IS THERE REALLY A “REALISATION” TO COME FROM THIS?

Exceptional times. Lockdowns. Isolation. No haircuts, for god’s sake.

Playgrounds that can’t be played on. Tennis courts without nets. Parking lots by parks blocked off. Empty sports arenas. Weight racks at normally crowded gyms gathering dust.

Streets without cars lined up at lights that continue to change from green to yellow to red, a reminder of the congestion that once was. Masked men daring to venture out, alone, with suddenly shaven heads. Whoa, dude. Others letting their locks grow out as an homage to the big hair of the ’80s. Whoa, dude!

Starbucks closed. Major shopping areas boarded up.

Buses on the busiest routes passing by at the end of the work day with three, maybe four passengers on board. A plane spotting is as rare as a California condor.

Everybody (but me) takes to Zoom.

The daily highlight becomes standing on porches and balconies at 7 p.m., clanging cowbells, clapping hands, banging pots and pans, a behavior we’d last tried when we were five-year-olds as exasperated mothers coaxed the wooden spoon and whisk from our hands.

People dying alone, bringing some of us eerie flashbacks to the AIDS crisis, only families staying away now is an order, not a choice.

Murky canals in Europe and the skies in Los Angeles becoming clearer. The Himalayas are visible from 125 miles away. Flour, toilet paper and disinfectant appear at the top of people’s wish lists. A talking schnauzer named Pluto goes viral. So does Leslie Jordan.

In North America, the era of hunkering down nears the two-month mark, but there are signs everywhere—We Are Open—that things are returning to “normal”. On April 1^st, I moved into the condo that I’m temporarily renting after my plans for extended travel and a major relocation got sidelined. At the time, my downtown neighborhood felt quietly suburban. Now as I write, there is a constant whir of vehicles on the street forty yards away. Two days ago, when I last ventured out, I stepped off the sidewalk as a group of three people—three, for god’s sake!—passed by, each carrying a heretofore ominous Starbucks paper cup tucked into its questionably necessary cardboard sleeve. I played tennis on Saturday. It may even be permissible for me to get a professional haircut before the end of the month (not that I have high hopes of snagging a coveted appointment slot).

Altogether, everyone, repeat after me: “Whew!”

We made it. Most of us, that is. Along the way, we went from suddenly loving banana bread to just as suddenly hating it. We filled our jigsaw puzzle quota for the next five decades. We allowed bicep and shoulder strains to recover.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

But wait…

Wasn’t all that time cooped up supposed to count for something? Where’s that silver lining thing? Didn’t we spend a few poignant moments reflecting in between binges of “Tiger King” and old seasons of “Drag Race”? I’m wired to believe, or at least to hope, that something good will come of all this. Beyond a new appreciation for hairstylists. In addition to gym goers making a more conscientious effort to bring towels and wipe down benches.

Have we grown at all?

Sure, there have been some lovely video clips that circulated on social media—the neighborhood car parades wishing youngsters “Happy birthday”; the young woman holding her left hand up to the window of the nursing home to announce to her grandfather she was engaged; celebrities singing John Lennon’s “Imagine”. (Okay, I know people threw a lot of hate on that last example, but I think the intentions were good.) In Vancouver, I’ve appreciated all the murals that have popped up on those sheets of plywood covering storefronts. Everywhere, doctors, nurses, orderlies, custodians, grocery store employees and the minimum wage workers helping coordinate pizza takeout and delivery have had encounters with kinder, more thankful citizens (with some glaring exceptions).

Still, I’m hoping for something exceptional to bloom from this exceptional blip in our lives. Millions of us have seen that video, “The Great Realisation”. When I first saw it, I cheered. At last! Here it is...that moment when everything changes and you can never go back to what was before. Like when The New York Times published sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein and Alyssa Milano posted a “Me Too” tweet.

We won’t go back. We’ll go forward. This lifting of restrictions during the epidemic must be about more that getting our McDonald’s fries back. As “The Great Realisation” pronounces, let this moment be the dawning of something better...hindsight 2020.

I shared the video on Twitter and in texts. I noticed that many Facebook friends did their own sharing. This would be the beginning of the movement. But, alas, more than ten days after the video caught people’s attention, it doesn’t seem to have legs. Social media has drifted back to what it knows best: attacking people, canceling them, blocking them and occasionally throwing in a shirtless selfie or a cute Labradoodle pic.

Inside of this having Me Too momentum, I fear this may be another epic miss...like Sandy Hook in Newton, Connecticut or Pulse Orlando. Like “We Are the World” after famine fatigue set in.

Really, we can be better. Alas, my mind doesn’t know how. A few days after seeing the video for the first time, I took to Twitter, asking my 7,000+ followers what they were planning to do differently and, yes, better after all this. Crickets. Not a like, not a comment, not a retweet.

I don’t have the capacity to lead this. But I will follow and I’m sure many more will do the same. This is when I want the true leaders to step up. Be bold.

How can we change, long-term, in caring for and respecting the elderly? Could we make something new of the 7 p.m. bell ringing, perhaps transforming it into an hour of personal connection when we set aside our phones and other devices? How do we extend some of the thus-far temporary environmental improvements? How do we continue the conversation about the plight of the homeless, many of whom are plagued by unabated drug addiction and under-treated mental health issues? How do we continue to appreciate all workers? What can we do to make travel and tourism more sustainable? How do we address the gaps in health care and the racial inequities that were further exposed during the pandemic? 

Anything, people. The time is now.

It is expected that the global death toll for COVID-19 will soon pass 300,000. It would be nice if one outcome from this is that more men will finally start washing their hands with soap and water before exiting public restrooms, but this is an opportunity to dream bigger, to switch from spreading a virus to spreading positivity, to make a difference in people’s lives.

What do you think? What’s your dream? Pipe up with a comment, a tweet, a link. How can you—we—set it in motion?