In the early days of the pandemic, I decided to write thoughts in a journal, a book I rediscovered again recently. They seem to describe eons ago and yesterday, notes on the pandemic time loop we’re all – still – living in. The first entries read like eerily optimistic planning and to do lists of how to manage two kids at home – cooking projects and home schooling history lessons. Then, it got bleak. People I knew and loved died. It’s difficult to re-read now. In April of 2020 I wrote: “The lemon thyme in my garden came back after the long Wisconsin winter. Hope of survival. I forgot for a moment what was happening but then remembered again.”
Now, I’ve become fascinated with the first wave of pandemic-related fiction to emerge from this time. It helps me remember and relate. I’ve recently read "Violeta" by Isabel Allende, "The Sentence" by Louise Erdrich and "Sea of Tranquility" by Emily St. John Mandel (who also wrote the great and prescient "Station Eleven.")
For a show we are re-airing this week, "You're Not Ok. That's Ok," I interviewed cultural critic Alissa Wilkinson about the artists – musicians, filmmakers and writers – who are trying to capture this moment through their work and through this time. Wilkinson says: “I have talked to a lot of authors who wrote novels during this time, and they were like, "I had to write it because I felt like I was going to disappear if I didn't….In the longer term, I think we'll see a lot of people working out the incredible anxiety that we were feeling very acutely when there was just no end in sight.”
–Shannon