My family Thanksgiving in these pandemic times
Pending some miracle, "normal" Thanksgiving was never going to be in the cards this year.
Back in late October, when cases in Wisconsin (where annanov and her immediate family lives) were climbing fast, and cases in Illinois were rising, but slower, I met up with my mom for lunch, and she laid out her Thanksgiving plans. Anna, John and her daughters would come her place in the suburbs, and vladiatorr and I would join in on Zoom. Then, on the weekeend, Vlad and I would come to her place and have Thanksgiving with her, and Anna, John and the kids would join us on Zoom.
I wasn't amused.
I later found out that my mom was under impression that I was upset that we wouldn't have any in-person family gathering, but that wasn't really it. It was my growing antipathy toward Zoom. I do recognize its utility, whether it's allowing government entities to meet online, or how it allowed one to attend events not just in another city, but another state/country/you get the idea. And there is something to be said for how it allowed us to have some kinds of social interactions. But sitting in front of Zoom for a prolonged period of time exhausts me, the way Skype or even Google Hangouts never did. I'm not sure what's worse - having conflicting volumes and intrusive sounds or the headache-inducing mute/unmute dance. And, for some reason, focusing on the screen is harder on Zoom than Skype, or Google Hangouts.
The prospect of having one Zoom Thanksgiving was daunting. The prospect of doing two...
I'm not the most articulate under stress, and dealing with stress while someone castigates me tends to just lock me up, completely, which leads to this annoying cycle when another person (usually my mom) keeps telling me to talk, which just stresses me out and makes it harder for me to talk, so I couldn't quite articulate any of that. But I was able to ask whether there was any point in doing something that convoluted. If we weren't all going to meet in person anyway, wouldn't it be easier to just have one event?
My mom said something along the lines of "No, because I want to feed all of you."
(And, because I know my mom will be reading this - yes, the fact that you pointed out that the nature of my job makes complete quarantine impossible (as I've commented before, there's only so much journalism one can do remotely) did get under my skin. And yes, I may have said something along the lines of the fact that quarantining is s privilege I don't get to have (well, I tried to. As I said, my communications don't work so well under stress). It's the nature of the job, and it doesn't mean I have to like it.)
In any case, as positivity rates climbed in Illinois, and state and city imposed more and more restrictions (even if many of them were advisory in nature, government entities and some businesses followed them in practice in the effort to do their part to bring the numbers down). Which kind of made the decisions for us. After some cajoling from Anna and Vlad, my mom wound up going Finland to spend the Thanksgiving week with her husband, and my siblings' father (he'd normally fly over here on Thanksgiving, which looked like a dicey proposition this year). And we wound up having a Zoom Thanksgiving.
It was a relatively brief thing, due to the nature of the time difference between Finland and Midwestern United States (and our respective schedules). We did the "what we're thankful for" round of speeches, toasted and looked at the Thanksgiving dinner at House Anna.
Like I said, I was dreading Zoom. And while I could usually improvise my way through a Thanksgiving speech, I dreaded that because, honestly, feeling thankful for anything has been hard. Usually, I am the first person to try to find silver lining, but that started feel hollow months ago. More and more, I've been reminded of what it felt like to live through the collapse of the Soviet Union as everything seemed to keep getting worse and worse, and adults saw no end in sight.
But, perhaps because the Zoom session was relatively short, it really wasn't bad at all. And I did manage to make a speech about some things that I'm thankful for. I did ended up going on a little rant about Zoom, which kind of summed up some of what I wrote above. Overall, with all of the inevitable limitations of that sort of thing, it was nice.
Before she left for Finland, she sent me some food through Vlad - her vegetable soup, mashed potatoes and cake. I figured that the pre-cooked chicken from Devon Market was a good substitute for turkey. I got cranberry nectar imported from Russia so I'd have something to toast with.
And, inspired by Anna's story about how she found red caviar in Milwaukee, I ended up buying a can of caviar of my own. And making some sandwiches.
Later, I talked to Aunt Anya, and later my cousin, Timofey.
