Hope sometimes springs...

 One thing I've really struggled with in the pandemic is hope. Sometimes as simple as "do I still want to be doing this job," sometimes something more existential. 

And so many times in this I've had my hope destroyed. First, in the very first days, I thought "Oh, this will be like the Original SARS and we'll institute good checks at the airports, and we'll shut it down fast, and by May things will be back to normal" which was followed by "maybe if we lock down hard for a month it'll die out for lack of transmission?"

which was followed by actually locking down (though my state/locality never did so very much; yes, "nonessential" businesses closed for a while, and I taught from home for the second half of spring 2020 semester). And at the same time, I remember listening to the rising death count in Britain (through the BBC), and in New York, and hearing people - I think Haseltine was one? - talking about "we've never made a vaccine against coronavirus, we probably won't against this one" and holy crap, at that point I figured it was all over, we'd all either have to live as hermits or else die. 

And the summer dragged on; I had little human contact but I guess I sort of adapted. At any rate, I made it. I think I just kind of closed down and tried to live my life online, and also read a lot (at least I could still read). 

And then school rolled back around. I was given the choice to teach online or inperson and I debated it hard. Online, I hated teaching online - I was lonesome, I lacked any connection with the students, I felt I taught very badly. But in-person? I remember when I went to my doctor for my late-July checkup (that was when she was seeing people in person; my next two appointments were virtual) I asked for living-will documents and a DNR statement to fill out; I had concluded if I caught COVID and got bad enough to require intubation I just wanted to be "let go," I had read too much about how hard and how unlikely it was for people to come back from that. My doctor reassured me (and she turned out to be right) that by taking all the precautions I was doing I would be safe - there was a mask mandate on campus, and we had smaller classes and strove to stay 6' apart (which may not have been the panacea we thought, but I think my anxiety benefited from NOT KNOWING THAT then)

And then, in November of last year this news came. Somewhat unbelievable. I had heard there were vaccines being worked on and tested, but I remembered That Guy who said "there's never been a vaccine against a coronavirus" and I braced myself for them to fail - and they didn't. 

And then, of course, the impatient months until it became available. The frustration of the attempt to help via long-distance my mom to secure an appointment (at that point I cared more about her getting it than me getting it) until FINALLY the senior-citizens group in her town figured out that "hey not everyone over 75 uses the Internet" and started a phone tree - so she got her shot. And then a couple weeks later, the incredible good fortune of my university president securing a small number of shots that would have gone to waste otherwise, and I got one, even though I wondered about the ethics of my taking it at the time. 

And I remember how my birthday was 2 weeks after the first dose, and that was back in the halcyon days before even the Alpha variant, and I figured it was safe to go out - and I went to JoAnn's and to Ulta. Not to a restaurant, at least not in one (Maybe I did drive through and ate in my car? I don't remember)

And then the second dose, and I felt like I was protected. I made plans and traveled to see my mom in May - remember how a lot of us believed we'd be essentially free of this (at least for the vaccinated) by July 4?

I finished a manuscript and submitted it, got the reviews back and made the recommended changes and sent it back. 

Went to see my mom again, but that was when we were hearing reports of Delta - which got worse while I was up there. I went back home carefully, but then locked back down pretty hard (between concerns about Delta, road construction, and just plain being busy, I haven't been south of the border since before Labor Day). And I sat through the bad news again, and realized: this is probably forever now. You'll probably never be as free as you were before; it may even be you decide to ALWAYS wear a mask indoors buildings with strangers from now on.

And I admit, I did feel a little despair. One of my faults is that I do tend to think things will never change - so bad times feel like they will last forever. I contemplated: what if this IS forever, if my life is never going anywhere much and having very limited human contact, will I last a lot longer? (I worry about those news stories that claim being lonely is as bad as smoking for you. I doubt it IS, but I'm assuming it's not GOOD). And of course being extremely busy at work (and coupling in the worry about "when do I fit in the fall fieldwork?" doesn't help) made me more distressed. 

I was trying to find things - media - that would seem hopeful and pleasant, and like I said the other day, where the good characters are Good and there's none of that greying-down or antiheroing of them. Because I need that right now. And I actually ordered a book ("A Psalm for the Wild-Built" by Becky Chambers) even though SF/F is not generally a genre I read a lot of, but I wanted this one because I read it described as "hopepunk," and boy, do I need that sense.

One thing I've lost in this, maybe because of the relentless awfulness but also maybe because I spent almost a year and a half doing far LESS out in the world than I normally did and having less interaction where I helped people than I normally do, I felt very powerless, like nothing I could do would make anything at all better - and I want to believe that one person's actions matter, even if in a tiny way, and that's one thing that could keep me going through....all this. That maybe I can make one person's life better even if I can't solve the problem of the pandemic, or fix politics, or sell all I have and give all the money to the poor....

And yeah, it's funny now that I look back on it, how my perspective changed tectonically from believing in the Starfish Story (the old story about the kid throwing starfish back into the ocean, and when a man tells him what he's doing is pointless because he can't possibly make a difference, and the kid chucks another starfish back into the ocean and remarks "I made a difference to that one") and I don't know how I got changed unless it's because I saw ALL the bad in the world and realized that the small good I can do seems....inconsequential....against it, and....I don't know. I know I tend to be an all-or-nothing thinker and maybe I got to feeling that "since I can't fix everything, or even one big thing, why should I even try to fix anything?" though I am NOT the kind of person who can go Full Selfish and stop trying - so I kept trying and it just felt futile and pointless. 

And I admit, I still wrestle with that. The idea that I am called to do what good I can, but that it ultimately feels a little bit futile because there are so many big bad things going on. 

And I do admit I sometimes tend to belittle what I can do - but again, apparently one of the points of hopepunk is the idea that even small actions, even something like getting a fussy baby to calm down and sleep, or repairing a sock, that counts too. That even the small actions can make the world better.

the thing is, though: how do I get myself back to BELIEVING that? I can act it out, I can do it, but right now I don't exactly feel it.

Then again - there is less of a feeling of being mired in the muck today. It's finally gotten a bit cooler and less humid, so it feels like things are "moving" (one of the worst things about summer for me is that it feels eternal - hot, humid, muggy, no rain, for months at a time) and are going to change. And I've set aside a couple hours tomorrow afternoon, and Saturday morning, to try to get a couple of transects done in my research - I think I will feel relief getting a start on this. 

And also, today I noticed something - a friend of mine had mailed me some spider-plant starts to replace the spider plant I had that died years ago, and also a "pregnant onion." The spider plants are doing well (they seem to be pretty tough; I think the problem with the last one was I had it out on the porch and it got fried in extreme heat). I thought the PG onion had died - its single leaf had dried up and died, and I thought, "Well, maybe I should dig it out and get another plant to replace it" but I got busy and was unmotivated to....and then the other day I noticed a tiny shoot, and today it looks like this:

So it's surviving. I didn't kill the plant. (I was careful not to overwater - that's how I did in my original Christmas cactus early in the pandemic; I think I needed something to take care of and I overdid the watering - I did get some new shoots from my mom and they are doing well now)

And maybe things will get better fairly soon? There's some talk that this current wave is ending, and even a few people saying "we may be more back to normal again by March." I am not sure I am willing to believe that - I've had too many disappointments in this - and I know I will also need a lot of relearning to be comfortable being back out "in the world" again but....maybe there are signs of hope?