Where Are We Now?
A cliché heard ad nauseam these days is “the new normal.” Because so much in ordinary life has changed since early 2020, each tweak of former routines is proclaimed the new normal, with the implicit message that all of us must recalibrate and adapt. The new normal, however, is built on shifting sand, and barely has anyone acclimated before another turn of fate adds or subtracts something, and another new normal prevails. Mask-wearing, quarantining, social distancing, elbow bumping, grocery delivery, take-out dinners, working from home, Zoom meetings, virtual school, home school, hybrid school, pandemic pets, voting by mail, increased focus on handicrafts, gardening, fix-it and renovation projects—these all have had their fifteen minutes of fame before the next pandemic twist shifted normality.
The word resilience is best friends with the new normal. Those who can react fast enough to accommodate The New Normal version 10.2, then its progeny 11.2 and 12.2, are resilient navigators, sailing through present-day life cannily and even gracefully. But credit goes equally to those who are just getting by in an ever-contracting environment. There’s certainly resiliency involved with accepting the escalating demands and limitations of pandemic-governed life. You may not be happy about wearing a mask in public, but you accept the rationale. That acceptance betokens not just resiliency and common sense, but a strong survival instinct.
You may wonder what writers write about during a pandemic. A surprising number of submissions we receive concern life with children. Often the narrator, a parent or grandparent, hunkered down at home, feels trapped, or even murderous towards the little darlings. That they write about this suggests an off-loading of tension, a coping strategy, a resiliency. Many morbid poems also come our way. Again, we hope that the creative outlet offers a coping strategy and testifies to the writers’ resilience. While we publish only a fraction of the submissions, all of them indicate relevant themes and interesting thought patterns.
Our quarterly publishing schedule follows the natural rhythm of the planet. If you want to read the next issue, just check the calendar for the following dates: Autumnal Equinox, Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice. Those phenomena, while realigning slightly from year to year, are normal, in the pre-pandemic sense of the word, and resilient.
Selma Moss-Ward
Editor
September, 2021
Late Fall 2020
Yesterday I walked down the long hill toward the lake horizon, Ontario moved inscrutably northeast. So many leaves on the ground whose little remaining color had leached out, and legions of mares’ tails in the western sky curved firmly as
A Place At The Table
My Problem Monday, July 20, 3:00 p.m. CDT Arlene Whesker knocked. “Doing a wellness check, Henry,” she called out. I opened the cottage screen door. “We brought treats!” I’d met Arlene when she cared for my
Back Matters
by B.J. Robinson How did I end up where I was when I read last pages first needed reading endings before I loved or cried holding the body of the book in my hand disordered and infuriated
When Everything Gets Back to Normal
By William Pruitt We’re living in a bungalow in Western Florida when Wolf Boy attacks. My wife gets out of the house while I distract A second, larger intruder joins the fray we get in
Claudia Cameron
Covid isolating provided a time for me to be even more aware of the beauty surrounding me. “Walk Around,” in particular, reflects the city park near my studio that has open space and opportunities for exploration. It
Free As A Bird
The owl committed suicide by flying unexpectedly into the net set out for something else. At the time, I bought the story because it came from our Buddhist guide, Ticky, who needed an excuse to eat it.