Look on the bright side
It’s hard to look back on the Covid-19 pandemic and think of a lot of things that make you say: “remember when that happened? that was pretty great, wasn’t it?”
But in my older age1, I’ve been trying to be a bit more optimistic than I was throughout my pessimism-fueled youth.
And I recall a moment quite distinctly, even vividly, during the earlier days of the pandemic that has stuck with me, and that I’m not sure I’ll ever forget.
A moment of bliss
I recall sitting in my backyard2, in one of those low-slung IKEA lawn chairs I happen to be quite fond of.
I was just sitting there. Alone. Quietly.
There wasn’t anyone out walking, or driving around.
The sun was shining.
By most accounts, it was a truly beautiful day.
The kind of day you might imagine picturing before you take your last breath. That kind of thing.
And then it hit me
In some kind of bizarre moment of pure unadulterated clarity, I heard something I had never heard before.
I heard the songs of birds chirping in way that completely flooded the ambient soundscape with a texture that one could only describe as pure bliss.
I realized in that moment, that while the pandemic had brought about tremendous hardships for billions of people, it also brought about an incredibly special moment.
It brought a pause in the all the busy-body activity of modern civilization, that allowed us all to step into a world as it might have smelled and sounded a few hundred years ago, in some peaceful meadow or pasture3.
Dream vs. Reality
This got me wondering: was I just imagining this whole thing?
Was there some kind of real-world evidence I could point to that would validate my experience?
I thought about it for a bit. Months, actually.
I (eventually) reasoned that if the world around me had truly “stopped” to a significant degree, it should show up in air quality readings, since there was basically no one driving around.
So I went and found some data and plotted it.
Sure enough, there it was:
Breathing easy
Amidst all the chaos the pandemic sowed on the world.
Amidst the economic turmoil and tremendous suffering
Amidst the endles hand sanitization, constant masking and un-masking, and the hellish lineups to buy toilet paper and basic groceries.
There was a moment – a brief moment4 – when we all collectively breathed a little easier.
Whether we recognized it or not, we were all able hear and smell the natural world around us in ways we may never experience again in our lifetimes inside of major urban centres.
And I’m pretty sure it all did happen.
In as much as anyone can be certain about anything.
Footnotes
I’m not yet a geezer, but I’m no spring chicken anymore either.↩︎
Yes, I’m one of those people who were lucky enough to have a house with a yard during the pandemic. Please don’t hate me for it. We bought it right before the market dipped a bit, if that makes you feel any better.↩︎
I recognize and appreciate not everyone may have been so lucky as to live near a park, or peaceful surrounding.↩︎
From a longer-term, historical perspective.↩︎