WHAT WAS NORMAL?

Dreamed last night of mass panic, children abandoned by dying parents, and general hysteria. But it was one of those dreams where it's like watching a movie, so even though what was happening was terrible, I didn't feel the terror some dreams can bring. There was a huge crowd in some nameless city, everyone for the most part trying to social distance. A restaurant was open, with seats outside, and there was a group of friends eating together, talking about the pandemic. The restaurant was surrounded by a sea of humanity- like that scene in Speilberg's version of War of the Worlds, where the crowd freaks. A family- young mom, dad, and kid- approach the table, dump the kid there, beg the group of friends to care for their child as they had the disease, and then they were pulled into the swelling mob of people, vanishing almost instantly. The friends all looked at the kid, not sure what to do. Then I woke up.

I didn't go to sleep watching the news last night. No, we fell asleep watching Ancient Aliens, one of my go to shows, along with Finding Bigfoot, where basically the same thing happens again and again. Sort of the nerdy version of a soap opera, I suppose. It was a little past two am, not quite the witching hour. Good old Girogio was saying how whatever ruins he was standing at were most likely built by aliens from a planet near Orion's Belt. I turned off the television, and marveled at how quiet it was. Usually at around two, the local bars are all just closing, and there is a lot of activity as the night owls stagger to their cars, usually chattering away like drunken chipmunks hoping to convince one of their fellow drinkers to come home with them. Not last night. It was silent.

Taught three two hour classes yesterday for Reel Kids on Zoom, which was acting up and went completely nuts a few times. Lost audio, frozen image, and such. Still, for the most part it worked, and we were able to talk about this whole thing, and about how everyone is doing. Most of them find to their surprise that they miss school. They also miss going out for pizza with their friends. And human contact. But I was struck by how much each group has changed. They are all different people. I think that we change at certain milestones in life. Graduation. Marriage. Deaths of loved ones. And now, global pandemic. Good or bad, happy or sad, we are all changed forever by this. There is no going back to normal. I've never really understood normal to be anything but a dream of some ideal world that never existed anyway. So let's not use the word normal. We will never go back to being the people we were when this began. I think of lot of us will be stronger, wiser, better equipped to deal with life. Some of us will probably be damaged, and carry our wounds to the grave. Of course, this is all conjecture. The only way to find out what we will be like in the future is to get to the future. I just can't shake this feeling that the world is going to have to change, out of necessity. Our economic system, our health system, our morals and ethics. We are being show, in deadly lessons, just how connected we all are. If for nothing other than pure selfishness, we must take care of each other or we will all join the throngs of zombies, leaving our children with strangers.

So let's all find our inner heroes and rises to the occasion.

Here's a song.