Can it be possible that the seemingly endless scourge that has gripped our lives for more than two years is finally surrendering to endemic status?
Now that masking mandates are lifting and new coronavirus infections continuing to fall,
how will we behave?
What will be our mood?
Jamie Lee Curtis, award-winning actress and author, captured the mood dilemma deftly in her delightful children’s book, Today I Feel Silly with:
“I’d rather feel silly,
excited, or glad,
than cranky or grumpy,
discouraged or sad.”
Curtis’ lyrical verse along with the whimsical illustrations of the little red-haired heroine by Laura Cornell made it the perfect gift for my little redhead, four-year-old Chesapeake a decade ago.
She loved:
“the moods are just something that happen each day.
Whatever I’m feeling inside is okay.”
What kind of mood should we be experiencing now as we move forward from epidemic to endemic condition into that vague New Normal?
Will we gather to sing and dance and frolic with reckless abandon in the streets as we did as our younger selves? Our carefree, younger selves?
Will we be able to blow frivolous kisses and snuggle with appealing strangers? Cast aside our masks, dump the hand sanitizer, and delete proof of vaccination? Travel far and wide to lands that aren’t isolated hiking trails or remote mountain tops? Mingle with merrymakers in exotic locales?
How about sharing an ice cream cone—Rocky Road or Cherry Vanilla? Or a glass of wine or a beer? Taking a bite from a friend’s fork? Shall we settle behind first plate at a Padre game amidst rabid fans?
Or front row center in the theater? Hamilton perhaps?
Gaze at a Basquiat
in a gallery
or a Valásquez
in a museum?
Whisper sweet nothings to someone?
Anyone?
Everyone?
In this time of endless questioning and very few answers, has the pandemic-ravaged world which has endangered, enslaved, and embattled us for what seems like eons finally ended? Or at least curtailed to controllable?
Forever?
Did we survive?
It seems we endured, although my mood fluctuates. Happy, grumpy, glad, excited, cranky, silly. Not quite certain how to behave.
Probably wise
to keep a mask handy
going forward...