Where are we?

On September 11, 2001, I was driving to class at Texas State Technical College, and I called my mom. She was teaching at Marine Military Academy, and she said she was watching news reports with her students as smoke billowed from towers on the screen. We didn’t realize it yet, but by the time we were talking to each other, we were already in a "post-9/11 world.”

This memory struck me today, and it began to sink in. We’re already in a post-corona world. I can’t quite tell when it started, but now there’s no denying that the world has changed forever… again.

Global markets and industries are shaken, and some may not recover. Governments across the world are in various stages of crisis-management, and some cannot be trusted. Families are in quarantine across the world, and some of them don’t really like each other. 

Conveniently, in an election year.

This isn’t going to have a sudden ending. It didn’t start suddenly… no matter how fast it feels like it all happened. 

Years later, I moved to New York, and I landed on the day that Katrina hit New Orleans. I spoke to my mom on that day, too. She and my Dad spent the next few weeks going from south Texas to Louisiana with supplies and building materials for victims. In a matter of hours after that storm hit, we were in a post-Katrina world.

This new world is already evolving in front of us, and there are so many questions… 

First, when did it start? 

When was the moment that we entered this post-corona world? The event is here, obviously. And it is still happening. But the beginning; the first domino; the marker of our lives forever changing… that’s behind us now. But, when was it, exactly? Was it the first reported case? A bat biting an anteater? When we look back in 10 years, what will we call the moment that the world changed? When we all learned the phrase “Shelter in Place”? Or maybe it’ll be when Martial Law takes effect in New York?

Meanwhile, we’re already here. Undeniably. The waves are hitting the shores, and the water is rushing over the levees. It’s begun. Now what?

What is this place? and… What do we want it to be?

Over the past 8 days or so, I’ve made my rounds calling friends around the country to take a sort-of temperature from various states and cities. From Texas to Tennessee, Alabama to Wyoming, and Los Angeles to New York; news of this event, and the response to it followed a pattern. Densely-populated cities and states managed the crisis in an array of strategies differing from those of more rural areas, but the pattern at-large was the same - a daily, gradual, squeeze. 

At first, conversations with friends in New York and LA start by reviewing news reports of outbreaks, international trends, and cautious optimism. Friends in rural areas took longer to get to the topic of the virus, but eventually found it annoying, and mostly over-blown. 

That was last week.

Slowly, over the past week, the message seems to have spread from border to border, city to farm, mountain to island - everyone. stay. home. 

And now, as I speak with friends in any city, state, or country, friends from India to Amsterdam are all thinking in a sort-of global consciousness… the first topic on everyone’s mind is… ‘it’. 

Do you have it? Do I have it? Do you know anyone who has it? Have you had outbreaks of it near you? What is your city doing about it?

Social media is simultaneously inspiring and toxic as always. Zoom Yoga classes and virtual happy hours sprout up along with free cooking shows and homemade bread recipes. 

Meanwhile, gun stores around the country are flooded with orders, lines wrap around Sam’s and Cosco (where social-distancing is temporarily-banned for people to stand chest-to-back with lists of items everyone knows are long-gone… thankfully, viruses understand, and hold off on being contagious while we’re standing in line…); and social media gets littered with false data, hot-button arguments, and worn-out straw men. 

Meanwhile, someone, somewhere, is sitting on a 2-car garage full of toilet paper, and architecting a plan for world-domination.

Meanwhile, some Americans are now seeing the National Guard marching through their streets while non-essential personnel have a curfew. 

In America. In an election year.

What if homeschooling is just the obvious choice for a whole new generation of parents after this? 

What if it’s no longer a viable business model to own a grocery store that doesn’t run on a subscription basis with same-day delivery of FDA-approved produce in sanitized packaging? 

What if the new TSA process includes checking your temperature before and after each flight, and denying all travelers who are running a fever? 

What is this new world that we've just entered? And, while we’re thinking about it… what do we want it to be?

Crisis is a unifying force. Families stay at home together, find ways to bond and connect. We look at old photos and play games. We watch reruns, binge shows, and discover new outlets.

But in another way, crisis surfaces cracks. Weak links. Fair-weather friends. Dividing lines can be hidden by humanity in times of crisis, but new ones can be created at the same time, and only reveal themselves in the next crisis.

By day 8*, most of us are still holding it together. But the restlessness is creeping in. "Stir crazy…" "Cabin fever…” “What if…” (* who knows?)

Where are we? 

Eventually, we’re gonna get another chance to step out of our capsules and walk around in this new planet and to interact with each other in this new world. But, what will those interactions be like? What do we want them to be like?

Do we all need to carry a thermometer on a keychain? Will we need to self-identify as carriers? Should we all wear masks and gloves? Are handshakes a thing of the past? Are vaccines going to be mandatory now? 

What if a non-symptomatic, adult, American citizen, and confirmed carrier of COVID-19 refuses to take the vaccine? 

What if that person is a teacher? A chiropractor? A cab driver? 

Will we require signs to be posted on businesses that have had their employees vaccinated and their surfaces fully-sterilized on a daily basis (even non-food-related businesses)?

By the way, how long will we be waiting for that vaccine? 

There are so many more questions than answers. And many of these questions won’t have answers for quite some time, and could go in a myriad of ways. 

But some of these seem like questions that we have to answer for ourselves. Because if we don’t, someone else will.