My Covid Birthday Dilemma

Celebrate the little things when big things loom large, but add a shot of radical honesty.

To celebrate or not — that is the question.

I just had a birthday — not a big one, the kind one fusses over, but one nonetheless. And for the last 10+ years I’ve been marking my late September birthday with a gathering of dear women friends based in the New York City area. We range in age from our early 30s to our early 70s. We’re US-born and foreign-born. We’re of all faiths. Some of us have kids, some don’t. We’re highly educated and lean progressive. We’re privileged. We are doers and thinkers.

But this birthday felt different. Coming right before a critical election and in the midst of a historic pandemic, I didn’t want it to be too light or frivolous. Yet I craved the normalcy of ritual, the camaraderie, and the kinship of shared worry. I wanted to draw strength and succor from these friendships with amazing women. So I decided to make my birthday zoom a way to commune over this moment — over our grief about COVID and the assaults on our democracy, over our resilience and our vulnerability. I wanted to have a laugh or two amid our collective primal screaming.

But I needed some content, a way to structure the dreaded zoom void.

So I asked my friends to indulge me and answer a few questions about life in 2020 — about dealing with COVID and electoral stress, about what gives them hope and what they are grateful for, about their predictions for when a new “normal” might come and who might lead our country in 2021.

What I got back was a Rorschach test reflecting how this particular cross-section of women was grappling with tectonic forces — personal, professional and societal — at a historically significant moment. I was capturing time in a bottle at a most unpredictable and disruptive time. I compiled their responses into a slide deck that was the centerpiece of my zoom party. (I thank Priya Parker here for writing The Art of Gathering and inspiring me to think hard about how to gather meaningfully and with purpose.)

As I walked us through the slide deck, I heard chuckles and saw nods of recognition. But there were some tense moments too as we wandered into uncomfortable terrain — about staying or fleeing, about when to fight and when to go. With many Jews in the group, there were references to Germany in the 1930s and to the lessons learned from the Holocaust; with many immigrant and refugee experts in the group, there were reflections on the reality that when you need to flee a place, the first leavers have the advantage, as the Syrian refugee crisis (and the Holocaust) made clear; with many native New Yorkers in the group (myself included), there were debates about New York City’s resilience, recollections of bad times in the 1960s and 1970s, and questions about the limits of our loyalty or allegiance to the city.

The largest fissure by far was the stickiness of each woman’s attachment to this city and this country. And that had a lot to do with where they were in their internal deliberations about fleeing versus fighting. Do you fight FOR the kids or flee FOR the kids? Do your work and passion root you here? How do you fight if democracy falls? Do you retreat to the relative safety of a blue haven like New York? Do you migrate to a swing district or even a red district to change the facts on the ground in an act of patriotic relocation? Or do you leave the country entirely?

Although we were universally afraid of what was happening to our country, we were in different places about what it could mean for us concretely and how developed our thinking was about the difficult choices that might lie ahead.

I want to share the takeaways from this little experiment more broadly because it taught me something I didn’t expect. Even though I had spoken to all of these women in some form over the last 6 months, sometimes over zoom, sometimes by phone or text, sometimes even in person, we hadn’t necessarily gone “there,” gone to that place of radical honesty. This simple survey enabled all of us to give voice to our deepest fears and anxieties but also to reflect on what we are grateful for and what’s worth fighting for.

Here are a few snippets from the survey responses.

What keeps you up at night?

Here is where people shared their existential fears.

The environment. Whether my young kids will have the choice to have kids because it won’t be a sustainable planet at that point.

The thought of the world without education, without universities, without immigrants, without foreign students…

Will there be civil war after the election? Should there be civil war after the election? Should I be taking shooting lessons?

Existential fear that we are in the waning days of democracy in America and that America will be unrecognizable and unlivable soon.

Fear that genocide and violence are on the horizon and could come as soon as November. Fear for my children and their futures. Fear that everything is going to unwind and that I won’t know how to make key, difficult decisions about how to fight, and when and whether to flee.

Fear that I am not as strong as I want to be.

My two toddlers, and the fear that they will inherit a collapsing democracy and planet.

Death of spouse, climate change, end of America’s democracy, the list is endless and I don’t sleep — aren’t you glad you asked?

What keeps me “up at night” during the day is a very sad sense that Mitch McConnell won — not just because of his dirty tricks re the Supreme Court but in showing us (and more importantly his cronies) how easy it is to bend/break the rules without consequences.

Everything. Jobs for the generation coming out of school — including for my own kids and their networks. What happens if we don’t win by a landslide — post-election protests treated as sedition?? Abortion rights, the fight for RBG’s slot. Elections. My children.

The Supreme Court; the Senate; the presidential election; the fires, the melting ice cap, environmental implosion; the apparent impossibility of achieving consensus on even the smallest things at a time when the problems that demand consensus are vast and numerous.

Fear that Trump will pull every available lever to subvert popular will should it become apparent that he might lose.

Too much work. It’s impossible to balance work and childcare.

Getting the virus — scared about what would happen to my child if I got sick.

The thought that I was wrong about the strength of American political institutions. That these institutions and our fellow citizens’ commitment to them do not seem as resilient as I assumed is fundamentally destabilizing to my whole worldview.

What gives you hope?

Most people are betting on younger generations to turn things around for the better. Some are worried that what we do now will make life unlivable for them.

Science.

#BLM movements, global anti-capitalist movements.

Young people, human resilience and adaptability.

Deep canvassing and the ability of people to find common ground.

How my children have maturely weathered this moment.

