Both Sides Now
Photo by Kei Scampa/Pexels.
The fleeting nature of summer outdid itself this year. The usual complaints of the season flying by, the regrets of too few barbecues, too few afternoons spent with family and friends in the park, have had a greater weight than the perennial griping. COVID-19 turned summer into a blink-and-you-miss-it season, curtailing the keystone events that define it.
Softball leagues and the CNE, water parks and vacations, music festivals and parades have all fallen down, one by one, like face cards in a game of Guess Who. Distanced picnics and compressed sports seasons have given us a sampling of summer with buyer beware caveats.
We have seen the lockdown from both sides now. We are no longer on pause, but playing slowly, cautiously. As Joni Mitchell said in her classic song “something’s lost, but something’s gained, in living every day.” What has been lost is readily quantifiable, easily listed off in Zoom meetings, over the phone, or across a distance of six feet. What we’ve gained might not come to the forefront quite so easily. It might not come forward for years. But the lessons we’ve learned make us stronger, they make us humble and they make us resilient.
Those of us who have griped about too many social obligations, not enough weekend afternoons to sit at home without human contact, may have learned to appreciate the warm reception of friends, the small pleasures in talking about the swiftly-changing weather, the fortune in having obligations.
New hobbies and new perspectives will mingle with old habits and old friends. Perhaps they will think we’ve changed. In keeping with the spirit of emergence from self-isolation, this issue features emerging writers Sarah Elahi, Catherine Mwitta, Sarah Campbell, and Jaclyn Qua-Hiansen, who provide creative nonfiction as well as fiction with which to greet the transition to autumn. We’re very fortunate to feature a new short story from rob mclennan and some brilliant, contemplative poetry by Anita Dolman, Kim Fahner, and Ace Boggess. Jennifer LoveGrove shares the impact that live music, and its loss, has had on her and a heatwave-inspired triptych from Laura Boyle reminds us that this July was the hottest month in the northern hemisphere since record-keeping began.
All of us are standing on the sill, ready to emerge with the lockdown at our backs and the spectre of a second wave just out of sight. There is recognition of a metamorphosis. The lockdown has changed us, enlightened us, caused us to see what might have been there already but was elusive thus far. As we have adjusted to self-isolation practices, emergence feels a little like speaking in front of a large crowd and forgetting one’s lines.
The lessons of this time will get us through—the reflection and the bonds we have built with family and friends, the ways in which we have learned to connect in hard times. If nothing else, we have learned to take nothing for granted.