Maybe the Will Smith slap is the end of an era.
I was reading David Sedaris talk about how covid silenced us all, stopped our work, stopped our facing other people. And how some people in say Montana never actually stopped or masked or did anything differently. He's an author, published and successful, and he felt like the world had stopped and then started again and what if no one wanted to see him anymore? What if we don't belong to the place we carved out for ourselves because the world morphed into a new place where no one has any toehold because our toes have all been in hiding.
Are all of us lost?
All of us have our weird, personal covid time stories. For our house, my mom was delivered to my door right at the start of summer 2020 and so we had suddenly the cessation of life as we know it outdoors amongst people and forward motion, and in exchange, the intense fun tumble into two years of stage four dementia watching a vivid mother sharpie in her eyebrows and stop walking and catching her poop into her hand on the toilet and now just crying through breakfast.
In some ways I think my mom has had the best covid reaction, which is let others help you and stop being yourself as much as you can.
The will smith in us can't contain our outrage anymore. There is no sense in hitting the one thing bringing us jokes, he was bringing us JOKES. What bigger superpower is there besides comedy? Lying flat being pelted by jokes is a beautiful way to go.
What happened. David Sedaris is saying. What if we don't have anything left, he says. What if the life we had doesn't matter anymore. Where and who ARE we, and how can we ever feel the same, or better.
My mom is how we all feel at our worst. She can't focus, she cries easily, she's having her own conversation out loud to no one, she needs help to do the most basic of tasks. Nature is helping her pave the way for her escape. She feels love and shows love. That is all that has remained the same.
No one is doing alright and no one is the same. Before we were wandering, bewildered, but we had a solid, inner innate sense of shared humanity, and a core of shreds of safety and hope. Now we are watching a show where someone is telling a joke and someone else gets up, slaps the shit out of him and then a few minutes later gets an award.
We are all beaten from covid, and in Chris Rock's case, actually beaten.
The bitch slap of sore planet.
Chris Rock the chosen comedian, to lead us to a better place.