How my team at work has risen to the challenges before us.

The knowledge that every generation thinks the world will end in their time, and is surprised when instead we take leaps forward in innovation, creativity and the march toward universal human rights.

Climate change entrepreneurs.

Walking in NYC and hearing/seeing street life. Heard a Black musician play “Tradition” from Fiddler outside the Met, then heard Beatles medley from two guitarists in Central Park and Auld Lang Syne from an Asian musician playing a lute-like instrument.

Seeing all the complexions of the thousands of masked young people taking part in the BLM protests.

When I have good phone banking experiences (especially calling POC in voter suppressed states).

That we are witnessing the largest civil rights movement ever to take place in this country.

My boys’ psychological resilience. (But then I remember climate change.)

Ordinary people saying ‘enough’ and taking bigger and bolder actions.

Our collective resilience.

Women: Women in the suburbs, women in the cities, women watching and women voting.

What are you doing to cope with COVID?

Drinking is a key pastime, as are food, family time, exercise and spending time in nature.

Lots of drinking, lots of texting with friends.

Eating dark chocolate, gardening, and drinking too much.

Taking many, many walks to enjoy the outdoors and clear my head.

Cooking things from scratch; finding joy in my daughter’s new puppy.

Appreciating the small things.

Hiding in the woods.

Chewy candy (tootsie rolls, Australian licorice).

Impulse buying masks off Instagram ads.

WINE!

Family, friends and carbs.

Exercise, books on tape.

Getting up every day and moving forward.

Long, long walks in the country, sometimes several times a day.

Remembering that humans, cities, societies have all been challenged before in even greater ways, and have overcome.

What are you doing to cope with electoral stress?

Turning down the volume of news, media and social media was almost universal. Many are also more engaged politically and turning out the vote.

Not sleeping! Developing new forms of pain everyday (back, hip, knee)!

Texting and writing letters to voters. As my anxiety grows, I spend more and more time engaging in these activities.

Less social media and media consumption.

Making donations everywhere — weekly! I’ve chosen to stop reading and watching the news and commentary so intensely because it was putting me in a tailspin.

I don’t watch the news ALL the time.

Taking out my pen to write postcards to voters and turning off social media.

Lots of yoga, and supporting Movement Voter Project with $ and prayers.

Phonebanking!!! Also stopped listening to any media except Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

Going through all the hoops of registering to vote in Texas!

Watching all Lincoln Project ads.

Voter protection hotline assistance.

Preparing for the worst, hoping for the best, and doing the work.

Going to protests, sending postcards, watching escape shows on Netflix.

Working to build up organizations that encourage voting. Writing Vote Forward letters every night for an hour.

I’m not.

What were you grateful for during COVID?

When pushed, people did find things to be thankful for. Family, togetherness, Netflix and other diversions are recurring themes.

Time to slow down.

I love Zoom gatherings! I love the virtual town halls, the webinars, being able to attend online lectures from all around the world from the comfort of home.

Spending time with my family, kids and close friends.

Family, friends and Netflix.

Loving family. Loyal friends. Meaningful job.

Time with family, but more in retrospect. The reality was pretty rough at times.

Schitt’s Creek.

What new skills have you discovered in 2020?

Here people dug deep and were more introspective about their personal growth in the face of challenging circumstances.

Patience.

Blogging.

Farming. Low-waste cooking and efficient provisioning.

Reading in a hammock. Loving a dog. Radical candor.

Zoom.

Baking sourdough bread.

New skills are for people who don’t have kids right now, ha! Unless you count working while a child pees behind you as a skill.

I am a much better cook, can ride my bicycle for longer distances, and am a more careful recycler.

Can put myself out there more publicly than I usually do with respect to the election and advocacy; have upped my tech skills a bit out of necessity.

Parenting, lol!

Great ability to spend time alone.

Tapped into my inner Marie Kondo.

I’m getting better at talking to my TN family about politics.

A little more patience, a lot more resilience.

Hosting a memorial service on zoom.

When will life return to “normal”?

2021? 2022? 2023? It’s anybody’s guess, but most saw a Trump win as pushing the dates out.

We won’t return to normal. I don’t want normal. Normal was broken.

I think this is the new normal — the new normal will be unpredictable and stressful.

There may be a time when the rough patches lose their edge, but I’m not sure there’s a return, exactly.

Depends on your age. Young people will absorb all this and create a new normal soon. I may be looking for signs of normal that won’t return, and I may be looking for a long time.

Who will be inaugurated as president in Jan 2021?

This was THE question that few were able to answer outright. Most think Biden SHOULD win but that he might have his victory snatched, and that would spell the end of democracy in America.

I am terrified by this question.

I hope it will be Joe Biden but fear it will be dictator Trump.

On my dark days, Trump. On my hopeful days, Biden. On a usual day, I worry there will not be an inauguration.

No one. I fear the worst. The outcome tied up in the courts, sporadic civil unrest, Trump strapping his fat self to the Resolute Desk.

The actual inauguration will not happen until 2022: 2021 will be the Year of Anarchy.

Sigh. Donald Trump, or still be in the middle of a contested election’s fallout.

Biden!!! I pray.

Radical Honesty

In the weeks leading up to my birthday zoom and the days since, my mind has been bouncing between apocalyptic scenarios and fantasies about stability. I’ve been careening between hope and fear, between doing and fretting, between making meals and making contingency plans. My heart pumps too fast, my brain is fighting and fleeing too much, and I am just plain scared. But, clearly, I’m not alone. So ask the questions and have the conversations. Go there. Radical honesty is liberating.