Old Movies
My Dad used to tape old movies on the VCR and play his favorites over and over. A 1951 film, The Day the Earth Stood Still, was part of the pantheon.
The film was about an advanced being coming to earth with a warning that human activities – in particular our nuclear ones – had become a threat to people of other planets. At one point, the alien proved his power by creating a 30 minute blackout. Everything stopped. Trains stopped. TVs stopped. Cars stopped. People got out of their vehicles and scratched their heads. That’s the moment I remembered most from the movie and loved the best.
Real World Crisis
I was brought up in Florida. I used to get excited if a hurricane was coming. Similar to a snow day in colder places, a hurricane on the way meant a departure from routine and preparation for the unknown. My life was never actually harmed by a hurricane so I continued to have an innocence about disaster.
I must admit, I secretly held a similar excitement about the shut down in March of last year. I loved having an excuse for not being as productive. As I stocked up my larder with canned goods, I imagined my future self enjoying those peaches or those baked beans.
I wondered if I was going to experience a Great Depression in my own time. I imagined a simpler life that I might actually like better than the busy one I had been living. And maybe I was flashing back on some level to that movie. In the story, an alien made everything stop. In March 2020, a virus did.
Do I want things back to normal?
Some of my cuddle colleagues have been able to get vaccinated due to being categorized in the realm of healthcare. This makes total sense to me, and yet I have not ambitiously tried to organize the same for myself. I have liked this pause. I have thrived during it. I am very aware of the suffering experienced by many – job loss, illness, loneliness, death. In my world, once again, I have been spared the ravages of disaster.
A sample of profound change
For a while, the earth has stood still, and I’ve savored the time. I think it’s because for the first time in my life, I see what a massive societal shift looks and feels like. I think that as a species, our future depends on large scale change. (I’m thinking especially of the climate crisis as I write this.) In the past I have felt hopeless that our species could turn things around collectively. Now I have a picture of what it could look like.
So I’m not keen on getting back to business as usual. I am invested in the harnessing the wisdom gained during this period of pause and applying it to the daunting challenges we still face. I hope we’re ready.