Hi social media world,
Now that I’m further into fatherhood, I’m making my Facebook profile only available to family, close friends, and those who have actively stayed in touch. As a parent, I see this change as a stage of my social media life cycle.
I’ve taught at five different schools, played 1200+ gigs across the country…yet for the last four months I’ve been in a semi-state of quarantine at home with my family. This intense level of social distancing is so our kids can safely see their grandparents and great grandparent before (if) school starts in the fall.
I haven’t been gigging monthly for the first time since 2007. And as of this weekend, I haven’t seen a friend in four months…
This experience of physical distancing has made me rely on social media differently, and watching friends lose family to Covid-19, without a funeral option, has me reconsidering how to live life after 2020.
But this existential reflection—it’s not a midlife crisis, I swear!—also started from, butterflies.
In May, Ginny and I raised three Painted Lady butterflies as caterpillars: Flower, Milkweed, and Bob. Flower ended up laying eggs, and Ginny and I spread the thistle plants with her seeds all over our back lot. We let Flower go, but kept Bob and Milkweed until they died, because they had wing injuries. Ginny and I cried when we had a funeral for them. Geez, give a bug a name and it becomes a pet!
On the 4th of July, the first of Flower’s eggs had made it to its final stage of its life cycle: A caterpillar emerged from its chrysalis as a butterfly and visited our yard!
Ginny and I caught it, named her Flutter, and fed her strawberries. We let Flutter go, and talked about how cool it was to be a part of these butterflies’ life cycles.
Then, Ginny commented how she felt sad that Flutter didn’t have any butterfly friends, like the first three. (She said she felt the same way, missing her classmates from preschool.) But this week, more Painted Ladies are flying around our neighborhood’s gardens! Flutter isn’t alone anymore. (Our kids will one day run around together, too.)
Today, as the butterflies fluttered outside my window, I checked through my FB friends list, writing messages to folks I haven’t seen in years. I saw some of my former students or colleagues had died; my FB circle was too large for me to ever see the news in the feed. I had allowed a flawed algorithm to attempt the work a friend needs to do, and I felt more disconnected…
So I’m accepting this stage of my social media life cycle.
All writing and music will continue to be posted at the public page Mike Vial and website. My email is mike.m.vial@gmail.com.
Be well. Wear a mask. We are in this together to stop Covid-19’s impact on our world. I’m still here, circling the sun, with you.
Sincerely,
Mike
Establishing a Routine During the Pandemic
Not having a routine becomes a routine. And that is exhausting for the brain, all that constant decision making.
I worry about my students who are succumbing to improvising their days, staying up all night, and treating life like a long action of scrolling through a digital device. I also worry how they are feeling now that we are deep in the mundane and monotony.
I’m now noticing emotional patterns for myself while social distancing at home. The three events of my daily schedule are simple: I watch my kids, I check emails, I comment on student work. Yet, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the most difficult days for me.
But why? All days are practically the same! They aren’t on a nuanced level.
Thursday, I look forward to podcasts posting, which is a treat after a long day of solo parenting. Friday, I look forward to my wife helping with kids. Saturday, I get to work without interruption or diaper changes. Sunday, I’m not solo parenting. Monday, I’m sort of refreshed. Recognition of this challenge means I can prepare for it.
I’m also finding patterns my two and five-year-old have. For example, 2-3:45 PM is a difficult time. (We watch a show together from 4-5, and they get impatient for that treat.) If I can help them find some activities with novelty or engagement at 2, they have less frustration then.
This week, let’s examine and guide our kids to recreate their schedules. That’s our sphere of control. It might just start with changing from PJs to day clothes.
Giving Piggyback Rides During the Pandemic
Staying home during the pandemic is a political response–a larger, yet less demonstrative response than a few hundred at a rally at the Capitol. I paraphrase Nicole Henner to remind us that collectively, we are the actual power of action.
I drove through downtown Ann Arbor last night and listened to music. Everyone I saw was demonstrating social distancing measures, excluding four, teenage skateboarders in Kerrytown (who probably hangout every day, so let’s just call them a family).
Many people were wearing masks. People were giving each other space as they walked their dogs. There were no large Saturday parties that I witnessed.
In the news, we will hear of people ignoring social distancing, but we don’t see the majority who are. For example, yes, Belle Isle may be packed today; however, my local park included people letting each other pass, runners choosing different forks in the road, mask wearing walkers. My entire neighborhood is practicing social distancing.
Don’t let a photo of 0.005%-0.01 of your city’s population raise your anxiety. May we focus on our sphere of control. My family is only 0.003% of Ann Arbor…but they are 100% of my heart today.
I’m thinking of you all on this Sunday. May you get a great piggy ride, like Alton did, on this big, beautiful Earth.
