‍     Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been in confinement (lockdown) — obliged to stay at home except for some very limited circumstances.  All but essential businesses are closed.  Here in France, There are things that we would like to do — but we can’t.  It is like someone has pressed the pause button.

‍     In addition to being confined, everyone is suffering the anxiety of uncertainty.  Many people around us are sick.  Some have recovered.  Some have died.  This time of pandemic is not easy for anyone.

‍     The government has announced that things will begin to (very) gradually reopen after May 11th — after almost two months of confinement.  The process will certainty be very long.  Restaurants, cinemas, churches, and museums will be much later.  The ability to travel?  Things are still undefined.

‍     Life will be different when we reopen after this pandemic.

‍     Being confined here at home has been a period of transition — a period of being in between two worlds.  

‍     This has gotten me to think of the early settlers — the Pilgrims* and others — who traversed the ocean to settle in a new world.  This includes not the colonies of North America but also South and Central America, South Africa, and others.  The left their familiar environment and spent long weeks confined on boats to emerge, at the end of their voyage, and transition to a new world that was very different from what they knew before.  Not all survived.  Many did and went on to build their new lives.

‍     This transition to a new life was then repeated by the movement of immigrants around the world.  (Although for them, things were less uncertain since there were already structures in place, and maybe even family, in the new country.)  As immigrants, they all left behind the familiar to face uncertainty and establish themselves in a new world.

‍     Looking forward to the “after” of this pandemic, we will all face a similar transition and experience similar feelings.  Our world will be different in many regards.

‍     As we experience confinement, we are in a period of transition — from a familiar past to a new world.  How long will it take?  We don’t know.  Like the Pilgrims on their voyage, we are still in the middle of the ocean.

‍     What will things be like in the future?  We also don’t know.  Exactly what it will be like is difficult to foresee.  This, combined with not knowing how long it will take, naturally is a source of uncertainty and anxiety.  We simply do not know.

‍     But, what is certain is that, like the Pilgrims and other immigrants before us, we will find ourselves in a new world.  What will it be like?  We will find out.

‍     We are headed to our new world.  It will be for us to discover — and to define.

You may not agree with me but,   That is how I see things.

Mark Louis Uhrich

Maisons-Laffitte, France,  24 April 2020

©Copyright Mark Louis Uhrich

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*The Pilgrims sailed from England to Massachusetts in 1620 on the ship Mayflower.  Their voyage took 66 days.