July 5, 2021: Fog happens everywhere in the morning

July 5, 2021: Fog happens everywhere in the morning. It is a thread that ties our lives across the different parts of the World that a nomad populates. I actually heard a person use the word “nomad” as a personal label. Don’t hear that term too often. But the post-pandemic World may produce more nomads, those who travel through space and time constantly finding a home wherever the body is. I know of a person who travelled through many places and times and survived nearly nine intrusions in the nostril to demonstrate that the pandemic had not touched the person. How does the virus decide? You can be in a pre-pandemic World one second with evidently no trace of the virus with an iron tight vaccine protection, and the next second, that same you, as you walk through a door you are in a virus infested place and your vaccination means nothing. Try walking into an airport anywhere in the World today. The mask is back, sometimes the face shield and in the middle seat for some airlines the PPE. The PPE wearing person next to you is who was just outside in the “normal” World, and now magically is protected with a PPE and protecting you with a mask and face shield. Nearly everything is opening up in Calcutta, everything is open in Winston, and that perhaps is starting to make sense. But how then do we interpret the unflinching directives that there are some places where pandemic-level restrictions simply continue to be imposed. This is where we start to see an inconsistent policy development. I really do not feel like I know anymore where to mask and where not to. Unless I choose to mask everywhere. I had the good fortune to spend some time with a very close bondhus today. We shared a dram and talked about these inscrutable anomalies of current life. The drive to meet the bondhus was long but pleasant. I had the company of another bondhu during the drive keeping me energized with good cheer, albeit remote, and the numerous phone calls across time zones which are best done from a car. I got tested again. For COVID-19. Remember this is our normal. While we slide back to the old days, there are large sub sections in our World who are grappling with unlearning what we internalized during COVID-19. A young doctoral student was speaking to me about the University of Chicago, where the person will start to study neuroscience after an undergraduate degree from Duke University. The person said it will be an interesting experiment. I was confused. I asked whether the person meant what we have lived through an experiment. The budding neuroscientist said, no, the reference was to the autumn semester. When people like me will return to the “classroom.” That is the experiment? That is so encouraging. See, I have lived my life as a teacher/scholar. Teaching and research in equal measure. The accumulation of that yields progression in academia. I thought the last several months was the experiment. But this young enthusiastic individual said the real experiment starts in August. When colleges in America come back. That is the experiment? This is one of the most encouraging things I have heard in a long time. From a complete stranger, albeit an intelligent person (we teachers can gauge a person in NY second)! If others, especially the young ones, are thinking that returning to the pre-pandemic condition, and how well we can recreate it, is an experiment. Bam. There it is. The need to return, or should it be a need to reform? However unkind it may sound – we may never have this chance again as Judy Garland said, “It’s a new world.” Return or Experiment?