Covid Time

The strange time warps it's caused.

Ready for the backyard clothes swap.

I have measured out my life with clothes swaps.

At least, I have since covid started. Because I used to have my annual clothes swaps on Groundhog Day, a tradition started about 35 years ago by my dear friend Susan, I managed to have one in 2020 before all the gatherings stopped. I figured I’d be able to have the next regularly scheduled swap the following year … then that became the following year, then the following year, till there’d been three Februarys in a row with no clothes swaps.

I finally switched the clothes swap to a late-summer outdoors event, which turned out to work so much better that I had my second annual backyard swap this past weekend.

So the swaps are back on, outdoors. But it’s been over four years since I’ve held a large indoor party. I see friends and family regularly, Rafael and I have resumed hosting occasional small gatherings, and we’ve gone to a few indoor shows and concerts — mostly in large, airy venues. But things are not quite back to “normal,” whatever that is.

During covid

I feel a wrench in my gut every time someone says “during covid.”

Maybe they mean during the height of the pandemic, when things were actually shut down. Or even after that, when we could only see our friends and family outside. Or even after that, when we were out and about more but most people still wore masks.

Yes, things have changed in that people have, for the most part, resumed normal activities.

But that doesn’t mean we aren’t still “during covid.”

I have a strong, possibly innate need for stuff to be accurate. I’m pretty sure I’m not autistic, but that’s one of various traits I share with those who are. As I get older I’ve gotten better at letting inaccuracies go to some extent, but it’s always a struggle for me.

And the truth, the accurate fact, is that we’re still in the midst of the covid pandemic. In fact, we’re in the midst of a large covid surge. What’s changed is our society’s perception of the pandemic. The declarations that it’s over have made that true in people’s minds.

Keeping time

Time is a funny thing. We humans always have a hard time (oops!) grasping it. We’re perplexed by the fact that we can experience it in only one direction. We’re frustrated that we never seem to have enough of it. And we’re fascinated by how our perceptions affect it — by its relativity.

As Albert Einstein is said to have said, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.”

Whether he said it or not — and whether I would have preferred that he say “an intelligent, kind, interesting woman,” which I would have — this statement certainly rings true. Time is always distorted by our perceptions of it.

Now, it seems that time has been distorted by something else: covid.

No one can remember when things happened anymore. Covid messed with our sense of the past. If something happened before covid, we might remember because we weren’t on Zoom, we didn’t use hand sanitizer, and anti-vaxxers were a fringe group. My friends got married before covid; I know because we were all there without masks. I had an indoor clothes swap before covid; I know because over 40 women squeezed into our little house.

But after March 2020? Things get fuzzier.

Rafael and I both worked remotely for a few years before covid made it more common, so that makes it even harder for us to remember. Like many people, we adopted two new pets that first year, which helps us mark time. But when did we first see my parents inside again? I have only a vague idea. When did we take our first flight? Who knows.

In case you think my perception of people’s perception of time is distorted, studies have shown that covid time distortions are common. Whether they’re due to the extra psychological stress or the lack of our usual time markers, like holiday celebrations, we can’t say for sure.

Pandemic amnesia

I remember reading about the Spanish flu in Virginia Woolf’s letters and diaries, which I read way back in my twenties. But I was only dimly aware of that pandemic till then. Although most of us know about it, it doesn’t figure prominently in many books or movies. Apparently, it didn’t even appear in the 1924 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s history of the 20th century. It faded quickly from collective memory.

Maybe the Spanish flu was overshadowed by World War I — or maybe we tend to forget pandemics, in the way that women supposedly forget the pain of childbirth. Maybe, as some suggest, they fade because they have no narrative with a clear beginning, middle, and end — not to mention an evil villain, like you might have in a war, or a resounding defeat. Though I have no interest in depictions or glorifications of war, I get that war feels thrilling to some. Pandemics do not.

Today, we have much more documentation and dissemination of information than we did in 1918. But news cycles are more fleeting, and people still forget. We probably want to forget this particular experience. Every time I see a TV show or read a book with scenes from covid — as rare as those are — I feel a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It feels too soon.

Where do we go from here?

In an article I read recently, the author wrote about something that “took her back to covid times.” I wondered what that meant, and where she thought she was now.

We’re still in covid times. Denying that doesn’t change reality, but of course we want to deny it. Living through a pandemic isn’t fun.

I look forward to a time when we can say “during covid” and actually be referring to the past. It can’t come soon enough.

In the meantime, we can enjoy the few silver linings covid brought us: Staying in closer touch with old friends over Zoom. More remote work options. And outdoor clothes swaps.