With our outer lives severely circumscribed, many of us are turning inward. When we travel in that direction, there are a great many songs, movies, paintings, and performances to accompany us on the journey.
This wave of self-exploration is a well-developed tradition in art, balanced against its counterpart, narcissism and self-pity; that the quest for personal growth can collapse into self-worship is axiomatic.
Meanwhile, the brutally unromantic retail industry has lost an unprecedented 25 percent of its sales in two months. Millions of people have lost their jobs. These developments interact to paint a cloudy vision of our economic future. Weather apps just aren't up to that challenge.
Politicians of a certain stripe wish to reopen their state and local economies and many are doing just that. But how soon will enough people feel it is safe to go out to bars, restaurants, malls and shopping districts to tip the scales back in balance?
The answer to that question lies in massive volumes of data yet to be generated -- is the virus, which has been declining in many states, down for the count or will it bounce back up to bite us in the ass?
Tune in this time next month for that assessment.
***
One of the major ways we are classified in this society is by how much money we spend and how we spend it. But that fails to measure our emotional capital -- how much we feel and whom we harbor deep feelings for.
Most of our emotional capacity depends on empathy. If we can't intuitively grasp each other's hopes, fears, dream and nightmares, we can't connect. What is intimacy if not sharing these otherwise private desires?
So the question is how will people fall in love and date and form couples in the age of social distancing? Will there be extended periods of sublimation, a return to courting as in olden times?
As baby boomers, my generation shattered previous patterns of dating and sex. All of a sudden, a large surging crowd of people broke convention after convention. There was heterosexual sex before marriage, homosexual relationships, women taking control of their own bodies, inter-racial dating, unconventional arrangements of every kind, including taking advantage of new technologies -- the pill, in-vitro fertilization, selection of fetuses by gender and other characteristics -- all this became the norm.
But one thing held firm: If there was going to be a family there pretty much had to be a couple, at least for a while. Otherwise the whole child-raising thing was going to get complicated.
And it did -- it got complicated, and press coverage the past few decades chronicled the emergence of blended families, so-called "deadbeat dads" (never met one myself), and a divorce rate that suggested rolling the dice every time a couple got hitched was as good a way of predicting who would stay together as any.
When it comes to novels and movies, I'm a sucker for romantic comedies. I've got dozens of favorites, some of which show up as references here, obliquely or directly. Today's lyrical choice is the soundtrack behind one of the great wide shots in a favorite movie of mine. But the musical notes outdistance the words by far. That's the way it goes sometimes, in movies as in love.
When I study the lives of the actors and actresses starring in these movies, they've all been in a number of relationships; most have several marriages and divorces, just like me.
Once you reach whatever age fits you, looking back is a wistful exercise; looking forward raises all sorts of doubt. usually, there's a big yellow road sign -- Caution -- guarding any new romantic road you consider going down.
In my case, about ten years ago, I just stopped. No more dating, I decided, it was time to concentrate on being a good parent with three young children still in my care. I also renewed my focus on the work I was doing, determined to become a better writer and editor and team member.
That brings me to last year -- 2019 was a lost year. Illness after illness, hospital after hospital. It seemed that I had entered an irrevocable state of decline.
But that turned out to not be the case. Instead, I recovered, got stronger, and then entered a new period: renewal.
So on with the show.
...You took my feelings from nothing
Came back at noon
Just meet me, I'm ready
To show myself to you...
...'Cause you make me feel
You make me feel wild
You touch my inner smile
You got me in the mood...
-- Texas
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