June-September was a pandemic roller-coaster

 

With the outlook for the coronavirus pandemic continuing to spiral downward after an optimistic June and early July, it’s been hard to retain any kind of optimism about our ability to ever rid ourselves of this horrible pandemic, especially given the millions who stubbornly refuse to get vaccinated.
That feeling of dread prompted this column, which was published in the September 2021 edition of Jewish Rhode Island of Providence, R.I.
The two races mentioned were clearly the highlight of my summer --- and the last 18 months.

This column was published in the September 2021 edition of Jewish Rhode Island in Providence.

THE LINK, as it appears on the paper’s website: https://www.jewishrhody.com/stories/a-frightening-roller-coaster-ride-for-my-psyche,13629?

September is here, and if the last few weeks of summer were any indication, the outlook for getting the pandemic under control, and regaining our old lives back, remains highly uncertain.
The weeks leading up to the first month of fall offered a roller-coaster of emotions, with any encouraging news about the pandemic offset by a barrage of warnings and negative statistics about the coronavirus’ resurgence.
After an optimistic Fourth of July, we were bombarded with warnings about the dreaded “delta variant” (the latest version of this never-ending pandemic) and “breakthrough cases” (testing positive for COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated). Mask advisories led, in many cases, to mask mandates, and those of us who did the right thing and got vaccinated fear that the rest of 2021 will be, to quote a phrase that New York Yankee great Yogi Berra was alleged to have said, “Déjà vu all over again!”
That’s life in these early days of September, but the summer didn’t start out that way. Indeed, with vaccinations at more than 70 percent in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and across New England, people were psyched up at the start of the summer instead of having their psyches scarred yet again.
Things were fairly upbeat over the Fourth of July, when I felt really good about myself for the first time in a very long while. In those now-innocent days, my good vibes were reinforced by running my first “in-person” race in 20 months: the 53^rd annual Arnold Mills Road Race, a 4-miler held in conjunction with Cumberland’s Fourth of July parade.
I was one of more than 400 runners who toed the starting line a few hundred yards from the North Cumberland Fire Station on a day that was blessed by low humidity and temperatures in the 60s.
Optimism reigned that Monday morning. (The race was held on the day after the Fourth due to the holiday falling on a Sunday.) While warming up, I saw the most smiles on runners’ faces that I’ve ever seen before a race. We couldn’t wait to return to the road after being limited to virtual races since March 2020.
On that morning, we lined up almost shoulder to shoulder, with only a smattering of masked runners. Participants were chatting and wishing each other well while waiting for the sound that we had yearned to hear for a year and half: the firing of the starter’s pistol. That happened a few minutes after 9, and for one day, things seemed almost normal.
By the time I ran my next race on Aug. 1, however, the situation had begun to deteriorate as we were being warned about the “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” and the delta variant had become the latest threat to our increasingly fleeting chance of ever regaining our former lives.
Nonetheless, the 19^th annual 5K Run/Walk to Remember went on as scheduled, and 105 participants turned out. For me, the experience transcended physical exercise as the morning proved a gigantic spiritual boost to my morale and mental health.
I say that because the 3.1-miler, organized by the Community VNA to raise money for its hospice care program, was the road racing equivalent of “Cheers.” Like the hit NBC-TV sitcom about a Boston bar, the staging area for the race, Veterans Memorial Park in downtown North Attleboro, was transformed into a place where, like the Bull & Finch Pub (the real name of Cheers), everyone knew your name. You couldn’t take more than a few steps without someone greeting you by your first name. It was an experience to savor --- and proved a powerful antidote to the constant drone of doom-and-gloom news relating to the resurgent COVID-19 virus.
People were so relaxed for one morning that that they took advantage of free massages in the park, and they hung around for the post-race awards ceremony and raffles --- activities they used to take for granted, but would never again.
But as I wrap up this column in late August, our good feelings have been replaced by many of the more depressing features from 2020. Many indoor mask requirements are back (I never stopped wearing mine in stores), bickering over mask mandates have become physical in many instances and worst of all, the gulf between the vaccinated and unvaccinated is so wide that it threatens to keep the pandemic going well into 2022, if not longer.
That’s why life deep into our second year of the pandemic feels very much like a frightening roller-coaster ride.
On the one hand, I’ve been fortunate to have run a pair of live races and I’ve met friends for lunch. But on the other hand, whenever I attend the rare social gathering outside, I’m nervous about the vaccination status of those I don’t know.
How do I react? Do I whip my mask out even if it insults the host? Do I ask those who I don’t know whether they’re vaccinated? Or do I just play it safe and stay home?
I’m also leery of traveling, and my early-summer desire to return to Fenway Park or to check out Polar Park in Worcester has been replaced by renewed concerns about attending large stadium gatherings. In addition, we’re now being told, after several mixed messages from our top health officials, that we’ll need booster shots.
In that backdrop, it’s no wonder why my fears about living with this virus are on the rise again. The only thing I know for sure is that my worries will worsen the longer the pandemic persists and the more divided --- and selfish --- that we remain as a  nation.
That’s why, heading into the fall and the Jewish New Year – my psyche is more fragile than ever.
LARRY KESSLER (larrythek65@gmail.com) is a freelance writer based in North Attleboro. He blogs at larrytheklineup.blogspot.com