Flapjack Friday: On The COVID Churn
Today Bob and I traveled to Wrightsville Beach, NC to spend a day in the springtime sun and to clear some of the pandemic fog. The weather was beautiful—perfect almost, and the beach was packed with all kinds of people who, like us, had gravitated to the sand and the sea to enjoy a hint of summer and a break from the COVID-churn.
All of us, stretched out on the beach, shared a palpable, blurry-eyed energy. Every single one of us has experienced some aspect of the pandemic—together. Later in the day, when I ventured out for a pedicure (my first in in very long time), the pedicurist and I had immediate rapport due to this shared experience. “The global pandemic” We both laughed at the thought, and when he described how everything feels “weird,” I knew exactly what he meant. When I shook my head and uttered, “Crazy ….” He immediately concurred. COVID crazy.
Throughout the day, Bob and I reflected on how different life feels—no, how very different life actually is. As the number of positive tests decrease and the hope of some sense of normalcy increases, we both feel a bit out-of-balance and out-of-sorts.
I realized today that even though I have been home for almost 365 days in a row, I have not taken the time to process the events of the past twelve months very deeply. Like, my dad’s death, which was not all together unexpected, but still feels like a dream, a surreal event that happened along the slipstream of the virus. I miss my dad and have not taken time to grieve. Like graduating after nearly six years of study without fanfare or shared celebration—not sure why that matters but it does. Like the major events from the summer that peeled back layers and layers and generations of racism that continue to peel back even more layers of ugliness. Like the election turned insurrection that engendered violence and revolt. Like the more than a half-million lives that were lost to the virus and our collective inability to talk about death. Like the gaping divide in our country and in even more glaring in the church … gut-wrenching and embarrassing.
For me at least, the COVID churn leaves me feeling worn out and often like I am suspended, floating listlessly, in a hazy virtual fog—like an endless zoom meeting! Yes, it helps to talk to Bob—somehow we still have lots of things to talk about and hope for, which really helps. Of course (and I am not being trite) it helps to talk to God, especially as I remember the history of God’s people and the acts of God in the midst of sometimes weird or terrible or astounding events in history-past. I am not simply comforted but enjoy the company.
Without a doubt, it helps to spend a few hours at the beach in the sun and it helps to get a pedicure. But, I sort of dread going home tomorrow back to this weird and crazy routine. What about you, do you feel like I do sometimes? I know so many have experienced far more than I have and still hang on, still rejoice, still rise up. What is helping you the most, right now, to survive the COVID Churn?
