what will you remember?

i turn 47 on March 15.  what I remember about turning 46 is that I did so at the same moment New York City became known as “the epicenter.”  one day my husband laughed as we watched our dog make friends with another dog sharing the velvet couch in a hotel lobby (only in New York City, right?).  The next day we realized the pandemic was real and leaving our home meant risking our lives (only in New York City, right? — or so we thought).

Generations are often defined by the horror they have survived, whether world wars or economic depressions.  One thing I know I will remember: the fear that my life was about to change forever and my future would be defined by a worldwide pandemic straight out of science fiction.

As New York City begins its slow progress to a post-COVID world, that fear is now hope that my future is defined by the worldwide pandemic that was and is scarier than science fiction .  Because being scared — for my life, for the lives of my loved ones, — made me focus.   It made me sure about what I once may have just suspected.   How I want to live and love.  (Passionately.  To the extreme.  With lots of tears and laughter.  And dancing to music loud enough to make the neighbors complain).    What I feel about how I lived before now (so happy I pushed the limits; sad about a single missed opportunity).  What I will do to protect what I love (everything.  anything).  What I will never give up and what I will give up without a thought (love.  everything else.)

I hope the clarity with which I see my life stays with me.  I also hope that we — all of us that may one day be the “Covid-19 survivors” in the history books — see the world we live in differently as well as our own lives.  That the deaths of thousands will make the survivors realize that the impossible is possible and that our tomorrow may not exist so our today matters.  That until tomorrow starts, today is all that counts.  I hope that we remember from time to time to ask ourselves whether our words and our actions are the right ones if it turns out that they are also our last ones. 

The COVID-19 magnification lens made me see the best and worst of the world I live in.  Both our heroes and our traitors take center stage when the world fights to still be the world.   What will I remember that I saw and felt?  Here is some of what I remember as I write this now:

I am ashamed that I live  in a zip code that will be remembered for its flight to second homes in Connecticut and Florida.  I am so very, very proud to live in a city that collectively cheered its first responders at 7 pm every night.  (Yes, New Yorkers disagreed about whether cheering was a poor substitute for more meaningful support, but living in a city filled with opinionated and passionate personalities makes me proud too).

I am sad that my amazing city became the “epicenter” of death; I am proud that my city is the example of how a city will survive even though it means digging mass graves to bury its dead.  

I am sad to live in a country where your income changes the likelihood of whether you will live or die.  I am proud to live in a country where thousands risked their life to help New Yorkers rich and poor.

I am sad to see countless empty spaces where local businesses once thrived.  I am proud that so many businesses have done anything and everything to stay open just one more day.   I am also proud that so many New Yorkers dined a la ski coat and wool blanket to help just a little bit.

I am sad to live in a city where so many have died.  I am more proud than I have words to convey that I live in a city that always, always survives.  (Terrorists and viruses everywhere — take note that Broadway opens on March 15.  We will always be stronger than you).

I am sad that we humans have the power to destroy ourselves.  I am proud that we humans have such an amazing capacity to help each other when it matters.

As I turn 47, my world has more black and white and much less grey.  I know that I love my husband and I will fight with everything I have to protect the life we have created.  I know that I will protect my family first but that I will try to help others as soon as I know my family is safe.  I know that I will embrace living at the edge of life’s boundaries because I don’t want to leave this world without testing its limits.  I know that I am one of the luckiest people in the world because I am alive and I have food and a place to sleep every night.  I know that the world will have to throw me out because I will never leave willingly.    I sort of intend to go down fighting but I really intend to never go down at all.

I don’t believe in telling other people how to live, perhaps  for no other reason than I don’t want to be told what to do myself.   I never want to sound like I think I know better than you do because: (1) I have been wrong enough in this life to know that it’s in my self-interest to live and let live and (2) those people are just so annoying — don’t they have anything better to do with their life than opine about mine?  (COVID has not, I admit, diminished my self-righteousness about the self righteous...)

So I admit that I am a little worried that I sound preachy.  So I will just say that each of us has our own story of the worldwide pandemic of 2020 and my story is simply that — my story.   What I am proud of and what makes me sad isn’t a blueprint for anyone but me.  (I admit that writing down one’s story does suggest a certain significance.  Careful self-reflection has led me to conclude that I really do know my story isn’t all that important.  As for my opinion on the value of remembering your story, well, I am writing this, so it is what it is.  Blame the self promoting influence of social media).

 I do truly have a heartfelt hope that we all resist forgetting how we felt when we discovered that the impossible is possible.  We all felt different things at that moment but I suspect that whatever each of us felt is important.  To us and to the people whose lives we matter to.

I know that I am not a COVID survivor yet.  In some ways it is presumptuous to even wonder about whether I will always remember what I saw this past year.   I do wonder, though, in part because I have felt the pull of a future that is not filled with the lessons of a pandemic.  It is very easy to get pulled along in the crowds of this amazing city waking up.  Particularly when there is nothing  as dark and scary as New York City without lights.  I don’t want to lose the intensity — both good and bad — of what I saw in the dark get lost because I love the lights so much.

I got married in 2018.  When we picked “New York, New York,” as our final song of the night, we didn’t know that the line “if I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere,” would be so much more than the hopeful lyrics of a well-known song that all of our guests would recognize.  We had no idea that two years later, Broadway would do the unthinkable and close its doors but that the most powerful story of our lifetimes would play out in homes and hospitals across our city.    That our city would in fact become the hardest place to make it.  (And, the New Yorker that is me is forced to say, the very, very best place to make it.  I love this world.  I love New York City more).

I have not experienced fear like the kind of fear that I felt when I first realized my life might be defined by a virus.  But I have read that in moments of critical importance our senses are hardwired to go on high alert.  I don’t want a life on high alert forever but now I do hope that I will sometimes recall what the world like when I experienced it with perfect vision for the first time.  

Because I suspect it makes a difference, I hope that  others recall what the world looked like to them too.  I am not sure exactly how the world will change if we hang on to our visions but I think it will change.   I suppose that I believe our collective vision will make the world better; I definitely believe clarity has made me better.  Is this self-involved, presuming that my experience is relevant to anything at all?  Maybe.  The point is that living through this past year has made me more sure that it matters whether I think about that.  And, I admit, more sure that, once examined  my convictions should then be acted upon.  

Maybe tomorrow I will realize that I am wrong.  Maybe tomorrow I will realize that I am self-righteous and self-involved.  But maybe tomorrow I won’t be here at all.

What will you remember?