Worldwide, many people replied to the epic wait with quick wit.
© Joyce McGreevy

Our Epic Wait Reveals What Matters Most

As our voyage back from quarantine nears the shore of normalcy, vaccination sparks anticipation. What are you waiting for? To see friends and loved ones? To return to school or the workplace? To make new travel memories or simply to regain your memories of “ordinary” life? Given our epic wait, we’ve all had time to ponder such questions.

How much time? By my calculations: 2020 to the nth degree, x number of months + the square root of insomnia, minus hours binge-watching gazillion seasons of “Law and Order,” carry the 1 = A LONG DANG TIME.

Would quarantine pass quickly, we wondered? Doubtful as Doubtful Sound, New Zealand.
© Joyce McGreevy

The year 2020 had barely taken its first steps when the pandemic knocked it down. Lockdown followed and the Worldwide Wait began. Early estimates predicted that a “return to normalcy” could take up to eight weeks.

“Eight weeks!” we cried in dismay. Surely, we couldn’t wait eight whole weeks! But we did—seven times. Roughly 56 weeks later, our waiting’s become a many-faceted thing, a collective composition with more nuances than the Goldberg Variations.

We’ve waited for re-openings: schools, nursing homes, businesses. We’ve waited for the return of live events: sports, theater, concerts. We’ve waited for toilet paper to be restocked and groceries to be delivered.

But, but—my plan! I was supposed to be in Stewart Island, NZ.
© Joyce McGreevy

The Evolution of Waiting

In pre-pandemic days, waiting meant tapping our fingers while a barista made our coffee and then apologized for the 45-second “delay.” We were amateurs then and maybe other words that begin with A.

Then came the real waits. Anxious waits, for medical supplies and economic relief. Agonizing waits, for news of loved ones. Anguished waits, when even funerals had to be postponed.

But because the human spirit has had so much practice at being resilient throughout world history, we took this stuff called waiting and fashioned it into a billion-trillion remarkable things.

If I couldn’t be in the “Land of Glowing Skies,”  I could  help lighten the mood where I was.
© Joyce McGreevy

We sewed masks, made donations, sang from balconies, hosted drive-by birthday parades, adopted pets until the shelters were empty. We became compulsively creative: Posting song parodies with the spouse and kids. Building tiny picnic tables for backyard chipmunks. Opening up long-neglected cookbooks, jigsaw puzzles, and unfinished manuscripts.

Unable to go out, we went online. Virtual space became the place for kitchen concerts and get-out-the-vote campaigns; quarantine proms and graduations; family board games and friendly book clubs across time zones. Our universe had contracted, but our neighborhoods kept expanding.

Even as we waited, we depended on those who could not wait, who kept showing up to save or sustain lives. We also discovered that some things should never wait, from appreciating a moment of respite to standing up for justice in our communities.

Sunsets will still be there when New Zealand re-opens for travel . . .
© Joyce McGreevy

Meanwhile, sunsets keep happening everywhere. (Mirror Pond, Bend, Oregon)
© Joyce McGreevy

Our Return Journey Is Personal

Over time, this epic wait has personalized our return journey.  We each have places we yearn to see, things we’re passionate to do. The college student who’d looked forward to life on campus. The actor cast in his first Broadway musical. The worker bee who’d finally landed the corner office.

Some of us are waiting to travel. Lockdown cooled our jets—literally—as airports shut down.

Mt Ruapehu, NZ, where Edmund Hillary climbed as a boy, will still be waiting.
© Joyce McGreevy

In 2020, my sister and I were this close to making the journey we’d planned all year. Several weeks in New Zealand. My third visit, her first. We researched, we conferred, we counted down. With just 29 days to go, we were so giddy our phone calls went mostly like this:

“How many more days? I can’t wait!”

“Not many. I can’t wait, either!”

Then pandemic slammed on the brakes. Seems we could wait because we had to wait. Waiting led to phone calls about all the places we had gone. If we couldn’t travel the world, we’d  travel in words.

As we spoke, those places came back to us in vivid detail. Socially distant, we were somehow there together. Sipping birra rossa under a full moon in Bologna. Walking among holiday crowds on a winter’s day in Leipzig.

Oh, I see: Waiting to travel helped us explore past travels in more depth.

Oh, to wait with the patience of a tree on New Zealand’s North Island.
© Joyce McGreevy

Waiting for Each Other

The thing about places we miss the most? In our travel memories, they’re all about people. The dinners with new friends and friends we’ve known forever. The office camaraderie, the neighborhood block party.

Above all, we miss the home places, wherever our loved ones live. The son and daughter-in-law we never imagined being apart from this long. The newest little arrivals, nieces and nephews we’ve been waiting to meet in person.  Grandparents we’ve waited all year to hug.

As vaccinations increase, we’ll move from travel memories to actual travel. Travel that closes the gap of social distance. We imagine ourselves across the world or across town, away from home, or at home with our doors thrown open. Our epic wait has also been a journey, a navigation toward unexpected understandings. We’ve seen what matters, and what doesn’t, discovered what’s worth waiting for, and what must never wait.

So tell me, as we arrive, what will you carry ashore?

Steadily approaching Auckland Harbor, New Zealand.
© Joyce McGreevy

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