Now everyone is online. It’s not exotic any more, especially for the kids who have adapted to their Google Meet classes and their parents who have had to adapt to it for them. Arts are increasingly moving online, TV shows are being Zoomed in, the talk shows, the news shows, the fundraising variety shows, the concerts, the play readings, and some sitcoms. We are still doing the PareaGroove regularly. No special guests of late, just the conversations, mostly among our fifteen or so regulars, with occasional new faces or less regular faces. Our cities are starting to open, Memorial Day is on the horizon, and we’re excited to get back out, but very wary, some of us more than others.
I did an additional event, an alumni Zoom for women in my class. It wasn’t as easy to run as the PareaGroove because I didn’t really know most of the women and it was bigger. I held it because a classmate of ours living a seemingly perfect life killed herself last week. She married her college boyfriend, they have five children and both have a couple degrees and a very successful lucrative professional career. I didn’t know her but I knew and liked him. This shook us up obviously, and one woman posted that she recognized women are having more trouble with this quarantine than men for lots of reasons, mostly the pressures to care for and worry about our families. So I suggested doing the Zoom for people to vent and enough people were enthusiastic about it that I scheduled one. Some people were doing okay, but some really weren’t, suffering sickness themselves, sick family members, having to care and Zoom-teach children, which is hard even when the kids are good, but really hard when they’re unwilling, on the autism spectrum, or having psychological issues, all of which came up among the thirty or so women who showed. The ones who are working, most of them on the call actually, often had issues with now being overworked because there is no beginning or end to the day really. People are worried for their kids that summer camp, internships, summers abroad, and next year at school are being canceled. There were a couple professors on the call and they spoke about the challenges of teaching online. There weren’t many single people, like three or four maybe, only three of us living alone, and we are keeping pretty busy with “distanced” social events and Zoom calls. One woman did just lose her job because of COVID, and a couple had their salaries temporarily cut because of it.
I also joined in on a birthday Zoom this week where I didn’t know anyone except the birthday girl. It was an interesting way to meet new people, and an obvious way to get a bigger group as people were phoning in from all over the country, from their beach homes in the Hamptons and by the Jersey Shore where they’ve been sheltering, from LA, from Texas, Ohio, and Michigan. Many were dealing with the Zoom-schooling and some were frustrated that summer plans for the kids were canceled. Most seemed grateful for the time and the comfortable place where they found to land. The news reports about the quickly re-opening states like Texas and the protests, like in Michigan, are alarming. The Texan on the call assured us it’s not “horrid,” and those in Michigan were far enough away from Lansing to roll their eyes and feel as apart and appalled by it as we in the Northeast. Things in California sounded pretty okay.
What does come up consistently is that our restlessness has set in, and there is anxiety about the future, what we’ll find when we re-open, our health, our weight gain, will we find the little things about our neighborhoods and our lives which we loved again. However, as stressful as all this is, people do seem to be finding their stride and are looking for the silver linings. Most of us have gotten pretty good at the socializing from little squares, this is a new normal for now, that will find a place in our lives when our old normal finally comes back.
