This morning I sat in the grocery store parking lot for a few extra moments because “She Always Bend Over” was playing ⸺ I’ve (again) been in a sad mood about going out dancing for the past couple days. It is the thing I miss most about this post-COVID world, solo jams at home just aren’t the same. When I returned to the car after shopping, a different song was playing that I haven’t heard before, the chorus of which was ⸺ “fed up with face masks… I just want to play mas…” I’m always a little tickled at the number of dancehall and soca songs that either reference or make a COVID-related play on words ’cause if you can’t wuk up in a pandemic, where in the hell can we go?
Now, I’m not hip to everything the young folks are doing these days, but I can’t immediately think of any current mainstream US hip hop or R&B songs that like, talk about or reference COVID or its conditions in a significant way… and in general our current TV shows and movies avoid it unless it’s a gloom and doom dystopian film on purpose.
I think that’s related to our general refusal as a society to stop throwing parties and gathering in big groups. A tenet I live by is, “feelings literally cannot kill you. It’s the things you do to AVOID feelings that’ll fuck you up. So feel your fucking feelings.” I think that applies. In general Americans are stuck in either hyperoptimism (this will all go away in a few months. Once everybody’s vaccinated we’ll be back to normal) or complete avoidance (stop living in fear. You gotta live your life. Everybody’s gonna catch it eventually or Its no different from the flu/isn’t real.) Those are neat buckets to be in, and our popular culture reflects that: keep the audience dark at the NBA games so people don’t notice the empty stands. Fill the Superbowl arena with “vaccinated fans” and cardboard cutouts so the stands look full. Watch awkwardly framed soap operas where two people are never actually close to one another in the same shot and arduously filmed TV shows that are jarring to watch when you see people hug… because you haven’t done it yourself in so long.
The middle between those buckets is messy ⸺ the internal shame of being in a crowd of people for the first time in months and having a panic attack. The struggle of wanting to visit your friend’s new place, but deliberately being too busy to stop by because she’s a nurse. The daily stomach sick of suiting up in polypropylene armor to work an “essential” job and having no socialization or respite on your days off. Before coming to Barbados, the last time I’d eaten at/inside a restaurant was February of last year, the last night of my trip to London. The first time I sat down with a menu here, I cried. Salty, embarrassed, joyful, silly tears into a plate of chicken tenders for doing one of the most mundane yet pleasurable things I didn’t even realize I’d missed so much. It was a weird feeling.
I chose dinner at the hotel my mom and her friends often stayed in during their annual visits to Barbados. Most restaurants are outdoor dining by default.
We don’t like weird feelings. Fears that confuse and terrify us. Mourning for lives and life at the same time. Or guiltily mourning your former life in the midst of others’ more tangible mournings. The weight of all that talk of “experiences over things,” then finding it impossible/dangerous/anger-inducing to have experiences, while the things are getting lost in the mail. It fucking sucks. But we don’t talk a lot about how much it fucking sucks because venting seems imprudent when we all have the same malaise. So we ignore it. We keep singing songs about sitting on dudes faces when you know good and well you ain’t letting that dude in your bubble.
Maybe… just maybe… we should open up.
Barbados is currently on a two-week “pause” that will probably be extended. When I arrived, it was an oasis here. We were masking in the grocery store with solid temperature checks and contact tracing in stores, but liming comfortably in small groups everywhere else. I spent Christmas day at a morning reggae concert and having a potluck on the beach with then-strangers. A potluck! Because we could. Because there was no COVID here that wasn’t imported. But then it was, and now we’re on a 6pm curfew with beaches that only open early mornings. No one is flying over to Trinidad for Carnival this week. No one’s premiering Cropover costumes for August. And people are sad. And there are songs about it. Peppered between the songs are “quarantine tips and check-ins” on the radio, urging people to call a hotline or friend for support. Reminders to be in touch with elderly folks who are isolated for safety. Before the Pause went into effect, the Ministry of Health hosted a press conference and Q&A to detail the mental health services that will still be available during this time.They constantly urge people to open up in the midst of their world shutting down. And people are scared and frustrated. But they’re living different.
I don’t purport to have answers about where people should turn their individual attentions, but I often wonder what could happen if we expand our ideas of what’s comfortable to talk or even think about, and how we do it. Cause drowning all these feelings in hookah smoke and crowded ass house parties ain’t it. You can’t even dance in there.
 been in a sad mood about going out dancing for the past couple days. It is the thing I miss most about this post-COVID world, solo jams at home just...Read More){kind=link}