We wish you a Happy 4th of July. Please enjoy your event safely, at a social distance, and wearing masks. Unless you are 70 +, then you just stay at home.
That was the message yesterday in the state of Massachusetts. Phase 3 opens on Monday, July 6th and I’m not invited to that reopening phase either.
I do not qualify for invitations to emerge from my bunker until Phase 4 and that appears to be as soon or as delayed as it takes for a vaccine to arrive.
Lisa Finck, a brilliant cartoonist at The New Yorker magazine, had a wonderful animated cartoon today on her Instagram feed. Click the arrow to start the short animation.
Now, this got 10K likes, more than her usual, I think, and she is a much younger woman than I am and her following also appears to be much younger. But, she has captured the universal feeling for all anxious people during COVID19 of all ages.
We poke our foot out the door cautiously, as if it were bathwater we were testing, then we think it’s too hot and withdraw our foot and then keep trying the “test” phase. I go out once a week to the grocery store and occasional forays into small hardware or sewing store. That is the extent of it for almost four months. People all around me, some the same age, are doing much more.
Phase 3 means that museums can open and I thought, “Museums! Soon I can go back to the Museum of Fine Arts! To the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.
But, wait. I usually take the train into Boston. It’s an hour’s ride.
Ok. If I’m not invited to an outdoor 4th of July event, I bet it’s not considered wise to get on a train for an hour either for those of us 70+. Ok. I could drive in. Alone, of course, but that would not be new or different to arrive at the museum solo. I’d just have to park. Pay $20 for “valet” parking or be lucky and find a parking space. Older folks worry about such things. So, next week, I’ll put my foot out the door to think about walking to my car and driving to Boston to go to my museums.
Then, I’ll probably bring my foot back inside and close the door and try again in a week or so.
Liana Finck has a graphic memoir you might want to check out called “Passing for Human”.
