Speaking about myself personally is sometimes uncomfortable for me, but I wanted to share something to others about how I think about COVID: with a mixture of deja-vu and nausea.
Sometime in early December 1989, I remember on free weekend wanting to go out to the movies. It was so laughably trivial an event in my life, but it’s stayed in my head for decades. I lived in LA, and saw a theater was playing Total Recall (notwithstanding IMDb publishing that it was released in June 1990; I definitely saw it in 1989: I didn’t live in the US in 1990). I began thinking of who I knew would enjoy it, and I could invite to go out with me. Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Everyone I thought of who might like a movie date, I had only really known for months or less (the technical term of art in 1989 was probably “hot trick”), and had no idea if they would enjoy the film. Everyone I had friendships with that I really knew, that I at least understood their tastes in film and pop culture, was dead from HIV/AIDS.
It was a very hollowing sensation, to say the least, as I think about it with the distance of 30 years. During the peak of the HIV/AIDS epidemic then, I remember every weekend (and weekdays) becoming more and more funeral-occupied, until I stopped going because I couldn’t. A muscular, blond-haired, blue-eyed teenager-then-twentysomething could make a lot of friends in LA over the entire decade of the 80’s, no matter how annoying he was. Then he could lose a lot of friends.
The stages of the epidemic I experienced will become familiar I fear to everyone, the blanket of gasoline-saturated inconsistent information thrown over the fire. I slowly am starting to read more writing on the subject, today I saw an article from the New Yorker. I’m not sure there is a lesson to learn, by recall, just perhaps indexing familiar nauseating memes to see spread along with the virus:
- Fixation on things like “doubling” rate, which for HIV was I think about 2 years.
- Misunderstanding of viral growth patterns by virtually everyone.
- Certain groups were highlighted as the origin of virus, and stigmatized in damaging ways.
- Substantial denial that “ordinary people” could get the virus.
- The virus was a punishment to society from a Christian God.
- Heavy interpersonal “social distancing” and physical barrier protections to block infection.
- Shutdown of businesses which could facilitate spread, and protests.
- Quack cures, treatments, and preventions instead of reliable science.
- The president absenting themself from real leadership needed to help navigate the pandemic.
- Communities and families gutted from the impact of the virus.
- Waiting for the test results. Waiting for the cure. Waiting for the vaccine.
- Breathless attention to celebrity infections.
- Us vs Them “winners” and “losers” between political parties, states, cities, communities.
The challenge today is that what I saw over 20 years — initial death, testing, treatment — will be accelerated at a mind-numbing pace, possibly over the next few months. Where I lost a decade of friendships over a year or to (yes, that fast) — at first slowly, then an avalanche — this will be experienced by large groups of people outside of the GLBTQ community within months.
My wish is that everyone can somehow take a breath, considering happened with HIV/AIDS, and prepare now for loss, memory, and to not repeat useless ideas.
I didn’t know how devastating it would be and how it almost wiped GLBTQ culture away. Learning to preserve a familiar way of life, things that are important about how we live today, I think that going to be utterly critical to keep us on an even keel over the next couple of years. I recommend reading Jane Jacob’s book “Dark Age Ahead”, and consider her discussion of the experience of the Japanese after World War II. Always, Susan Sontag and “Illness as a Metaphor”
My reaction to the “ton of bricks”? I sold everything I had, packed a bag, and moved to Paris the first week of January 1990, a few weeks later. Perhaps an overreaction. I stayed with artist friends in a fairly unpleasantly unpredictable left-bank commune, and started to rebuild life around myself. Not as romantic as it sounds, but a way out. I was lucky. I had a huge social network on Internet (Usenet was the Facebook of its day) I had access to, to help keep rebuilding. I hope this pandemic proves social networks just as valuable.
Thanks for reading. I’ve enjoyed DailyKos for sometime as a “lurker”, the scrappiness and similarity to Usenet almost 40 years ago is reassuringly familiar, and hope I contribute in some small way.