Remember when we used to trust the air around us?
When we shook hands? When we hugged hello? Air-kissed?
Remember putting your arms around your loved ones at a funeral?
Most of those memories – and the ones of large gatherings, travel and much of what we embraced for enjoyment – were from six-plus months ago. Since March, when schools shut down and California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued his stay-at-home order, some of the stuff we did to make ourselves feel alive and connected, suddenly, could make us sick or even kill us.
More than 9,000 residents of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties have died this year due to the coronavirus, and more than 400,000 in the four counties have had the virus.
“We gained perspective,” said Kevin Foster, a car salesman from Long Beach. “All this has reminded me how short life can really be.”
The United States entered the weekend on the brink of 200,000 deaths related to the coronavirus, with more than 14,000 of those in California.
We have gone from scares about the number of ventilators in local hospitals to despair and anger over the loss of life, concern about another surge in the fall and frustration that a vaccine could take several more months to develop before we can return to what passes as our new normal.
“I’ve lost family,” said Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia, whose mother and stepfather died of the coronavirus in July and August, respectively. “We’ve all lost that personal human connection.”
And the coronavirus pandemic lockdown socially distant face-masked months left us on edge. Then, a police officer knelt on George Floyd’s neck for eight minutes, 46 seconds in Minneapolis and shook the country.
An explosion of rage followed Floyd’s killing, prompting some to leave their homes and take to the streets to protest racial inequality.
“It forced me to choose which things were important,” Foster said. “Collectively, we’ve lost our damn minds. I’ve seen people becoming more easily agitated and more volatile because they feel trapped, imprisoned and put upon.”
The past six months have been as tragic as they have been weird, as dangerous as they have been maddening.
Don’t talk politics. Don’t touch your mouth. Don’t cough. Don’t make plans. Don’t get your hair cut.
Are you essential?
The past six months slapped us in the face.
“Zoom meetings don’t satisfy me,” Foster said. “I miss the physical affection of a simple hug. I miss smiles.”
So many of us have put hope on hold.
“We’ve lost personal and financial security,” said Micki McAulay, a school teacher from Upland. “We’ve lost time spent with loved ones, a sense of freedom and, for many, a hope for a better future.”
McAulay has observed a change in her students.
“They’ve lost personal connections to caring adults, extracurricular activities, socializing with friends, emotional support, school traditions and safe spaces,” she said.
For most people, the world got really small. There was the grocery store, the gas station and not much else. We spent time getting refunds for canceled reservations.
“We lost mobility,” said Deborah Wong, a faculty member at UC Riverside. “We lost the feeling that the world is there to be explored. I’ve managed to avoid infection, but in so many other ways COVID has been a pervasive, unavoidable and communal experience. At that level, we’re all sick.”
It is hard to imagine a person more affected by the pandemic than Garcia, Long Beach’s mayor. Aside from making decisions about his city and businesses and schools, he lost his mother and stepfather.
These days, he does his job in a nearly empty City Hall, trying to avoid contact with humans as much as possible.
“I don’t think this country is ever going to be the same,” Garcia said. “The virus has damaged our economy and our way of life.”
Garcia has remained optimistic.
“I think we will definitely by stronger,” he said. “Our businesses are adjusting to contactless technology. We need to fund science. And we need our leaders to be honest and straightforward with us … We are isolated. We get to think.”
Time to think is what changed Amanda Meyer’s life.
Before the pandemic, Meyer, who lives in Newport Beach, was a body fit model (she would try on clothes for designers). She lost her job.
She decided to launch a line of perfume – it’s called “Elia Parfum” – with some of the proceeds going to help victims of sex trafficking. She said the combination of the coronavirus and the social unrest woke her up.
“I knew I had to make a choice if I was ever going to start my own business and give back in a bigger way,” Meyer said. “Now is the time. So I took the steps to create a perfume company to stand for something bigger.”
Marna Rough is a singer from Costa Mesa who had a rising career, boosted by appearances on “American Idol,” that was made so much more difficult by the pandemic.
“It used to be so easy to go out and make music, whether it be in the studio or singing in crowded bars … even empty bars,” she said. “But now booking a gig is quite impossible unless it’s over Zoom. And studio time is unheard of.
“We took for granted how simple our lives were before COVID.”
Rough, who moves with the help of a wheelchair, had time to consider the implications of social unrest.
“The impact was grand in everyone,” Rough said. “When it ignited hope or hate, it seemed like the entire world was affected by social unrest as the pandemic itself. I support the fight for equality. I hope social unrest brings positive change and light at the end of a very dark tunnel.”
Foster, a Black man, said social unrest is necessary to prompt change. But he’s not sure if change will happen.
“Unfortunately, I’ve seen how many ‘normal’ Americans want no part of change,” Foster said. “They think equality will rob them of some aspect of their lives.”
Mary Amen of Huntington Beach has lost so much.
Her father, Louis, who was 90, contracted the coronavirus and looked like he had it beat after taking the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine. But he died shortly after he returned home from the hospital.
She also lost a cousin and three friends.
“What I lost was the ability to celebrate my father’s passing with a proper burial,” Amen said. “The devastation of his passing in May was then compounded with uncertainty, compromise and sadness. I never imagined that his life stories, work and legacy would be celebrated via Zoom from my sister’s backyard.”
After six heartbreaking months, questions remain.
Will the world ever return to what it was?
How many more people will die?
And when does the comeback begin?
