TomFlannery.com

Just trying to keep my head above water. Working. Writing. Playing. Singing. Collaborating. Walking. Talking with my kids. Playing with my dog. Trying not to look out the window. It’s dark out there.

I’ve been working from home, and every morning I log in and check the news. Inevitably the various outrages of the previous 24 hours slap me in the face like a Monty Python fish. Even the occasional good news…..an astounding NASA mission or a historic Supreme Court win for the LGBGT community, seems to quickly get swallowed up by a relentless barrage of shitiness.

I keep thinking we’re better than this, but what if we aren’t?

We move forward, and then we forget that we’re standing on one of those airport conveyors…..and everything gets rolled back as we slap each other on the back. And then the same bad things happen, and we can’t believe we have to fight the same battle all over again. The truth is increasingly harder to get at, and people divided from each other tend to only look for what buttresses their own world views. So in a way, the truth has become almost irrelevant. Certainly that’s true of the President and his supporters. Headlines aren’t driven by the smartest, they’re driven by the loudest. And the loudest sells the most product.

Dr. Fauci has been shrugged aside as the pandemic rages on. He’s too reasoned. Too steady. He doesn’t rant or rave or deal in conspiracy theories. He gives his best medical opinion, which has increasingly become something that nobody wants to hear anymore. Lock downs are unofficially over…..social distancing and masks have largely become a thing of the past. Large gatherings are everywhere. Protests. Political rallies. Malls. Or just backyard yahoos. Schools are opening up in the fall. Fauci has been shelved because he keeps saying “but….but….”

It’s been a tidal wave fuckthisitis, and he stood there long enough to get washed away.

We won’t admit it out loud but most seemed to have made the collective decision that some folks are just gonna have to get over it and die, because nobody can sustain another round of being bunkered up for months at a time. Money runs out. Patience runs out. Mental health runs out. You get tired of looking to the horizon for the cavalry. There’s no leadership out of Washington. States are on their own. Cities and towns are on their own.

It’s both understandable, and slightly appalling at the same time. It is, no matter how you try to spin it, survival of the fittest from now on. Covid-19 has uprooted some pretty nasty stuff about our natures.

There’s still marching in the streets. People finding energy from years of being tired. Tired of being treated differently because of the color of their skin. And more and more white people are standing alongside them now. It’s not our fight, but maybe it should have been all along. For generations most of us did not engage in outward discrimination, but we did turn away. We snickered at the crass jokes. Or shared some ourselves. Is there much difference anymore? To me that’s what these protests are about in 2020. That’s why the statues are being torn down. The old excuses are coming down as well. If you won’t stand up for the rights of others, what right have you to demand these rights for yourself?

Everybody wants “normal” again. But normal is what got us here. Surely that will no longer do, right?

Healing requires human touch. Closeness. Eye to eye. Cheek to cheek. And yet here we are, bobbing and weaving, some staying away out of fear, and others in our faces because of hate. It’s been the most extraordinary year of our lives…..and nobody has any idea how any of this is going to end. All we can seemingly agree on is that we want it to.

But first, the summer will roll on relentlessly. Heat and storms and ice cream cones and barbecues and flag waving. There’s nothing to distract us anymore. No baseball or NBA playoffs…..no Sunday afternoon Tiger Woods rally or highlight-packed evening Sportscenter. So we just sit and stew, trying to pretend things are getting back to normal when we know damn well they are not.

Before we know it the leaves will turn…the kids will be back in school. And it’s a wait and see game from there. What happens if the kid next to you in class, or the girl down the hall in your dorm, tests positive? What happens if a teacher does? Do you shut it all down? Send everybody home? Hold your breath?

Or do you just say….”good luck kids….please turn to chapter 13…”

To not expect these scenarios is to be living in a fantasy land. But then again perhaps that’s the one most of us prefer to be in right now.

In a bit..

–tf