Musings at 2am.....

I just watched a horrible movie by M. Night Shaymalan called “The Happening”.  It seems there is some sort of natural biological phenomena that suddenly descends on the Northeast as a wind blowing through the cities and towns, stopping everyone in their tracks and making them simply commit suicide.  It is completely ridiculous and the dialog is even worse!  When it was over, however, it dawned on me that I was experiencing the same thing, only it was called Covid-19!

Maybe it’s just that I am beginning to go stir crazy, just marking time day after day, each day seeming the same with no end in sight.  I am unsettled because while I am trying to make sense out of each day and be rational about what our chances are of not catching the virus, the madness of the rest of the world is swirling around me!  Just watch the news!  See all the stupid things that people are doing: unhinged behavior where no one wears a mask and social distancing is a joke.  ‘Leaders’ seem unfazed by the danger, ignoring the science and simply

telling everyone that they’ll be fine.  “We have to open up”, they say! “No worries, we’ll all be fine—
and of course we are going to be saved by all the testing we are doing, which is more testing than has ever been done before in the history of the world!”  And the lemmings of America say, “OK!  I believe you-- science is a hoax and this virus stuff is not going to happen to me!”, they bray to each other!

The TV is filled with conflicting messages from those who know what is really happening and those who think they have all the answers-- and are fools!  And I sit here day after day listening to the endless blabber of opposing experts, trying to convince myself that I am not going mad!  I change the channel and I am listening to mini profiles of selected examples of the 100,000 dead ones, or first person accounts from the front line heroes.  The number of dead is hard to get my head wrapped around.  Each name is a mountain of grief for the individuals who agonize over their loss.  Multiply that circle of mourners by 100,000 and it boggles the mind!

Trump refers to them as ‘numbers’ of dead without any scintilla of empathy and it just amplifies the sense of disorientation that I feel.  I am living in a relative cocoon of safety while the world is spinning out of control around me with no one able to tame the chaos.   

What I always imagined was our organized and capable government turns out to be a myth!  I listen day after day as the evidence of our government’s impotence to organize and control this sickness relentlessly washes over us.  No one seems to be able to come up with a plan!  Lots of people talk about what we SHOULD be doing, but no one is doing it!  Our President is openly de-legitimizing the agencies that are supposed to create the solutions and offer guidance and advice.  He is using the sledgehammer of his apparently unstoppable powers to crumble our institutions day after day, while madly telling us what an incredible job he is doing, and no one seems to have a way to stop him.  His acolytes, the Republicans, are part of the swirl of madness that somehow keeps him in power.

Have I made YOU dizzy yet??

I wonder how many people sense this churning chaos that seems unstoppable.  I am embarrassed at

my agita when I realize that I am one of the lucky ones who is well off!  How many millions have no job; not enough food; can’t pay the rent or mortgage; are dealing with impending bankruptcy; are facing eviction; can’t get unemployment—and on and on?

On some level I know the end game is a vaccine if we can all make it to that seemingly unattainable day when we can get an injection and tame this beast.  But the distance between now and then seems to be a chasm of sickness and sorrow that I fear we all are going to have to face….and I know that until that time I must find a way to endure this feeling of helpless disorientation that makes me want to constantly pop a Xanax!

Maybe tomorrow I will watch a Doris Day or a Pee Wee Herman movie!