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December 6, 2022

The archaeology of COVID persists. Outside this acquatic center, on the concrete sidewalks and expanses that surround the pool buildings, are the fading spray-painted X’s that once pinned in-bound swimmers to a “safe” spot, attempting to reassure the frightened, as Jim Breuer so memorably puts it: “Six feet safe; five feet danger!” Gone are the wedding tents that once sheltered incoming practice groups marooned outside as they shivered and waited for an opportunity to enter a restricted indoor space. Invisible but present still are the layers of virus-killing disinfectant that cake every wall. Above the wall opposite the scoreboard, a remote camera maintains a lonely vigil, a memory of the day when parents and non-competing swimmers were not allowed on deck during competitions but could watch their children or teammates compete via video in idling cars. The plastic circles and traffic cones that marked the progression of swimmers through the “sorting cap” of the clerk of the course (where competing swimmers are organized into heats and lanes) prior to entering the competition pool are gone. In the pump rooms are ghostly baskets or bags proudly marked with their disinfecting dates. The plastic shields that divided lanes and their wooden supporting chocks sit forlornly outside. On the entrance door, an ancient sign remains: masks recommended. Over an exit door, a hook seems to have no purpose but it is the fading memory of a warming lamp for swimmers queuing up to leave or enter the pool during the winter of 2020-2021.

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Sadly, COVID primarily lives on in its human adherents, the masked cultists who seek to resist the return of normality for reasons best known to some quiet inner mental sanctum they nurture. The “archaeological remnants” answer the question, “What did you do during the COVID Wars?” The persistence of masks prompts the question, why? Specifically, why do individuals persist in their pandemic roles? Who liked what they were doing so much that it continues to provide comfort? The human wreckage will outlast the material debris. Someday, the X’s will fade completely and the walls and decks will no longer foam when sprayed with a pressure washer. Someone will remove the entrance door sign and the camera will be put to another, better use.

This human wreckage is multigenerational. Children whose parents are Pandemic Party members wear masks like latter-day party armbands. Someone pushed it and so it was done. Deprogramming takes time and patience but each moment of persistence delays the day that deprogramming begins. Humans can rationally understand the economics of sunk costs and, with some difficulty, cut ties. TV shows investigating the sad plight of hoarders reveal that emotional sunk costs are far less easily tossed. In fact, they tend to accumulate, multiplying exponentially until a home becomes both an unlivable mess and a crowded crypt housing the emotional trauma that was never resolved, never healed.

These damaged “masking” souls will remain perpetually prone to repeat this cycle. Something will retrigger the fear; the fear will prompt the response to shelter and hide; sheltering and hiding will provide relief, even a feeling of comfort. And a need for the whole cycle to repeat itself. Humans seek comfort in familiar sequences. A sequence that confers comfort gains a talismanic power.

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But the greatest casualty may be a lack of sensibility, if sensibility can be defined as an awareness of the surrounding human and natural world.

Here is a reasonably faithful rendition of a conversation I had with a young person bound for her sophomore year at an elite northeastern college. Noticing a band-aid on her arm, I asked its source. She gaily replied that she had just received her fourth booster. I nodded.

“You’re jealous, aren’t you? My doctor said I was eligible so I got it.”

“Jealous?” I asked. “Why would I be jealous?”

She shrugged and seemed to revel in her newly-minted “four” status. Because she has always been a wonderful, considerate soul, she asked about my booster level. I haven’t spoken publicly about my “status” to anyone, but because I was retirement bound, I decided to let loose.

“I haven’t been boosted. I haven’t even been vaccinated. And I haven’t gotten sick.”