09-23-2021, 02:16 AM
Some things are clear only in retrospect.
I've been thinking about last winter a lot lately.
Early 2020 was chaotic. The year opened with a major incident (Soleimani), and then the major incidents just didn't stop. We had an impeachment and primaries and a pandemic and a show about a crazy tiger guy and protests and a worsening pandemic and that's not even mentioning THE election (a phrase that will probably someday be as specific as "The Before Time" is now) and a thousand other things I'm probably forgetting (remember when everyone thought Kim Jong-un might be dead not once but twice?)...but what happened after that
I've made a few posts before about how in many ways we as a nation are "doing the 4T thing in spite of ourselves," but I've recently realized that it might be even more true than I thought it was.
The election happened, there was the tenseness and the chaos...and then it all went quiet. For the rest of November, and into December, January, and February, it was very dark - the darkest time in the lives of most people alive today by far (knock on wood) - and yet, no one talked about it. This short clip (1:09 to 1:30) from a video by Hank Green (born 1980, but obviously Millennial in all but birth-year) says it very well. I remember clearly in early November, as the cases really began to spiral out of control, it seemed as if a sudden organization, a sudden calm, a sudden systematicness (is that a word?) came over the country. I remember previously resistant states like North Dakota and Utah (where I'm currently attending college) suddenly instituting mask requirements on the same day (and the lack of reaction to them, when during the summer a certain subset would have responded furiously), I remember a distinct feeling of everyone collectively bracing themselves and realizing "we're in for it." And then the "superimposed surge" hit, and for four months, that's how it went. Not perfectly, of course - a particular day in early January comes to mind - but in general, the battles over masks and restrictions, the protests, the political campaigning - all ceased for four months, and everyone seemed to for the most part just do what they needed to do. I was personally trying to tune it all out because of all the bad news, when really that was exactly the right moment to tune in. Even as it looked chaotic on the surface, we were remarkably united in a strange way.
Even the weather seemed to fit the theme. I drove from my home in Missouri back to college in Utah for the second semester late (after being quarantined from having COVID). In early February, a huge "arctic blast" hit the middle of the country, and the Plains experienced what basically amounted to a tundra climate for about two weeks. And this is what I drove through. Temperature steady at one degree, near-constant snow flurries blowing around on the ground, making psychedelic patterns on the road ahead, everyone wearing several sets of clothes and just doing what needed to be done, through Missouri, through Iowa, through Nebraska, through Wyoming. Locked up and moving, staying together and far apart, and not an unmasked or undistanced person in sight. It seemed to sum it all up nicely. A Crisis is a saecular winter indeed, but sometimes winter is where you find the greatest warmth too.
I don't know what your experiences of this time were like, but this is what has come to mind for me. I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
I've been thinking about last winter a lot lately.
Early 2020 was chaotic. The year opened with a major incident (Soleimani), and then the major incidents just didn't stop. We had an impeachment and primaries and a pandemic and a show about a crazy tiger guy and protests and a worsening pandemic and that's not even mentioning THE election (a phrase that will probably someday be as specific as "The Before Time" is now) and a thousand other things I'm probably forgetting (remember when everyone thought Kim Jong-un might be dead not once but twice?)...but what happened after that
I've made a few posts before about how in many ways we as a nation are "doing the 4T thing in spite of ourselves," but I've recently realized that it might be even more true than I thought it was.
The election happened, there was the tenseness and the chaos...and then it all went quiet. For the rest of November, and into December, January, and February, it was very dark - the darkest time in the lives of most people alive today by far (knock on wood) - and yet, no one talked about it. This short clip (1:09 to 1:30) from a video by Hank Green (born 1980, but obviously Millennial in all but birth-year) says it very well. I remember clearly in early November, as the cases really began to spiral out of control, it seemed as if a sudden organization, a sudden calm, a sudden systematicness (is that a word?) came over the country. I remember previously resistant states like North Dakota and Utah (where I'm currently attending college) suddenly instituting mask requirements on the same day (and the lack of reaction to them, when during the summer a certain subset would have responded furiously), I remember a distinct feeling of everyone collectively bracing themselves and realizing "we're in for it." And then the "superimposed surge" hit, and for four months, that's how it went. Not perfectly, of course - a particular day in early January comes to mind - but in general, the battles over masks and restrictions, the protests, the political campaigning - all ceased for four months, and everyone seemed to for the most part just do what they needed to do. I was personally trying to tune it all out because of all the bad news, when really that was exactly the right moment to tune in. Even as it looked chaotic on the surface, we were remarkably united in a strange way.
Even the weather seemed to fit the theme. I drove from my home in Missouri back to college in Utah for the second semester late (after being quarantined from having COVID). In early February, a huge "arctic blast" hit the middle of the country, and the Plains experienced what basically amounted to a tundra climate for about two weeks. And this is what I drove through. Temperature steady at one degree, near-constant snow flurries blowing around on the ground, making psychedelic patterns on the road ahead, everyone wearing several sets of clothes and just doing what needed to be done, through Missouri, through Iowa, through Nebraska, through Wyoming. Locked up and moving, staying together and far apart, and not an unmasked or undistanced person in sight. It seemed to sum it all up nicely. A Crisis is a saecular winter indeed, but sometimes winter is where you find the greatest warmth too.
I don't know what your experiences of this time were like, but this is what has come to mind for me. I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
2001, a very artistic hero and/or a very heroic artist