It has been four years since the COVID spring of 2020. I miss who we were during the pandemic. We are now, without a doubt, back to our frenzied pre-pandemic life. Ironically, our return to full-throttle existence has, in some ways, driven us further apart than the virus did. The “pandemic pause” somehow made us more connected, more empathetic.
The lovely and surprising thing during the pandemic was how much we thought about each other. Each day, the news was full of stories about how people were faring, or not, and how people were doing their best to live their lives. Those stories made us feel less alone.
When the entire citizenry of Spain was seemingly locked in their homes, we watched while they took to their balconies, singing and playing music, sometimes on pots and pans. They created an unlikely orchestra of people needing and wanting connection. There was something so charming, so inspirational about their desire to connect. It made us smile.
In the U.S., long-forgotten lawn chairs were dusted off and moved outside for the first time in years. The chairs even migrated to neighbors’ yards. People gathered in circles, six feet of space per chair, building connections – some new, some rekindled. The pace was slow and easy; storytelling and sharing were abundant.
Laptops were pulled out of drawers and Zoom was installed. Family and friends who had not seen each other for years reconnected and caught up over virtual happy hours. There was no rush to end conversations with a hurried "gotta go, things are crazy busy." We relaxed with each other. We embraced unhurried moments, free from the mental checklist of perpetual "to-dos."
It has been four years. Have you circled up with your neighbors recently, or settled into a relaxing evening of Zooming with relatives and friends? Do you find yourself in quiet moments wondering how other people are doing around the country?
It was delightful how actively we thought about each other, including people we did not know, in the first year of the pandemic. As I drove my motorhome 12,000 miles all over the U.S. from late 2020 through 2021, interviewing hundreds of people about their lives during the pandemic, a common question was: “How are people doing out there, can you tell me about some of them?”
One of the memories that stands out is my conversation with Calvin, a rancher in Alpine, Texas, in early 2021. His truck was on the side of the road in Marfa, Texas, when I stopped to ask him where I could fill up my tires. He had a generator in the flatbed of his truck, so he put air in my tires, and we began to talk. Calvin told me that his life in Alpine had been normal, even pretty good, during the pandemic but that he often wondered about those who were not as fortunate.
“I think about the restaurant owners in New York City,” he told me, “they must be hurting.” He then looked at me and asked, “Have you talked with any of them?”
I told him I had recently Zoomed with Dominick, the owner of his family’s Italian restaurant in downtown Manhattan. Dominick was taking a financial bath because even though it was January 2021, he still was not permitted to have people dine in.
“I have a restaurant that is starving, all because it’s in New York City,” Dominick told me. “It frustrates the hell out of me.”
To say that Dominick felt trapped is an understatement.
Calvin listened as I recounted Dominick’s story, and then said, “If you talk with him again, can you please tell him that a rancher in Alpine, Texas, is thinking of him?”
I called Dominick right away, of course. “A rancher in Texas?” was his first reaction. “Huh. How’s he doing?”
Over one million Americans died during the COVID pandemic, and nothing can heal the pain of their loss. The pandemic was heartbreakingly painful and bewilderingly destabilizing, but it was also a time of caring about each other in a way that made life sweeter and our country gentler. Given a choice between fear or commitment, isolation or community, Americans found ways to care about their neighbors, look in on one another, and feel empathy toward all when nothing else mattered.
Yes, I do miss who we were during the pandemic. I am dusting off my lawn chair again.
_______________________
Michelle Fishburne is the author of “Who We Are Now: Stories of What Americans Lost and Found During the COVID-19 Pandemic” (UNC Press and the Duke Center for Documentary Studies, 2023).
Comments