Creating Hope During a Socially Distant Birthday
Friends, today, my daughter is five. I will always remember this birthday in vivid color, equally as I remember her birth. I hope she can remember it as a time we came together.
The Covid-19 virus doesn’t care about color; it doesn’t care about borders; it doesn’t have a political agenda or state hot takes online; it doesn’t have a social media account or an affiliation to a political party; it doesn’t have feelings; it doesn’t need to be congratulated for doing a great job; it doesn’t take it personally that it is more disliked than [insert your politician of choice here].
It just replicates.
Only science, logic, humility, empathy, compassion and action will allow us to defeat it—a trinity of scientific ingenuity, faith or spirituality that humbles our ego, and a deep sense of fellowship will be our defenses. If any leader, big or small, isn’t demonstrating all of those qualities, they will fail. The virus will continue to spread, and that’s its only mission.
Leaders can and will make mistakes, but they must be maturely, unequivocally honest—with heart, logic, wit, and guile. The fingertips of rose will rise again tomorrow, for us to adjust course.
We are in this together on the ship of state: as a neighborhood, as a county, as a state/providence, as a country, as a continent, as a planet. (This is a practice test for more arduous challenges in 50-100 years, heaven forbid sooner.)
For those of us who are new to epidemiology, it’s time to trust the experts. We are not on the sideline, but essential participants and active listeners. We all have an oar in our hands as we row.
But if we didn’t know the difference between a linear scale graph and a logarithmic graph, we need to differ to the MacArthur Genius and the emergency room nurse. We must remain well read, but it’s better to go wash our hands rather than type an argument on FaceBook with an acquaintance we haven’t seen in years. Time may go by slowly now, but time is more valuable than money; use it wisely.
The virus, indeed, uses time wisely; it’s here, now, in all states. It’s probably in our town, even if it’s not tracked by testing yet.
Even if we aren’t working on the front lines of the war against the virus, we need to be persistent: understand social distancing, clean hands washing, healthy eating, exercising, family closeness, and mental health monitoring. We also need to redefine the role of government and push for economic help that is bottom up, not top down. We must recognize we are borrowing from our kids’ and grandkids’ economic futures, but we must, to maintain a future we and they recognize.
We need to beat this virus.
In the end, our feelings don’t matter to the virus; math matters to beat it. No one can predict the future exactly, but we can adjust actions as we successfully test more portions of the country, sick and healthy, and catch up on our medical resources.
The economy is in a coma. The country will never be the same after this. There is no analogy for this moment. To paraphrase Pulitzer Prize honored historian, David Blight, the closest historical moments we have are the Civil War and the 1930s. Reading history does not protect us from the future, but it prepares us in the present. Yet, the virus spreads at its quiet pace; we will find more hope in reading poetry than the news every hour…
Poetry may hyperbolize, but the virus doesn’t. The virus would have killed an American population the size of LA in a season without these extreme measures. That statistic would have destroyed the economy and overwhelmed our health care systems.
It still might, yet hopefully to a lesser degree. Watch out for underprivileged communities. They will be hurt the most, holistically; yet a marathon runner in perfect health will also be in the 1%, living in an ICU for weeks, hooked to a ventilator, while others needed that same spot. We Americans can have four or five examples of Italy by May. Rural communities may be miles away, but they are tight knit; their struggles follow after urban cities.
Be prepared to do social distancing for two or three months in cycles. We will get through this. We do it together, even if six feet apart.
The way to save our economy is to beat the virus.
The experts agree on that main idea, and they only offer differences of nuance with how to continue our journey together. Don’t confuse false choices and fantasies dressed with a veneer of pseudoscience. This is real.
We as Americans can blame ourselves for being sucker punched, later. Yes, later, we can fault political leadership of other countries’ handling of the virus in the winter before us, but all of us watched others suffering abroad and understood how viruses spread…We could have added and multiplied numbers in our head, counted using our fingers if we had to, to see the danger approaching. We as a country had time to prepare, but squandered it. Shall other communities who get the virus after us gain anything from blaming our shortcomings? It will be for later to determine blame and consequences, to even forgive. We must remember, a rhetoric of pointing blame won’t serve us to find answers and save lives. The virus doesn’t live in terms of right or wrong, or decipher the guilty from the innocent. It lives and dies in the present, like us.
Today, my daughter is five. I will remember her birthday in color. I want her to remember it as when her country finally came together.
May family and faith find you well.
With love,
Mike
An empty gig calendar for a full writing notebook
2020 is the year for me shift away from playing cover gigs. I’m nervous about this shift, since bar gigs have been consistent income; but my teaching stability allows me the financial freedom to focus on what truly moves my musical passions: songwriting and playing original shows.
Thanks to everyone who has come to one of my gigs at mash over these last seven years. I might be back in that corner again. For now, it’s time for me to write my fifth musical project and finish my first poetry book.
