Lessons Learned While the City’s our Oyster
Tappity tappity tap. Having suffered the horrors of March through May, alongside all New Yorker’s, we recognize that good governance, science and trusted medical advice yield positive results. After enduring a brutal stay at home order and watching 23,000 New Yorkers die in under four months, one of them a cousin, it’s disheartening to see over 20 other states go back to where we were four months ago – for something that was entirely avoidable. Have they learnt nothing?
I know we may all be tuned out to the divisive discourse in the country right now, but I just want to make two quick observations. One, it’s confounding how one conflates politics with science & medicine on a pandemic. How does wearing a mask on medical advice become political, when the nation’s top doctors, Dr. Fauci, the Surgeon General and CDC plead with people to wear one for the greater good while this virus rages through the population? To satirist/comedian Jon Stewart’s point, people who complain about masks and their constitutional right to not wear one, are they going to tell a surgeon who ever operates on them “take that liberal surgical mask off and get those dirty hands right in there?” Yup.
Two, it certainly begs the question, if a foreign enemy’s mission was to divide the country and tear it apart, implode it from within – then mission practically accomplished. As an immigrant myself (now citizen, it’s sad I even need to point that last part out), I find myself recently questioning the fact that this is not the country I moved to 25 years ago. I force myself to dig deep inside my well of optimism and hope that things might be different in 2021 and that this country can find itself again.
So what have I learned?
With the fear of death for me and my family right outside our door, and will’s drawn up in case I’m next, I learnt to appreciate what I have. And quickly recalibrate my life’s expectations. I’ve somewhat morphed from an A+ character to a humbler and more empathetic version of myself. It feels good. The distractions of a previously fast-paced everyday life, i.e. pre-COVID, have significantly slowed down enough to parse out what’s important and what’s not. Love and joy in the simple things are what songs are made of but also life itself. Finding that sweet spot more than fortifies myself to mentally deal with this new world we find ourselves in for however long.
I’ve experienced a very different New York City. One devoid of people. Museum like, perfectly preserved in time. We couldn’t find any affordable places to rent for a short break within 650 miles of NYC for the entire summer because so many had fled the city and booked all available space, so I bought a bike and a bike trailer and hauled the kids and the Mrs all over the city. It may have been a poor man’s vacation, but it was right in urban insight. We bombed down the middle of 5th Avenue, alone. We explored an empty Grand Central and Times Square. The kids, wide eyed, marveled at all the flashing neon, while not understanding the significance of it being empty. To them, they were the first kids on the moon. They wandered around empty Soho & Tribeca streets, kicking a ball like street urchins from Newsies.
We cycled over the 59th Street bridge to Queens and were impressed by their bike lanes. More bike lanes please, Mr. Mayor. We paid our respects at Grant’s Tomb. The kids made friends with the Fierce Girl of Wall Street. Learnt to fly kites in an empty Central Park. We built little water dams beside The Intrepid. We watched empty ferries sail to Staten Island. Those pictures, those memories, priceless. My arse? Aching.
I’ve learnt some hard skills long the way too. I learned how to shoot and edit films. Solved problems like how to film myself running while keeping the camera fluid and steady. Answer, a gimbal for a Steadicam effect. How long to hold a shot for better dramatic effect. Sound design. How to create custom titles in iMovie. Painful. I learned how to grout & seal, with surprisingly good results. My kitchen and bathroom look brand new. And of course, there is this blog. I’d never contemplated doing a blog before. I’m glad I did though. This little diary has helped me through this pandemic. It gave me an additional purpose and a focus. A way to capture and document this extraordinary time. Something I can show my kids when they grow up and ask questions, hard questions about this dark period in our history.
And so….as we reach the midpoint of our hot summer, I take some comfort in the fact that we now have in NYC some semblance of a normal life. We can go out. The kids can play in a playground with some other kids. We can eat outside in a restaurant. Most importantly, infection rates and new cases are down. We went from being the epicentre of the pandemic in this country to the envy of the nation. People are taking the mask wearing seriously as we head into Phase 4. It’s not perfect – I won’t be seeing the inside of an office until at least 2021 (I started my new job in May entirely remotely. I feel lucky I have a job). Testing for infection and antibodies took two weeks to get results (I was negative for both), cinemas, gyms, inside bars and performing arts all still shut – with pretty grim economic consequences. And God only knows what school will look like in the fall. Remote, in class, a hybrid? Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
I fear for the economic future of this city, since nothing has fundamentally changed with the virus since this all began, nothing short of a miracle vaccine can shut this down in the short run. But in the meantime, here’s hoping we as a nation can adhere to science and good governance and at least keep infection rates low and people alive while giving ourselves a fighting chance to improve our economy. And while we are at it, solve the perennial problem of racial injustice.
Keep wearing those masks folks!
Tappity, tappity tap….here’s to soaring high again.
