One day at at time

We may think we know what’s about to happen, but we really don’t. (Image by Helga Kattinger)

World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945. Six long years.

On the one hand, I don’t know how they possibly could have done it. And on the other, I now know: One day at a time.

Today, if all goes according to plan, I will get my first dose of the coronavirus vaccine. It’s coming approximately a year after what I would have preferred, but I made it. And then, there are things to do. There’s a new baby in the family to meet. I have so many people I want to hug. And I’d like to visit my school, where I haven’t set foot in months. Next week, it will have students for the first time since March 13, 2020. Could this really be the end?

When so much is uncertain, you can’t really spend a lot of time thinking about the future. And from the pandemic, we’ve learned that no future, however assured it may seem, is guaranteed. This is a state of mind that is now infused into my reality. I’m not in a hurry. I could make it through another year of this thing if I had to. Maybe even six years. If you don’t have a choice, you find a way.

I don’t know what it means. I don’t know why we had to go through this, and I don’t know when it will be truly over. So many people are still dying every day—it’s hardly a time to celebrate. It’s too soon to understand the long-term impact that this pandemic will have on our culture, our communities, our families, and our lives.

The other day, I watched a scene from a movie musical and wept. It portrayed a night out in the city. I don’t even like movie musicals, really. But I was struck by the magic of it and its contrast with what we currently have. There was so much life, so much fun, so much possibility. We haven’t been able to shoot those kinds of scenes, and we definitely haven’t been able to live that kind of life. We’ve lost so much—so much that I don’t even think about most of the time. There’s lots of longing that I, personally, have tamped down. I can’t be the only one.

I recently googled Verdi’s “Va, pensiero” from Nabucco—my favorite opera chorus and probably everyone else’s. I learned that the Metropolitan Opera produced a version amidst the “Zoom concert” craze of spring 2020, and I gave it a go. I’m happy to say it transcends the novelty and complexity of the format to become a truly beautiful performance. “Va pensiero” is, above all, a song of grief and longing, and this was captured poignantly by the members of the orchestra and chorus, isolated in their respective homes. Isolated in my own home, I felt it. I feel it now more than I would have a year ago. I wonder how I’ll feel about it when the pain of isolation is only a memory.

A wise friend, whose husband recently received a devastating diagnosis, remarked that it is our privilege, when facing suffering, to choose how we wish to make meaning out of it. There is no destiny, no “meant to be,” no “things happen for a reason.” We simply experience the things that happen, and we respond and make sense of them. We get to decide how these realities fit into the framework of our lives. However, we don’t have to rush this process. It can unfold, day by day.

I don’t know what’s unfolding for me. There have been some very good things and some painful ones that happened during the past year, unrelated (as far as I know) to the pandemic. I’m just going to keep moving forward, one day at a time, taking what comes. Not hanging on to the past and not trying to push toward the next thing. I can figure out later what it means—but bear with me as I write about it in the meantime.