Coronavision

Well here we are, right in the middle of one of my post-apocalyptic stories I favor so much. I know some of my friends don't quite understand why I love this genre. One of my favorite books is The Stand by Stephen King, which I read as a preteen. Unfamiliar with The Stand? The main character is a plague nicknamed Captain Trips, indiscriminately killing 99% of the population as survivors all gravitate to Las Vegas of all places. I love films like 28 Days Later and Contagion, and really heart the first few seasons of "The Walking Dead." Sans pareil of the genre, is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Don't read that one and expect to feel hopeful afterwards, troubled and hazy drunk perhaps, but not hopeful. The stories of resiliency, perseverance, triumph, love and even boring day-to-day existence, is the pull of the apocalyptic tale for me. It's why I started watching "The Walking Dead" and why I stopped near season 7 when it got too gratuitously violent. I didn't watch for the zombie massacres, I watched for the stories of well drawn characters in which I hoped to see myself.

Over the past week, I find myself strangely getting used to an odd gloom hanging over everything. I stocked up on things a couple of weeks ago, so no dealing with empty store shelves for me. I have plenty of TP, canned goods, batteries, pasta, rice, and coffee of course. While I wasn't a great Girl Scout, I am typically always prepared. I chalk it up to being a Capricorn and an only child more than anything, but being prepared also calms my mind. This odd gloom reminds me of the fires here in Colorado the spring and summer of 2012. That was such a shitty summer in so many ways. I ended up having to cancel a large-scale bike tour due to a county-wide smoke alert. The event was a large fundraiser for the healthcare foundation I worked for at the time. I remember making the decision and bursting into tears at my friend Paul's desk. He looked at me like any man that has a crying woman in their office would, kinda scared, and said, "You know it's not your fault, right?" While I certainly did know that, I still felt a lot of guilt over the decision. Little did I know how much I would learn from that experience, namely that people can be assholes, especially when sitting behind a computer screen. My favorite was an email from a firefighter named Forrest (you can't make this shit up) who lambasted me for canceling. I did end up getting a much calmer email in return after I reminded him, professionally mind you, that he of all people should understand my decision. And I would be remiss to not mention that most people were cool about it, understanding that a healthcare system can't, in good conscience, send 1500 cyclists out to ride 60+ miles during a county-wide smoke alert.

The summer of fire also taught me something a bit more important. I remember talking to my dad on the phone as I watched the Waldo Canyon fire eat people's homes, live on TV. The High Park fire was about 6 miles from my house, as the crow flies. Horsetooth Reservoir, a large body of water, sat between me and the fire, but I was anxious anyway. Dad asked me what I could do to feel better. I told him I was worried that if the fire somehow magically jumped over the reservoir, I would be too far away to grab important things from my house, and that my dog Cadence would be stuck inside. He told me, "You have a Subaru. Put the things you want to save from a fire in crates and drive around with them till the threat goes away." I did just that and immediately felt better. I made arrangements for Cadence too, and felt prepared, my mind at ease.

When this virus started getting a stronghold in Washington, my dad's words came back to me and I casually went to Costco on a Friday after work and then to the grocery store like normal. No hurrying, no panic, just normal shopping to be prepared. Once the cancellations started rolling in, I had nothing but compassion for everyone making these tough decisions. Especially when you have people making light of a truly world-wide public health crisis. Journalist Laurie Garrett @Laurie_Garrett, said on the On the Media podcast, that Americans are epidemic voyeurs. We in the U.S. have had the privilege of watching epidemics from afar, for the most part. She pondered what the mettle of the American public would be once COVID-19 became a pandemic. Did she envision a run on toilet paper and beer? Regardless, my mind was calm and I felt prepared.

When I started in event planning, I would pore over contracts and was always intrigued by the concept of force majeure, French for superior force. Force majeure is common in contracts and basically frees both parties from liability due to an extraordinary event, like a hurricane, or a public health emergency perhaps, causing the event to not take place. When I'd read that part of a contract, after learning what it meant, I felt like my little bike tour, 5K or triathlon was a bigger deal than it actually was somehow. The words force majeure sound important, they have gravitas, appropriately so for what they mean, right? Or maybe anything sounds more important in another language?

Could this be our force majeure? The odd gloomy feeling aside, I feel a strange, unsettling sense of a new beginning. Could this be the end of the absolute worst president and administration in history? An end to people being so fucking awful to each other? An end of what's-in-it-for-me culture? Or does the run on TP and beer indicate otherwise? Will we just continue on as selfishly normal once the smoke clears, only caring about ourselves? I hope not. One thing I am pretty certain of - as this pandemic forces us to work from home, having more Teams meetings and conference calls, we'll be forced to talk on the phone more. You know, instead of seeing people in person. And as someone who has always disliked talking on the phone, I'm choosing to look at this as an opportunity, like when I was allowed a phone in my room when I was a teenager to talk to boys in private. Who knows, maybe in a strange, horribly beautiful way, this will bring people closer together and we can stop hoarding TP, and maybe share that beer.

Stay safe, and remember to do your part to #flattenthecurve.

The Winner Takes It All...

But do they? I've been happily re-watching the 4th season of Better Call Saul in preparation for the 5th, and final season. Truly, Better Call Saul is better than Breaking Bad. Sublime, poignant and just top notch storytelling. Anyway, the last episode in season 4 is titled, Winner, and poor Jimmy McGill is anything but. Saul Goodman on the other hand, is well, a certain kind of winner. A self-made man that when confronted with the many obstacles of his sad, little life, becomes needed, necessary. And dressed in pink, or maybe it's more of a mauve, whatever - he becomes your guy when you run into trouble and consistently makes hay out of any drug-dealing, corrupt, and downright dangerous situation. The prepaid cell phone he sells you is already programmed with his number for god's sake.

All this winning watching got me thinking about my own lot in life, as it were. Lately, the ambiguity of it all allows me time to think about what. the. fuck. is. next. I signed up for voice lessons today, so that's something I suppose. Don't worry, not singing lessons, but I digress. I've talked to several friends about this middle ground I'm on, along with most other women in our age bracket, and here's the thing, or some kind of thing at least; no one is asking me to do anything. Not a damn thing. Other than work related requests, which I mostly enjoy, there's not a dang thing in my inbox. So what about this - because there's nothing in my inbox (and I mean that literally, too) - I could try to be grateful for the unfettered time on my hands, right? Time to think about what I want to do next, instead of, "Holy shit, what am I gonna do next," I get to do whatever I want. I mean literally, I can do whatever the hell I want. I answer to no one (except work, of course). Who gets that? I'm too old to answer to my parents, although I do care what they think of me, and while I may not answer to anyone, I do feel a sense of responsibility to lots of people.  Instead of looking at this as an existential crisis, this is really just one more opportunity I have in my generally unburdened life, to do whatever I want. Really, the only thing we get to control are our thoughts, our next moves, and our choices. I'm going to try to choose fabulous over flummoxed and make some hay of my own, like Jimmy, or maybe Saul.

Could this be what the fabulous 50's are all about?