A dear friend attended a Memorial service for her closest friend the other day, was just informed that two other attendees had tested positive—thus, today she hunted everywhere for a Covid test and was finally told to return tomorrow.
Yesterday, my rabbi had to cancel a class in order to deal with a Covid issue in his family. My assistant’s partner, a teacher, just had three breakthrough cases for fully vaccinated staff members.
I just cancelled my weekend plan with friends at a restaurant in one of the outer boroughs.
We have been here before. But now we are weary, sullen. The Wuhan virus, whether intentional or accidental, refuses to quit and has marked our lives forever. Too many have died. Some are still enduring the long-term consequences of Covid. People are locked down in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. The children? Too soon to tell. In my city, beloved stores remain boarded up. It is too cold to enjoy the festive, sidewalk restaurants. Sitting indoors, masked, for any kind of a performance, which I just tried to do at the opera proved too difficult, quite unpleasant—at least for me.
Making plans, cancelling plans, refusing to make plans, has unsteadied us all. Thank human inventiveness for our ability to livestream movies in our own homes. But the fearfulness, anxiety, insecurity, isolation, has had some serious mental health consequences. Some of the women in my life are psychologically bouncing off walls: Flying into royal, ranting rages, lying outright, viewing bad actors as victims whom they must defend, crying victim themselves even as they go on the attack. Some claim identities that are not their own and become mortally offended when the proverbial child tells the Empress that she really has no clothes..
Is this just happening to me? Or are short tempers and wild accusations rampant? Oh, do tell.
We will all be celebrating this year in smaller groups. I would like to wish us all a Covid-free Gregorian New Year but I hesitate to do so; clearly, it may not be possible.
Prof. Phyllis Chesler is a Senior Fellow at the Investigative Project on Terrorism, received the 2013 National Jewish Book Award, authored 20 books, including “Women and Madness” (1972) and “The New Anti-Semitism” (2003, 2014) and four studies about honor killing. Her latest books are “An American Bride in Kabul,” “A Family Conspiracy: Honor Killing,” “A Politically Incorrect Feminist,” and “Requiem for a Female Serial Killer.” She is also a Fellow at the Middle East Forum (MEF) and at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), and a founding member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME).