a prelude for may (scenes from a pandemic pt. v)

I always liked May Day. Not just because it's a far truer celebration of the worker than America's half-assed Labor Day, which mostly celebrates office workers with jobs cushy enough to get Labor Day off. May Day is a time for awakening and rebirth, the time when spring is really, truly here, and not as the fragile creature it was through March and most of April. The world is alive. You can do anything. This year, the rebirth we're hoping for, of the society that comes after the pandemic, ideally a society that is a little kinder, a little more just, seems as far away as the bitter cold of winter does on a perfect spring day. It's not impossible to imagine, but it is a difficult memory to conjure.

I keep losing track of time. I haven't missed anything I have scheduled, and I do still have things scheduled, but the days still slip away. Time is social, and the social markers of time are missing, so our minds drift, searching for new anchors to make sense of all of this.

There's a sense of menace creeping into the city. I'm not sure if that's the right word, but every time I go out it seems the number of weird and bad interactions I have with strangers goes up, and a lot of the social norms that were being observed before are starting to break down. In the boring dystopia in which we now live, boredom itself has become dangerous. Boredom and desperation make people make strange decisions.

Part of why I'm falling behind on writing these is, of course, that I'm losing track of time, but I also think I have this need to rise to the occasion, to write something meaningful and relevant, to capture the moment with my words, which is fine, and I think there is a value in that form of chronicle and catharsis, but also it's a trap. Because one the things about living in this pandemic is, yeah, it's tedious. It's boring.

This month's theme is awakening. And I think, when this is over, I'll try to go back and fill out the archives with the stories I missed.