Sometime during the first act of Brecksville Theater's fall staging of "The Sound of Music," the performer playing Maria broke into "The Lonely Goatherd," a tune that always hits my ear as aggressively playful. It's unlistenable, really. But this singer's version was different. Her voice was so clear, each yodeling note so perfectly formed and pitched, that for the first time ever, I was sad for the song to end.
We had gone to the show to see our friend Jackie in her impish performance as Sister Margaretta, and while we had expected the evening to be pleasant, what we got was an almost indescribable delight. It wasn't just the familiar von Trapp Family story, or the warm spirit of singing nuns. It was the gathering -- the convening of actors and their audience of parents and toddlers, as well as folks whose hips and eyesight had long ago begun The Great Betrayal.
It was such a reaffirmation of community, such a pact among us. Here, say the performers: We offer you our best version of a piece of musical theater you know so well. Here, say the theater goers: Have our ears and our eyes and irreplaceable time. We trust you'll use them well.
Everyone agreed to have a good time together in this exchange of story and music, and so we did. It made me weepy. Midway through, it dawned on me that this emotion has been showing up more often these days -- and that it has been largely absent since March 2020.
By now, most of us know a few people who say, almost guiltily, that their personal experience of the pandemic has been fine. Their lives have proceeded pretty much on track or even gotten better in unexpected ways.
More common, I think, is an experience of COVID-induced ennui or "languishing," as it's been called. You can find a number of definitions of the feeling, but COVID ennui reminds me of the ocular migraines I used to get, which partially impaired my sight. My field of vision would be shot through with blank spots. They weren't dark nor light nor blurry. They were simply absent.
That's how much of COVID has felt to me, especially in the months before the vaccines became available. Not depressing, exactly. Just benumbed. When I think back on 2020, what I remember most are endless days on the couch, working on COVID-related communications for my job, followed by infinite evenings on another couch, watching news reports that tracked the unfolding disaster. Occasionally, I'd be hit by a meteor of panic or an adrenalin surge of anxiety. The morning often brought a few moments of despair, when my brain reminded its waking self that -- Oh, pandemic -- the world was still cloaked in gray.
I am lucky to be one of those people who, it turns out, likes being with the person I live with. Still, the general social isolation was soul-killing. So much waiting for the return of ordinary pleasures. So much worry, deep down, that they might be gone for good.
But joy sneaks back.
The night before "The Sound of Music," we visited an art gallery and saw astonishing new paintings by a friend in the Cleveland scene. Food for the soul. We saw lots of masks and (this was before news of the COVID variant Omicron) quite a few naked smiles. People swapped vaccine booster-status reports. We caught up on puppies, babies and creative projects. Anxiety lingered in the corners -- should we be out? Can we stay healthy? This feels so warmly familiar, but is it safe?
But reclamation was about, too. Each of us had calculated the odds and decided that gathering in the name of art and community, as safely as we could manage, was finally a risk worth taking.
All along during the pandemic, the artists have been there. The writers and painters and singers have been making their work and doing their best to help us to escape the languishing. They have been like guardian angels -- or like doctors and nurses, come to think of it. Yes, I Believe in Science, but also I Believe in Art.
Whatever you've gone through, and however you're doing, I hope things are starting to feel easier. I hope that, like me, you are reclaiming paused social connections in whatever way you need and to whatever degree feels safe for you.
And if you have felt disconnected from joy, I hope it starts to sneak back soon.