Tierra?

Drew Magary cries "Tierra!  Tierra!"

Pure Waiting

I've written before about waiting - about how the new world is a long way off.  For instance, here and here.  

Columbus did a lot of waiting, too, as did the third mate on the Pinta.  Not, as I've noted, anywhere near as long as our wait has been.  And Columbus' wait was actually a little shorter.  When you get close to land - any land - there are telltale signs.  Cloud patterns, rain without wind, sticks floating in the water, and, most usefully, birds.  So "Tierra!  Tierra!" wasn't a complete surprise; the pure waiting had ended a few days earlier.

We're still in the midst of the pure waiting.  No sticks, no birds.  Logic suggests that the virus will burn through the most vulnerable and most available, and then die down.  But that's just logic, based on theories, hopes, and not nearly enough hard evidence.  The same could be said about Columbus, before the sticks, before the clouds and rain.  

We're still in the middle of the Atlantic.  We're not talking as much about "after the pandemic," and what's being written about the new world seems desultory, like they were phoning it in.  

Eventually, we're going to start seeing signs of scurvy.

Dozing in the Crow's Nest

Nearly every sailor on the ship has sighted land recently.  "Tierra!"  "Tierra!"  And then somehow it slips away.  Or someone else say, "Nah, that's not land.  You're seeing things."  Or we sail and sail and don't get any closer.  Pretty frustrating.

Countries like Denmark, Thailand, England, Japan, Spain and, in many places, the United States* have pretty much declared the pandemic over, even though countries like Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, and especially Hong Kong (OK, not a country) are getting clobbered.  

What's the holdup?  Once everyone gets over Omicron, aren't we home free?  Why don't we declare victory and go home?  The answer:  variants.

Well, at least according to a whole string of articles and papers like this one and this one, all of which boil down to "we don't really know what the next variant, or the one after that, will come at us with."  Omicron features a massively improved ability to transmit itself, but it's less dangerous.  If you're vaxxed and boosted, you probably won't get really sick.**  But who knows what the next one will bring?

Omicron has also spawned over 50 mutations so far, that we know of.  The pandemic still rages around the world, regardless of our insistence on "moving on to normal," so there a vast and fertile field in which the virus will mutate.  

So - we are declaring our intention to "live with the virus."  The pandemic isn't over, and the new world is not in sight.  We wait for the end of Omicron, and we wait for the next variant of concern.  The lookouts doze in the crow's nest.  Does anyone believe in the new world any more?

 * - Over 90% of Americans live in a municipality which does not require masks.

** - Long COVID, however, is another story; any variant would probably come with this feature.

Liminal

We get e-mails from the woman who runs the arts-community center in the next little town. They're part program guides, part reflections, part virtual community-building, part eclectic. Here's what she led with today:

Liminal is an adjective that relates to a transitional or initial stage of a process; occupying a position at, or on both sides of a boundary or threshold.

She goes on to say that “these are liminal times.” I'm not sure I agree.

We are certainly on our way to a new world – thus this blog – and so we agree on both the journey and the destination. But if “liminal” means anything like “cusp,” I think we've got a way to go before we get there.

I started this blog with the image of the third mate on the “Pinta.” halfway between the settled world of Europe and the unknown. To beat that analogy to death, I think we are now enduring the long, monotonous Atlantic crossing, trying to be hopeful as well as fearful about what lies ahead. We are all, or most of us, spending most of our waking hours thinking of that future.

So we certainly are between A and B, but I don't believe we are in the boundarylands. We are sailing and sailing. Things are generally getting worse, but in a predictable way: food and water in short supply, no certain hope of resupply, economy in shambles, death tolls rolling over us, no certainty anywhere.

The liminal moment in 1492 was the moment, at dawn, just before the lookout cried “Tierra! Tierra!” They knew that everything that was to happen from then on was founded on that sight of that island, the new world which rose slowly out of the sea as the sun brought everything into focus. They had context. They had somewhere to land. They would figure everything out from there.

We're still sailing. We could be approaching any one of many unexplored lands. We have no context, nothing to stand on. Anything can happen, but it will not happen tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next week.

The new world is a long way off.