Category — Uncategorized

I am not a kippah wearer (those small, round head coverings), but it’s common practice for some people who eat vegetarian or vegan in non-kosher establishments to take off their kippah while inside. The thought is that someone walking by the window could glance in and see someone with a kippah dining and think the place was kosher. And they may enter, order something, and break kashrut themselves. This way, no one gets confused or makes assumptions.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot when I read articles about how this is the most dangerous time during the pandemic. As the WashPo opinion piece states about people unvaccinated: “Now is the worst possible time to let down their guard. They should continue to wear their masks, keep their distance and avoid risky situations — even as they see their vaccinated brethren enjoying their newfound freedom.”

In other words, seeing other people doing something doesn’t mean it’s safe to do; and we have no way of knowing whether the other person we’re seeing doing these things is vaccinated or not. It is the opposite of the kippah-removing situation. It’s almost as if we need people to wear their “I got vaccinated” sticker permanently, so we can see behaviour and know they are doing it because all is kosher in their world.

Or to not assume anything. Our decision is to keep wearing masks indoors; even with other people who are vaccinated, basing the decision to remove our masks among the vaccinated on community levels vs. vaccination status. We’re looking at the vaccine more like a seatbelt and the pandemic like the weather.

To explain: When community spread is up, we can think of it like a bad storm. And when community spread is down, we can think of it like a light drizzle. In both cases, you have a danger of getting wet, though you’re more likely to get soaked in a downpour than a misting.

We wear our seat belt regardless of the weather and it’s great protection (even if it’s not 100% effective at saving your life), but when it’s raining hard with zero visibility, we wouldn’t go driving in a storm for fun. We may have no choice to go out in heavy rain (eg. work, school, or an appointment), but for all other times, just as we wouldn’t risk driving in a no-visibility downpour (whereas would take the risk going out in a drizzle), we wouldn’t take a risk with the pandemic and expect the vaccine to cover us. Especially with variants and the fact that the vaccine isn’t 100% coverage. Just like a seat belt.

We know many others aren’t making the same decision, and that’s fine for other people. I’m just explaining how we set our goal posts.

Luckily, community spread here is going down. We’re just waiting for it to drop below 5 per 100K to feel like the rain is entering the drizzle stage. So soon. But not yet.

Anne Helen Petersen had the most perfect sentence in her newsletter: “There are people you encounter, however briefly, and end up living rent-free in your head for years.”

I do not know the people who are living rent-free in her head (a set of influencer twins), but I know the ones that occupy my own mental space. They are always people I know—almost always people I know very well—and I give them a rent-free room in my brain so I can stress-think about them, wasting energy.

I have silent conversations with them, explaining why they are so. damn. wrong.

Seeing it written that way by Petersen—that I’m giving them rent-free space vs. gaining something from the energy expended—was such a profound shift for me. From now on, when I start telling them that they can hang out and not pay a dime, I’m going to backtrack and tell them that if they want to occupy that space, I need to be getting something out of the exchange, too.

It’s my brain, after all.

Patrick McGinnis coined the term FOMO—fear of missing out—but he also coined a second term: FOBO or fear of a better option. That understanding that the other option may have been the better option. FOBO kicks in while making the decision and lingers after in the form of self-doubt (and maybe regret).

Four minute video break:

✨ Turned this one into a lil' video ✨

• What is FOBO?
• Signs you have FOBO
• What to do about it
• And of course the little "squishy squishy"! 🧠https://t.co/jcBr1oNQ6Z

— Anne-Laure Le Cunff (@anthilemoon) April 8, 2021

I think I’m the worst combination: a satisficer who also dabbles in regret.

Though I like the idea of looking at all FOBO with the knowledge that we don’t have complete information, even though we are behaving as if we do. We can’t possibly know how the option not taken would turn out. We may be more miserable living that other choice.

A good fact to remember.

The ChickieNob and I continue to do our indoor walks every afternoon. We’re still listening to The Magicians, trying to match it—moodwise—with different cities. When we were in Antarctica for the book, we walked through snowy Stockholm. When we were in the Neitherlands, we walked through Rome.

One day, while marching briskly through virtual Sicily, I realized that a bunch of people were wearing masks—mostly over their chins. The video had to have been made in the last year and a half; likely only a few months ago judging by the weather. They were gathered in crowds watching buskers, sipping Aperol spritzes at sidewalk restaurants, wandering in and out of stores.

Statistically, some of the people we were seeing were now dead.

That is true of any video on YouTube. Those people in the background will die at some point, and a person watching a video of a street scene in the future is seeing people who are possibly gone. But with COVID-19, it is extremely likely that some of the people we are passing on the street have died from the virus. Almost 3 million people are missing from the world due to the pandemic. 115,000 in Italy alone. During a 40-minute walk, we pass hundreds of people in the streets. It seems likely that a few are counted among that 115,000.

It’s a sobering thought.

Like I said, it’s not unique to the pandemic, though the pandemic certainly puts that idea front and center in the mind. It makes me sad when I catch their smiles, glimpse laughter, note a kiss.

There’s a quote from the book Admission by Julie Buxbaum that I’ve been turning over in my mind over the last few months, sometimes in regards to the pandemic and sometimes in regards to infertility.

On page 295, she writes,

Is waiting the hardest part? I wonder. I don’t know. In the last few weeks, while we’ve been waiting in a different kind of purgatory, I’ve thought that the in-between was what made everything so difficult. Now, I think the in-between is emotional boot camp. It’s what prepares us for whatever’s next.

This character’s in-between is finding out if her parents will be going to jail and what will happen to her future. So a little bit different from being in the two-week-wait or waiting for a call from an adoption agency or waiting for the end of the pandemic.

Because her waiting is going to be something bad. She just doesn’t know which flavour of bad. How bad it will get. But those other waits are hard because you don’t know what you’re waiting for. You don’t know whether to be hopeful or hopeless. The outcome is so unknown that you have no clue whether you’ll be celebrating or crying at the end of the wait.

Boot camp is action. It’s preparation. But how can you prepare when your in-between is truly in-between? It’s not A or B. It’s A or Z—two ends of the spectrum.

Sending good thoughts to anyone waiting.