Sylvia's Journal

Count me the ways in which things are different – a new parlor game.  What was normal or taken for granted is now abnormal, special. What was special is now abnormal or even amoral.  

The new norm(al) is putting a different spin on ideas that were kind of ho-hum before. Like the idea that context matters. It is one of those truisms that someone utters from time to time, and then we continue as if context doesn’t matter. How much context matters is now becoming abundantly clear. As home life and work life merge, context not only matters even more than ever, context is suddenly visible, on our screens. Kids may enter a room where mom or dad is having a serious call. Everyone with a dog and a job is now bringing their pet(s) to work, like it or not. Dogs are probably the only creatures that like the new normal – lots of people home all day long, lots of tail wagging, yeah! Cats probably hate it, all those people underfoot.

Screen time used to be considered bad for kids, now it is imperative for them to have screen time. Not just for continuing their education or letting mom and/or dad work, but also for playdates with friends, and virtual hugs with grandparents who live someplace else.  Our daughter had been able to successfully limit screen time for her 4 and 7 year olds, but that is now out of the window. Who would have thought that screen time is now essential for our sanity, income and staying connected?

And then the devices. It’s no longer a luxury to have at least one per person, and either have a good warranty in case one malfunctions or a tech-savvy person in the house. Without the option of going to an internet café, malfunctions can have serious consequences we could not have imagined even a few months ago. I do wonder how this is going to work in the countries I have worked in where many of the preconditions for quarantine success are absent. Their governments may have been exemplary in their quick response to the threat, but how to implement the social distancing and quarantines is a big question mark – yet our collective success in flattening the curve depends on it, on them, on all of us.

And finally, there is the implication that single people are now on one long, possibly unwanted silent retreat. I had not thought about that until a (single) friend called me and mentioned it. Calling someone who is alone is now good medicine. I am making a list every morning of people to call, to reach out to, so that my call or message can, even if for a brief moment, break their silent retreat.