What We Have Lost

Good column from Andrew Sullivan today. Excerpt:

So we have created a scenario which has mercifully slowed the virus’s spread, but, as we are now discovering, at the cost of a potentially greater depression than in the 1930s, with no assurance of any progress yet visible. If we keep this up for six months, we could well keep the deaths relatively low and stable, but the economy would all but disintegrate. Just because Trump has argued that the cure could be worse than the disease doesn’t mean it isn’t potentially true. The previously unimaginable levels of unemployment and the massive debt-fueled outlays to lessen the blow simply cannot continue indefinitely. We have already, in just two months, wiped out all the job gains since the Great Recession. In six months? The wreckage boggles the mind.

All of this is why, one some days, I can barely get out of bed. It is why protests against our total shutdown, while puny now, will doubtless grow. The psychological damage — not counting the physical toll — caused by this deeply unnatural way of life is going to intensify. We remain human beings, a quintessentially social mammal, and we orient ourselves in time, looking forward to the future. When that future has been suspended, humans come undone. Damon Linker put it beautifully this week: “A life without forward momentum is to a considerable extent a life without purpose — or at least the kind of purpose that lifts our spirits and enlivens our steps as we traverse time. Without the momentum and purpose, we flounder. A present without a future is a life that feels less worth living, because it’s a life haunted by a shadow of futility.” Or, in the words of the brilliant Freddie deBoer: “The human cost of the disease and those it will kill is enormous. The cost of our prevention efforts are high as well. You’re losing something. You’re losing so much. So you should mourn. We’ve lost the world. Mourn for it.”

I’m seeing things now from public health experts (for example) saying that we need to realize that there won’t be a return to the status quo for years to come — at least two or three, which is likely the minimum time necessary to develop a vaccine (and even then, there is no guarantee that we can develop a vaccine). We can’t live under a total cessation of economic activity, but we also can’t go back to how things were before the pandemic came. The new normal is going to be something very different from what we were used to.

Here in south Louisiana, we are looking at the autumn without LSU football. I’m sure we will have games, but they will be played in an empty Tiger Stadium. There will be no tailgating. This might sound like a luxury to some, but the Saturday football games, and all the socializing that goes with them, are a huge part of the joy of living in this part of the world. I am not a big fan of football per se, but I really love autumn in Louisiana, because of the communal pleasures associated with LSU Tiger football. We are losing that, and I feel pretty bad about it.

But not as bad as I feel about the possibility that my older son will start his junior year at LSU without classes to attend. Or that when he graduates, it will be into an economy where it will likely be very, very hard to get a foothold. I could write forever about the big things that I mourn the loss of, but I’d like to keep this post — and the comments thread — more personal.

What are you mourning right now? No need to say “for all the sick and dying,” or “my children’s future,” or anything like that. I presume we all mourn for those big things. Tell me about the little things you miss, the things that gave you particular joy, or meaning, or pleasure, but that will not be back for you anytime soon.

Here’s one that weighs heavily on me, more than I expected: the end of non-essential international travel.

Y’all know how much I enjoy traveling, especially to Europe. It might seem to you that this is nothing but fun to me — fun in the sense of a holiday at the beach, or a trip to Disneyworld. It certainly is that. But it’s way, way more than that. I love history, I love art, and I love food and culinary culture. Studying these things, and immersing myself in them, brings me great joy. Above all, I love meeting new people from these worlds, and learning about their lives, their joys, and their families. I have tried to share with you, through photos and words, how much I have come to love these things, but honestly, I can’t do it justice.

The idea that it may be years before I can go back to Europe and see my friends, or take my own children to visit the places I have come to love and cherish — that hurts. I was born in a fortunate time, the era in which ordinary people were able to afford international travel. I’ve written in this space before how entranced I was as a very small boy to hear the stories that my Great-Great Aunts Hilda and Lois told about serving in France with the Red Cross during the First World War, and how they cast a spell on me by spreading the Rand McNally atlas out over my little legs, and telling me stories of all the countries they visited as young women. The seeds those dear old ladies planted in my heart have borne rich fruit for me, personally and professionally.

Aunt Hilda, Aunt Lois, and me (in Lois’s arms), 1968

Now those days are probably over for a while. When they come back, they will be sweet indeed. But for now, I mourn their loss. I so looked forward to every overseas trip I have ever taken. Over the course of my marriage, my wife has often observed about me that I need those trips to look forward to, to get me through the everyday. She’s right about that. I don’t know why I’m that way, but I’m that way, and now I can’t be that way for a while, because of this virus.

There are far, far more consequential things my family will have to deal with as the result of this pandemic. I know that. I would give up foreign travel forever if it meant that my children would be able to have a normal education, enter the job market normally, and so forth. And I know that people are mourning dead family members, lost careers, and so forth. A middle-aged writer losing for a time the opportunities to travel abroad is small beer, compared to that. But this one is personal to me, and I mourn what I have lost. Here is an account of a 2015 visit I made, with James C. and Sordello, to Lyon. World of wonders!

What do you mourn that you have lost in this new world? Make it specific, and personal to you, please.

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