#Paris #Spring #Pandemic: A Rumination on What’s Next

For Those Who Asked

Dateline: Paris. Against the backdrop — and in spite of — COVID, spring has arrived, inspiring thoughts of the future.

I have spent four months — to the day — experiencing the pandemic in Paris. Everyone at home asks, “How is it?”

December 31, 2020, at 11:50 pm, I take a half-block walk with my partner and dog to the Champs de Mars where we watch the Eiffel Tower’s year-end light show. Since then, I have been home every night by six pm-now seven, thanks to daylight savings.

At this writing, only 6.8% of the French are fully vaccinated. In the U.S., it’s 26%; in Israel-the frontrunner-it’s 56%. In the UK, where about half the population has had a first “jab,” some scientists predict that country is “close” to herd immunity. Whatever that means…

The only thing I know for sure is that every day we seem to be moving a little closer to a time we might call “ post-pandemic.” No one knows when or what our “after” might look like, but that doesn’t stop us from speculating.

It will get better. But not anytime soon.

I can shop for food, take out or order in. But cafes and restaurants are closed. We socialize on foot. Drink morning coffee standing on a street corner.

Parks are open; museum gardens are closed. I can’t buy socks or shoes in person; I can’t buy clothing. No neighborhood boutiques, no department stores. But this being France, hairdressers and dog groomers are still open.

It is what it is. It will get better. But not anytime soon.

They might reopen cafes and restaurants mid-May. “With restrictions,” my French friend Françoise believes — and that’s good enough for me. But I wonder what “restrictions” might that look like.

In New York, restaurants use fewer tables and space them six feet apart. It’s a lot harder to imagine bistros and cafes at 25% occupancy. In a city where diners sit close enough to eat off each other’s plates.

It will get better. But not anytime soon.

People are starting to have vaccinations here. When I signed up in late February, you had to be over 75. And I had to wait two months for my first. Now fortysomethings can make appointments.

As more people are vaccinated, we can go beyond our pods. We can “entertain” — have people for drinks or dinner. We can talk without masks, see mouths moving.

Eventually, we will go to parties, eat in a restaurant. Eventually, we will sit in an audience, travel. Eventually, we will almost never wear masks.

Eventually. It will get better. But not just yet.

Someday, we’ll use the phrase “during COVID” to describe An unexpected, difficult, and, for some, tragic time in living history. “The Pandemic of 2020” will be a chapter (following “The Trump Era”) in a grandchild’s history text.

Someday, I will appreciate the security and calm of a Paris curfew (sometimes, I already do). I will remember this Paris — a city suddenly without its 20 million tourists - Emptier still because so many of the bourgeoisie feel safer in their country homes…for now.

Originally published at https://melindablau.com on April 21, 2021.