CORONA LIGHTS

As we all sit here sheltering-in-place during this hopefully-once-in-a-lifetime event, just sharing some thoughts on coping, mapping and the future. Forget thinking of the well-known beer or a large park in Queens, our idea of acknowledging what is going on and trying to cheer up was to not take down the holiday lights from December. You remember December, when we were all still innocently thinking that 2020 was going to be a great year for many people? The lights twinkle and remind us of better days, as well as better days ahead. It’s new territory for them too. They’ve never seen anything past January and had no idea about Martin Luther King’s Day, President’s Day, Mardi Gras, Spring, Easter, Flowers, Tax Day or any of the things we are used taking for granted at this time of year. They are now more than just holiday lights that help us greet the sundown each lived-inside day. They help remind us to take heart that this will end and normal life will return, albeit tempered by all the suffering and tragedy experienced by so many people. It’s similar, in a way, to how I relate to the maps as well. I’m reworking a previously issued one now, comforted by the familiar processes that have informed all the others for the past 20 years. Representing the real 3-dimensional world, with all of its messy realities, in a manageable well-organized, well-understood, 2-dimensional form provides needed distraction and a reminder of the seashore and happier days. My hope is the completion of the latest map will somehow, magically, coincide with the end of this worst phase of the virus and the start of healing and return to normalcy. Then I can finally give the Corona Lights a much-deserved rest.