Silver Linings

In so many ways, 2020 has been a dark cloud on our personal lives, on our nation, on the world. Over twelve million people in the US have tested positive over the past ten months; over 256 thousand have died. Untold numbers have lost their jobs and/or their homes. They experience daily food insecurity. They have not seen family or friends for months. Loss and chaos are very real elements of most people’s lives. Yet, amazingly, for most of us there are also the unexpected silver linings to which John Milton referred in the 1600s.

For me, Covid-19 has created the means and opportunity to reconnect with individuals and groups in ways I never imagined. Zoom has allowed me to transcend the barriers of isolation and no travel to gather on a regular basis with folks who are dear – and not near at all. In no particular order, other than how these events pop up through the course of a week:

• Every alternate Monday, up to seven couples of “church buddies” tune in to discuss everything from our families to politics to health to movies we have seen and books we have read. Some of these folks we met in 1971, when we first attended Dumbarton United Methodist Church in Georgetown, DC. We raised our children together. We lost parents, jobs, and pastors. At this point in our lives, we are far flung, geographically.
• Every third Tuesday, my two blood brothers (Colorado and Maine) and my AFS brother Germany check in with each other. We joke, we share family updates, we commiserate over politics and world news, we feel each other’s presence.
• Tuesdays each week include a prayer and conversation group of women that evolved from a much less formal in-person lunch gathering last winter. During these months, one woman lost a grandchild; one has suffered acute loneliness; two have sold and purchased new homes. Without fail, we listen to each other, offer unconditional love, make each other laugh.
• Eight female cousins (some not actually cousins, but we always forget that) carve out what has become a sacrosanct hour each Wednesday morning in Europe, Maine, Connecticut, DC, Maryland, Arizona, and Wyoming to provide critical support for each other. Sometimes, we just laugh. Three of our families have experienced Covid-19 personally, however, and one woman has had to make the difficult decision with her husband to find a residential facility to provide for the increasingly devastating effects of his Parkinson’s. We are not all aligned politically, and we have navigated the last several weeks with mutual respect and appreciation.
• Tuesdays and Thursdays are also the days, each week, when I attend Board committee meetings for an independent school in Sun Valley Idaho. As Trustees, we have been able to know exactly what is transpiring on and off campus over the course of ten unique and challenging months, and to provide feedback and assistance to the Head of School and his exceptional administration. We have been able to anticipate, discuss, and plan, rather than simply react.
• When the in-person version of our 50^th college reunion was postponed last May, a core group of my classmates and I began meeting virtually once a month. As with other crews, we live in a number of states and, speaking for myself, were mostly connected through annual Christmas cards and very rare phone calls.
• I have been able to rejoin two book groups, one based in Wyoming, one consisting of women in the DC area with whom I was colleagues well over twenty years ago.
• Last, but definitely not least, once again, work twice a week with a personal trainer  — the same one with whom I trained for ten years when I lived in Southern California. We wonder now why it never occurred to us to use FaceTime, our virtual preference, when I moved to Lake Tahoe. It’s highly likely I’m in better shape now than I was when the pandemic began.

None of these opportunities, these privileges, removes the pain and impacts of Covid-19. They are, however, precious silver linings to which I am committed in the future. We have all experienced new ways of processing and dealing with the world. We have found unexpected ways to solve problems, to relate, to express ourselves; different windows on the world. Personally, I appreciate relationships and connections more than ever, made easier, albeit very different, in remarkable ways by technology. Dark clouds? Definitely. Very real and unforgettable ones. Let’s never forget those same clouds came with silver linings.