This month marks a year since the start of the pandemic. Who I am now – who we are now – is far different than who we were a year ago. For many, we did not expect a long-standing restrictive period. For some, following deep restrictions provided the current reward of a life that looks nearly identical everyday life back in 2019. For others, the veil of restriction lingers with each set of virus reports turning the dial toward or away from less confining measures. I see the blessing of 2021 as a deep awareness of schisms: marital or familial, educational, economic, democratic, racial, and internal.
Days, weeks, and months of enforced isolation thrust upon the planet as a response to the pandemic lacerated and distressed our communal human awareness, the skin we wear as human beings that both defines us and provides protective boundaries. The very visible signs of this rending include the large numbers of infections and deaths due to the coronavirus. It is hard to remain the same while structures fall around us.
A wooden divider between one place and the next – but light continues to pass through. [Pixabay]
Exposed family schisms due to the pandemic include a rise in separations, divorces, and family members lost to death or prolonged absences due to illness. This enforced time with spouses, partners, and children not only drew us closer together, but it magnified our flaws to the point that we can no longer avoid the problems that lie before us. While we cannot control death or prolonged illness, family schisms do force a choice: deal with the flaws or call it quits.
Parents and children have a different view of virtual learning than a year ago. In an age of 21st century technology, when smart phones and streaming platforms are everyday items, but only for some, the educational divide is no longer a fissure but a canyon. Those who have stable internet access at home, a sufficient number of laptops and tablets for each student, and help from adults thrive.
A drop in family income due to unemployment means someone has to support the household, so a teenager takes on a job to help the family survive. When the choice is to work to have food on the table or to go to class to finish high school, it is easy to see how the educational schism forms and survives. A lack of internet access combined with insufficient laptop or technical devices results in falling behind in classes or the choice to not return to school at all so long as the learning is virtual.
Private schools or public schools that continue to meet in person with minimal virtual involvement represent a divide between what wealthier areas can provide and what public-supported education in other areas can provide. The social contract to provide a quality education to our children takes a vacation during a pandemic when an economic downturn exposes and widens the educational divide as well. We create separate classes for those who are able to maintain and complete their education and those who cannot do so due to a lack of technology or lack of economic stability in the home.
This schism reflects the larger fissure of economic divide brought upon by massive unemployment, particularly in the service sectors that rely upon large gatherings or places that are potential virus spreaders: restaurants, bars, movie theaters, gyms, outdoor musical venues, and sporting centers.
Essential workers provide basic societal services, but some of these jobs do not provide the same living wage and benefits as the pre-pandemic range of employment opportunities. The grocery store worker, the Amazon delivery driver, and the long-term care assistant are in high demand, but they are not necessarily well-paid for their important work.
The recent trend of helping restaurants by adding large ($1,000 or more) tips to a small ($13-30) helps some to thrive just a little; the restaurant industry in some parts of the United States may never return. Even when spaces re-open, they are not doing so at one hundred percent, yet they have the same bills.
While the restaurant industry is one example of problems during the pandemic, I see resiliency in the number of new home businesses. Because we stayed at home, nearly everyone has a banana bread recipe. Small businesses that can ship and sell creations flourish in our new economy.
At times it has felt like the past year has been a firestorm, burning everything we know down around it [Pixabay]
Among the many schisms dotting our current landscape, the deepest divides lay in the realms of the democratic, racial and emotional. In the United States, the most recent election revealed the lacerations in the democratic fabric of our country. The understanding from what many are taught in grade school or high schools fractured, shattered, and spilled on the ground before all of us. Common ground, a presumption for many pre-pandemic, now emerges in short supply. Now we question, who are we, what are the true foundations of our democracy? In a time of want and need, economic and health due to the pandemic, what really matters for those who exist in a democracy?
Officially, the United States is a federal constitutional democratic republic, with three branches (executive, judicial, legislative) sharing the power at the federal level; power is also split between the federal government and state governments. While this seems practical, there are times when it can get in the way, such as when duly elected representatives cannot agree on which issues are most important for the good of the country as a whole.
The recent events of January 6 strain even the most optimistic among us as to what can be done. If this were a family or marital relationship, therapy would be the first option. Yet finding a good counselor means that all parties have to be willing to not only say what is in their minds and hearts, but to listen to each other in good faith.
Normally, this is the purview of journalism, the public press. Journalism in the best of times both reports to the public and represents the views of the public. At present, the news media consumed reflects a type of media religiosity where the worshipers fully embrace the outlets of their chosen political faith: conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, far-left, or far-right.
Skewed within the democratic schism, lies the embers of racial schism. Some see the political, legal, and law enforcement responses to the protests over the death of George Floyd during the summer of 2020 and events of January 6 through a racial lens, as well as a political lens. One question repeatedly asked: would the outcome of January 6 have been the same if the protest had been a storming of the capitol by people of color?
While anecdotal evidence suggests that this would not happen for fear of a massive law enforcement response with a resulting blood bath, what we do know is that the political divide has expanded the already heated racial schism in the United States.
Finally, there is the emotional internal schism. We are no longer who we were a year ago thanks to the changes brought about by period of enforced restrictions. The adoption of puppies and kittens to combat the isolation helped with the very human need for touch. The cuddle of a pet is better than becoming skin starved due to lack of contact with another human being.
Social life in some areas relies solely on the virtual platform or those within one’s household. Religious rituals for many are solely online. The benefit is that the weather generally not a factor within one’s own house. During this time, we re-think our lives, what we actually need, not what we have as the result of consumerism. Marty Nemko speaks of our need to examine our everyday philosophies in life, the ones that keep us going. When we are working 50 hours a week, spending time on ourselves becomes a luxury.
Pandemic time forces a re-evaluation of who we are, what we have or do not have, and what we choose as our values. We are closer to each other regardless of continent or society than we have been in a long time. We know that we live in multiple societies that we choose to navigate under the pretense of unity. Life is not in our control, and our lives are forever changed as a result. Do we love the one we are with or choose to not be with the ones we love?
We are no longer who were were a year ago – economics and the need to survive schisms created in formerly solid parts of reality – home, education, democracy, race, and self mean that we preparing to meet the rest of the world with a new front and a new attitude. Although it is not clear now, I believe that we are better for shedding our shredded skin. We just need patience to let our skin heal in the light of the new year and the new day.
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