Buh Bye 2020
Dobb’s Ferry ~ Hayes Valley ~ 12/20
With one week left in this traumatic year I feel both my feet grounded in the wet sand and the riptide pulling me under at the same time. I am left speechless attempting to understand the sheer magnitude of the loss we have experienced both as a country and as a planet. We currently have three immediate family members that have Covid in three different cities with varied symptoms and degrees of risk. We lost a close friend over the weekend to addiction which was easily amplified by the shelter in place and was a jarring reminder that the losses of this year include thousands due to mental health issues hidden by this lack of connection. The fun zoom happy hours that we did with our confidants and families for the first three months have waned now that we need to be on zoom for work, school, meetings, etc… The novelty wore off when we needed it most because social distancing was a poor term for what was being asked of us. Physical distancing was the goal not isolation from human connection.
And yet I have so much gratitude. I cry so very often and notice many times that it is coming from a place of recognizing that when everything is seemingly taken away, I have been left with the only things that matter: My partner, my kids, my mom, my home, my community. Home as a place and a feeling. All the collective crap we have acquired is just cannon fodder. Dance parties, storytelling around the table, having hard and important talks with our four year old about racism, goal setting with my husband, philosophy with my mom, an extended trip from my mother in-law during SIP so I could do a certification course… these are also things that came out of 2020. Being home with my baby for 6 months of his 1st year: there is silver lining in this year of shit. I feel overwhelmed with sadness daily and then gratitude meets it right at the pass to confuse the tears as to why they are here.
But then I feel guilty. How can I be grateful we are surviving this when our industry around us in San Francisco is free falling? We had one of the lowest transmission rates of any metro area yet our local politicians doubled down on staying closed and it is uncertain if our economy can recover. Every bar owner, restaurateur and retailer is treading water trying to pivot to make their losses sustainable. Many friends and citywide service and kitchen staff are still out of work and unemployment ran out last week. Moving vans line our popular streets for the roughly 140,000 people that decided to exit stage right because if all the tech people can work from home why would they spend $4K on a 1 bedroom apartment? The homeless situation which was horrible before 2020 is atrocious now so I don’t see our booming tourism returning any time soon.
And then my optimist husband chimes in that the real San Francisco will still be here. He says we will have to work really hard the next couple years to help our favorite gastropubs, diners and hole in the walls survive but that the city was saturated with uninspired concepts. This isn’t to say we haven’t lost MANY inspired and classic SF joints but he is right. The tech money brought loads of duplication and concepts that lacked substance. The artists, musicians and radical creatives were already hibernating due to the high cost of the tech boom but now we have the opportunity for a revival of the spirited, weird, anything goes, liberal and diverse city that we fell in love with. We have watched the city change over the last decade and now the revolving door will swing back to the left and let us out in the middle of our favorite street fair. I know he is right but also it will get worse before it gets better.
The ping pong effect of desperation and hope, darkness and light, exhaustion and renewal makes each day feel like a trip into a salt water taffy machine at the boardwalk. And just when I feel like the wheels are coming off, I crash into the camaraderie of every parent & hospitality worker. I am comforted by the fact that we are all interwoven in this story and struggling together somehow feels less difficult. Having never felt closer to the outcome of local politics, to our delivery drivers, to the stranger walking their dog because our lives and livelihood depends on it.
I remember turning to my mom in-law last year and asking how she did it with five kids because I am barely holding on with three and she said “I don’t know how we did it either. You just keep going and eventually you look back and you’re through it.” It will be a great social experiment to look back at this time in thirty years. I picture our children with their kids walking through a photography exhibit at the De Young that shows the abandoned streets of downtown San Francisco and the day the sky turned orange. They will reminisce about the year they got to skip school and hang out with their parents and had to wear masks everywhere like superheros. I will be a grandparent thinking about how great that time with our family was and even though I will remember the hardship I somehow think it won’t be what stands out.
If John Krasinski has taught us anything this year it’s that there is always Some Good News. Even with all the loss, heartbreak and conflict there are tremendously great people in this world that are lifting each other up and putting their own lives at risk to save others. Survivor guilt just means that we are in touch with our empathy and we will need to stay connected to that as we move through the aftermath. I, for one, am certain to be that awkward hugger that squeezes a little too long when all this is over. I will strive to hold on to this gratitude even as things start to normalize and get easier. Playing freely in parks, conversating at the bar with strangers and breaking bread with friends will not be taken for granted. I will recognize the small acts that bring great joy and mimic more of that. I don’t foresee 2021 bringing a lot of immediate change but the day will come when we can sing and dance mask free wherever we choose to gather.
And until that day let’s think of each other. Of the people we each support. How the interweaving of our fabric can either build our community or rip it apart. Lets stop sending our money into the void and buy the item for a dollar or two more from our local market because they are the ones invested in our city. For me as much as I want to tell 2020 that it can go suck a big phat donkey nose (what did you think I was gonna say?), I also have to say thank you. For the introspection, babies nuzzles, tough talks, self-care, hopeful progress and survival. I know many were not so lucky and to all of you I share your sorrow and hope that 2021 brings relief and lightness. There will be a collective grief coming this year that will be heavy but through it our souls will be bonded. When it lifts I hope our city, nation and world can see each other better through a new more focused lens. Buh Bye 2020… I will not miss you but thank you nonetheless.
