Staring off my back porch last week, again, at the quiet emptiness of my neighborhood, I suddenly remembered I had one of those soap-bubble guns. I fired it up and soon had filled my backward with floating rainbow-tinged suds. A serendipitous breeze gently pushed them over a couple of yards, where some children playing briefly stopped to watch them drift by.
I thought, Why not? Got in my car and drove around Easthampton making soap bubbles out the window. But it was one of those dollar cheapies and I soon exhausted it. So I ordered an industrial strength one from Amazon. And when it gets here, I mean to drive around sharing some serious soap bubbles. (Do I need an intervention?)
It seems the pandemic can bring out the whimsy in us, but also the hysteric, the paranoid, the heroic, the clear-eyed and the heartbreakingly bewildered.
At times it can almost seem like some deity watching us from afar — our faces downturned to flickering screens, while we text and tweet, opine instantly, cancel instantly, order next day delivery — and thought to itself: “I pity those people.” And sent us a plague to cut right through our lives and bring our human fears, frustrations and fancies to a screeching halt.
Coronavirus, like the honey badger, just don’t give a damn!
As such, coronavirus is an excellent Rorschach test — an indistinguishable blob that reveals mostly what you (we) already are, not what you (we) will become. I believe we might make some good of all this woe, someday! But for now our responses mostly follow a pattern of confirmation bias — at least during what history will likely call, “The First Wave.”
In a gross generalization, the response is marked by the extremes of the Corona Karen’s (and Ken’s!) on the left: hectoring and lecturing and shaming us into compliance. On the right are the Freedom Freddie’s (and Freda’s), seeing the dark hand of repressive government and the secret agenda of liberals for world domination. We came into this crisis as polarized as we ever have been, each seeing an existential threat from the other. That has only increased in the past few weeks as we fight over closing vs. openings; safety vs. liberty; Us vs. Me.
But know what? Corona don’t give a damn.
So far, whatever world-view we brought into the pandemic, we are still responding from inside that view. And Corona don’t give a damn! Did it expose the shambles our government has become? The gross inequalities of income, health care and hunger? That we are all in the same storm but certainly not in the same boat? Is so, you are probably starting to believe that the pandemic will bring change to those issues.
But Corona don’t give a damn!
If the pandemic has confirmed that government is a repressive tool, the main source of lies and manipulation? You have found confirmation of this in the past weeks of quarantine. If you think those protesting to re-open the country are latter day Rosa Parks for fighting for their individual “liberty” against our collective security, then lionize and canonize them!
But Corona don’t give a damn!
If Donald Trump believes that parking a culture war over the pandemic is the best way to get himself reelected he’s gonna sic us on each other.
But Corona don’t give a damn.
Trillions of dollars spent, yet We the People still wait for financial help, millions more wait for their first unemployment check, and even more often in excruciatingly long lines at food banks. A clear sign of the utter dysfunction of our government.
And I am sorry, but Corona don’t give a damn about that either.
Corona seems to have an unerring ability to pull apart all the certainties we have cocooned ourselves in; all the government and policies we have made or failed to stop being made. Corona is gonna rock-and-roll us, turn us inside out and upside down until we get our act together, as a nation as a planet! Or it will never let us go. And until we do, all the texting, tweeting, posting, shaming, complaining — is all sound and fury signifying nothing!
Corona don’t give a damn, and there is nothing we can do about it but slouch towards Bethlehem and see what gets born. There is no way to know if we will emerge better, worse, or just a muddled middle like we have been.
I am a cynic, but an optimistic one. Too cynical to believe we must come out of this a better society, more united, better able to listen. Too optimistic to believe we will learn nothing of value — if only that while we all weathered the same storm, we did not do so in the same boat.
But Corona don’t give a damn about that either!
If we are lucky, perhaps, over the next year or two, Corona might strip away all of our formerly rock-solid beliefs. Not now in the First Wave, we are as divided as ever. But when the Second Wave comes, everyone’s theories about the pandemic will have been proved, right or wrong. Maybe then, when we get to the end of our mutually-exclusive beliefs, we can begin to discover something new.
Corona don’t give a damn. But we must.
Joe Gannon, novelist and teacher, lives in Easthampton. He can be reached at opinion@gazette.net