allow someone to look at the shelf, wait patiently at the end of an aisle while someone maneuvered their way out around the end cap. Men rarely do this; women usually do.

Now most of us do it.

I expect handshaking will come back, but not for everyone. I expect that for many of us, hugs will be metered out to those we trust. Our habits, our greetings, our acknowledgement of each other will change. I think a reserve will come out of this pandemic. Our habits, our etiquette will be forever changed, tweaked, influenced, evolved. We will remember.

I wish a pandemic hadn’t inspired all of this careful courtesy. But I do appreciate it.