Far From the Madding Crowd: Connection in a time of Chaos
Is ignorance bliss? I wondered about this as I fed my horses this morning. I live on a farm in the Smoky Mountains. It is far removed from Minneapolis and other cities raw with protests about the murder of George Floyd. It is far from NYC and Boston, from other virus hotbeds around the globe where Covid-19 has overwhelmed hospitals and resources. I look around me and all is peaceful. I hear wind coming off the ridge, and birdsong. It is rare to hear a siren where I live. The only gunshots I hear are from hunters or someone out target shooting. I am lucky. Privileged, even, to be able to live in such a serene place. To be safe. To feel safe.
It is an illusion.
Coronavirus has come to this community, albeit in a much smaller capacity than in large cities. The nearest hospital ICU, thirty miles away, is at capacity with Covid-19 patients. It’s here. It’s close. I know we are not safe from the virus, and this awareness is amplified every time I must leave the farm to go to the grocery store, or to buy animal feed. Or when I talk to a friend whose wife is a nurse at the hospital. The friend and her wife bought a camper for their backyard, which the nurse lives in now in order to reduce her wife’s exposure to the virus. They’ve been forced to adapt, to socially distance from each other. It is breaking their hearts. And mine, as I watch this all unfold one excruciating step at a time.
My daughter-in-law and my 3 year-old granddaughter are still overseas, and have been for several months now, afraid to fly back to the US for fear of exposing my granddaughter to Coronavirus during travel. My only contact with them right now is via video chat.
My heartbreak is worse when I go somewhere and see too many people acting as if everything is normal, and I know things will never be “normal” again. They practice no distancing, wear no masks, make no attempts to keep themselves or those around them safe. I’m sure that there are as many arguments and reasons these people have against taking safety measures as there are Covid-19 bodies in the morgues. I’ve seen the photos on TV and online of bodies lined up in tractor trailers, in hallways. I wish I hadn’t, but there they are. As obvious as the nose on your face, which may or may not be covered.
I saw the video of George Floyd’s murder at the knee of Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer. I heard him gasping for air, calling out for his mother, pleading, telling the officers “I can’t breathe”. I heard the people in the crowd witnessing this, filming this on their cellphones, imploring Chauvin to let the man up. Still, the officer continued to kneel on Floyd’s neck. The other officers involved did nothing to help Floyd. Nothing. Around six minutes into the video, Floyd was unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at the hospital soon after.
I keep hearing his voice in my head while I finish my farm chores, seemingly a million miles away from the chaos that brews across the world in response to the man’s death, another in a very long list of Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, and Latino deaths at the hands of police in this country.
My cell phone dings. A notification. A comment was added to a Facebook conversation about something insignificant. My impulse is to open the app. Read the response and click like, or not.
I’ve become conditioned.
Conditioned to pause on the news channels while scrolling through the channel guide on TV. New Covid-19 cases and the death toll rises daily. Scenes of riots/protests blaze across the screen. Depending on which station you watch, or which side you support, determines whether you see it as a riot or protest. I sit, rapt, watching.
There are scenes of people in Italy and other countries kneeling in city squares holding signs memorializing George Floyd, wearing masks that have “I can’t breathe” Sharpied across them. The convergence of the two issues is startling.
I flip channels.
There are protesters outside the White House calling for the resignation of the most divisive man we’ve ever had in charge. I watch as some of them are handcuffed and led away while others film the arrests, watching the officers carefully for acts of brutality. I imagine the man in the Oval Office snickering behind the curtains while flipping the bird at those below. I realize I am holding my breath, remembering his statement that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Snipers are on the White House roof. I also realize that I have been holding my breath for the last few years.
I shut the TV off and stare at the blank screen. My phone dings a few times and is silent. I go outside with my dogs and sit on the porch. Blue skies. Quiet. Peace. I am in exactly the same spot that I was in on the morning of September 11, 2001.
We had no internet service here on the mountain back then. No satellite TV, no cable, no cellphone service. My husband called me from work and told me to turn on the TV. I did. I watched the second tower go down. I stood in the doorway, alternately looking outside at the cows grazing on the hillside, and back to the screen. The dissonance knocked the wind out of me. It didn’t seem real until I tried to call my mother in Boston. Phone lines were jammed. It was too soon to get more information, as the events were still unfolding. Unlike now, when we watch the world’s events unfold in real time, each blow felt as it comes, each death tallied. Each moment filled with opinion and cross-examination spread across screens in our homes, on our desks, and in the palm of our hands. There is no time to breath. No space to step away from the images, the commentary, and yes… I see the irony in the fact that I am writing my own commentary here on my own screen so that you can see it on yours.
I miss the days of less connectivity. Less media infiltrating every second of every day. I miss not knowing in full color the pain spread across this planet, and yet, I am grateful for the freedom of the media to tell whoever is listening and watching what is happening out there.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge demands examination and action. Knowledge is not bliss. It most often is the opposite. It is uncomfortable. It is painful, and it must be so, for the intensity of pain is directly proportionate to the need for change.
It takes one’s breath away.
