Transitioning My Year

My respite to the Everglades was prudently cancelled.  I could use some time away, particularly time to fulfill one of the twelve initiatives for the half-year that I set five months ago.  My annual concept of time has a few demarcation points:  The New Year, the two planning sessions that command my attention in June and December, and Rosh Hashana.  Interestingly, my birthday, the landmark for myself has never been one.  There has also been some lifetime fluidity, with the start and conclusion of each school year in the fall and spring, and later with medical contracts that typically begin and end July 1.  But Auld Lang Syne has long since dominated.

I learn that it's not that easy to predict in December or June what I will find myself intrinsically motivated to perform six months later.  The finite, those with deadlines get done, for me this cycle, my son's wedding.  The visit to the National Park could have been done, but found myself risk averse, or at least foreseeing irrevocable regret should Covid-19 devastate my household over a mere personal pleasure.  I allocate a reading target and always fulfill it.  And I made my three intended day trips, with a day's pleasure at each, sometimes getting there and back offering more gratification than being there.  My bedroom, or at least my half, has become navigable and a reasonably attractive destination for sleep, which has also improved with dedication to optimal sleep hygiene.  I did not meet my weight goal, but exercise on schedule with negligible lapses, eat better, and shop for groceries in a way that assists weight control.  I bought and read two subscriptions.  And with some effort, I pay more attention to the progress of my finances.

What has gone less well are the interpersonal upgrades, the acquisition of new friends and engaging in two organizations in a meaningful way.  Covid-19 has posed a real barrier here.  In June

I assumed the worst was behind us, Osher Institute would resume, I could become more of a raconteur at kiddush, or be a presence at the Christiana Care senior physicians group.  None of that happened.  I access electronically, but there is a gap between a screen and a handshake.  I've been there before, of course, we all have.  College and medical school had big lecture classes followed by lonely reviews after sundown.  We also had communal meals, lab interactions, clinic interactions, some small classes.  I never had to watch a lecture on TV but contemporaries at big state universities got their introduction to Psychology or Economics that way.  At Endocrine Society Annual Meetings, we enter a cavernous ballroom with thousands of easily movable, not very inviting chairs while we watch the presentation on the screen nearest our chair.  We trickle in individually, sometimes recognizing somebody we know as we select our seats but never meet anyone new.  At the conclusion we head to our next destination, a mass of people individualized by name tag, but really only part of the aggregate.  It takes a lot more than personal presences to generate friends.  In college or in the workplace that happened by partnerships of various type.  At Osher it happened by random conversations with people seeking out a chair near yours in an open gathering location or by the accident of table seating in the cafeteria, rarely by individual classes.  Covid-19 has really imploded all of this.

Among my books for this half-year was Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand, written about thirty years ago to offer a perspective between the underpinnings of male and female use of language.  She included a chapter on interruption of one person's speech by another.  Sometimes this is highly unwelcome but often it is the essence of connection.  Zoom imposes a formality to speech, much like school where you raise your hand and take your turn.  It is not interactive speech where ideas exchange spontaneously as they would among the informal connections that generate friendship or personal loyalty.  Those initiatives did not materialize, though only in part because of the new reality of verbal exchange.  

Over the years I have paid dues to many organizations, mostly professional, but contributed to few.  It is those few that I value the most and identify with.  Often I am designated as spectator, even with my synagogue, something not very inviting.  I've been to receptions where everyone knows everyone else, usually not eager to add a newcomer or even be on the prowl for talent and willingness to chip in.  I would say our local Democrats function this way.  The workplace was very different.  Everyone there was needed, though not everyone received the appreciation for what they contributed.  Some of our volunteer organizations would do better if they functioned more like the workplace.  Mine have not.

My semi-annual month of review and setting of directions for the next half-year has returned.  Semi-isolation will not change this cycle, perhaps as prevention of severe illness becomes available with immunization, it will the next cycle.  As I look at the twelve categories that comprise my projects, most of my big efforts are completed.  Health maintenance perks along.  My finances into retirement are stable, my family has small transitions, I'm into a reading and learning steady state, I don't need to purchase any more stuff.  I'm short of the interactions with other people, the immersion in the group, moving from spectator to participant.  Covid-19 has been a barrier, for sure, but not an immovable one.