Not All the Changes Brought on By the Pandemic Have Been Bad
The things I want to stay
Make no mistake: the pandemic has been unrelentingly awful. The death toll. The anxiety. The separation from the ones we love. The lack of human touch. The sudden narrowing of our lives. The boredom. The collective trauma.
And on top of that, we’ve had a necessary global reckoning on race, an economic collapse, a divisive election in the US… And that still feels like I’m only scratching the surface of describing everything that has happened in the last year.
There’s a temptation to imagine that when all this is over we can just leave it behind. Burn it down. Move on with our lives. After all, that’s seemingly what happened after the 1918 flu pandemic: “No-one wanted to talk or write about what it was like to live through the flu.” Our great-grandparents barrelled into the roaring ’20s and chose not to look back.
There’s a temptation to imagine that when all this is over we can just leave it behind. Burn it down. Move on with our lives.
But the world was changed nevertheless, by World War I and the flu pandemic. How could it not be? Sitting here, at the edge of another historic pandemic, I can’t help thinking about all that has changed — and which of these changes might reshape our lives in positive ways.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
I’m not a crystal ball gazer and I can’t claim to know what the coming post-pandemic world will look like. But it felt important to catalogue some of the changes I don’t want to say goodbye to. Here’s just a few:
Live-streamed author events, plays, concerts. This feels like the democratization of the arts in the most exciting way. I watched a friend in London’s play from my couch in Toronto. I tuned into countless conversations with writers I love. I love the inventiveness behind making these events more accessible, more open.
Online classes. As a creative writing workshop facilitator, I’ll be honest: I found the switch to online hard. I missed in-person teaching, the particular spark that happens with a group of writers in a single physical space. But to my surprise, I learned that spark could happen online, too. And I was grateful to find people in my classes who never could have made it to in-person classes, whether it was because of location, scheduling, or accessibility. As a participant, I’ve also benefited from online classes. I took a writing class in Connecticut, and in San Francisco, and an art class in NYC, all from the comfort of my home.
Connection to nature. “Nature is healing” was one of the pandemic’s earliest memes. But even if there weren’t dolphins swimming in Venice’s canals, there’s no denying that many of us have sought solace in nature over the last year, myself included. I tended my garden, took long walks in the ravine, relished socially-distanced outdoor hangouts.
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes:
“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”
My hope is that this was the year that many of us felt the love that the earth offers us and that this transforms the way we think about our relationship. We need to make a change to avert the worst possible versions of the climate crisis now.
Our attitudes to work and rest. This one is a double-edged sword. I know that I am hugely privileged to not have spent the pandemic year as an essential worker: treating patients in hospital, stacking groceries, working in a meatpacking factory. I am also lucky that I haven’t had to grapple with the encroachment of work into my off time: because I’ve been self-employed for a while now, I already had good boundaries in place. Caveats aside, however, I’m loving the conversations that seem to be circulating right now… The desire so many of us have to reimagine our relationships to work, whether that’s rejecting a return to the 9–5 office, or reconsidering the centrality that work plays in our life. I’ve also had more conversations with folks about the necessity of rest this year: as the Nap Bishop tells us, “rest is resistance.”
This is, by definition, an idiosyncratic and incomplete list. I could have listed a thousand and one different things I want to carry forward, from the family Zoom games nights that connect me to my folks back home to the community crossword that went up in my neighbourhood. Your list will look different to mine, but I suspect you do have a list, if you pause to make one.
Against Silver Linings
I want to be clear here, I don’t buy into toxic positivity. I do not believe every cloud has a silver lining. Not everything happens for a reason. Some experiences are just awful, and naming and acknowledging that is important.
The pandemic may well be a Just Awful Thing. I think it’s hard to know that from within it. Maybe we won’t know for decades; maybe it will be different for each of us. But the intention of making this list, of trying to imagine what comes next isn’t to find silver linings or “make the best of things.”
I want to do something bolder. I want to imagine a better future. As journalist and author Anne Helen Petersen asks:
The pandemic has been awful. But “normal” was pretty bad too. Bad for the planet. Bad for societies. And bad for huge swaths of people, especially for folks experiencing multiple forms of discrimination.
The Takeaway: What Do You Want to Build?
What kind of world will we build in the post-pandemic? Will we return uncritically to “normal”? Will we carry forward some of the good we’ve found? Do we need to imagine more necessary changes?
For me personally, I’m interested in arts programming that is accessible and that removes barriers. I’m passionate about addressing the harm we’re causing the environment. And I want to be part of a society that centres humans over profit.
I don’t necessarily know how all (or any) of those things will happen. My task now is to seek others who are exploring these ideas, listen, and step into take action when I can do so meaningfully. But making the list helps give me a vision of something to move towards.
So: I know you’re tired. I know it’s been a hard year. But when you have some energy to spare, I encourage you to answer these questions.
What do you want to stay?
What do you want to build?
