 Covid isn’t over; it’s just past the emergency stage that overwhelmed health systems. Is life getting back to normal, or are some things forever changed? Is your life the same as it was four years ago?
We’re sitting on the riverbank watching the waters subside after a flood, wondering if the deluge left any lasting impact. That’s one perspective. Another is that we’re leaves and twigs floating downstream, flood or no flood. There is no going back. I can’t recall any four-year period in which the end was the same as the beginning. I can’t return now to 2019, whether I want to or not. The pandemic is only one cause among many. How about you?
2 Comments
Pat Groenewold
6/5/2023 10:48:58 am
I identify with the leaves floating downstream metaphor. The pandemic brought some changes that were different than might have come without COVID, some good (creative use of technology for example) and some more negative (isolation and fear). However, change is the one constant and we, as individuals and institutions, would have changed from one year to the next. 6/5/2023 12:53:12 pm
Indeed. In the first draft, I proposed that sitting on the bank was the Covid-related big-picture view but the leaves are more a personal perspective not limited to the pandemic. The more I pondered, the less that seemed correct. Our nation and institutions, like our lives, would have experienced some changes regardless. Would Jan. 6 have happened in any case? Would business travel have given way to online meetings even without reasons of health? Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin.
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