After our conversation, I found myself thinking, not for the first time, about all of the places I would like to show him back in St. Petersburg. Along the many, many places on that list is a look at the prison where our grandfathers were imprisoned before they got sent to labor camps. And I found myself thinking, not for the first time, that our very existence is a giant middle finger to Stalin's regime and every one who enabled it. The repressions broke our great-grandmother, traumatized our respective grandfathers, but we are here. Our family was wounded, but not destroyed. We exist. We remember. We continue on.
And, for the first time in months, I felt... motivated.
Someone wiser than me has said that it doesn't matter how often we stumble, or what setbacks we face, or how we fail. The important thing is to keep going. To get back up and keep going. And all the sudden, keeping going in spite of everything that was done to our family seemed like a good reason to.
I don't know if I'd feel the same way later, but for right now... I actually feel good this Thanksgiving.
So Happy (American) Thankgsiving, Livejournal and all of the social media networks out there. Thank you for all the help and support you've shown me and my family.
And, seriously - screw Zoom. I can't wait until I will no longer have to use the bloody thing.
Back in late October, when cases in Wisconsin (where annanov and her immediate family lives) were climbing fast, and cases in Illinois were rising, but slower, I met up with my mom for lunch, and she laid out her Thanksgiving plans. Anna, John and her daughters would come her place in the suburbs, and vladiatorr and I would join in on Zoom. Then, on the weekeend, Vlad and I would come to her place and have Thanksgiving with her, and Anna, John and the kids would join us on Zoom.
I wasn't amused.
I later found out that my mom was under impression that I was upset that we wouldn't have any in-person family gathering, but that wasn't really it. It was my growing antipathy toward Zoom. I do recognize its utility, whether it's allowing government entities to meet online, or how it allowed one to attend events not just in another city, but another state/country/you get the idea. And there is something to be said for how it allowed us to have some kinds of social interactions. But sitting in front of Zoom for a prolonged period of time exhausts me, the way Skype or even Google Hangouts never did. I'm not sure what's worse - having conflicting volumes and intrusive sounds or the headache-inducing mute/unmute dance. And, for some reason, focusing on the screen is harder on Zoom than Skype, or Google Hangouts.
The prospect of having one Zoom Thanksgiving was daunting. The prospect of doing two...
I'm not the most articulate under stress, and dealing with stress while someone castigates me tends to just lock me up, completely, which leads to this annoying cycle when another person (usually my mom) keeps telling me to talk, which just stresses me out and makes it harder for me to talk, so I couldn't quite articulate any of that. But I was able to ask whether there was any point in doing something that convoluted. If we weren't all going to meet in person anyway, wouldn't it be easier to just have one event?
My mom said something along the lines of "No, because I want to feed all of you."
(And, because I know my mom will be reading this - yes, the fact that you pointed out that the nature of my job makes complete quarantine impossible (as I've commented before, there's only so much journalism one can do remotely) did get under my skin. And yes, I may have said something along the lines of the fact that quarantining is s privilege I don't get to have (well, I tried to. As I said, my communications don't work so well under stress). It's the nature of the job, and it doesn't mean I have to like it.)
In any case, as positivity rates climbed in Illinois, and state and city imposed more and more restrictions (even if many of them were advisory in nature, government entities and some businesses followed them in practice in the effort to do their part to bring the numbers down). Which kind of made the decisions for us. After some cajoling from Anna and Vlad, my mom wound up going Finland to spend the Thanksgiving week with her husband, and my siblings' father (he'd normally fly over here on Thanksgiving, which looked like a dicey proposition this year). And we wound up having a Zoom Thanksgiving.
It was a relatively brief thing, due to the nature of the time difference between Finland and Midwestern United States (and our respective schedules). We did the "what we're thankful for" round of speeches, toasted and looked at the Thanksgiving dinner at House Anna.
Like I said, I was dreading Zoom. And while I could usually improvise my way through a Thanksgiving speech, I dreaded that because, honestly, feeling thankful for anything has been hard. Usually, I am the first person to try to find silver lining, but that started feel hollow months ago. More and more, I've been reminded of what it felt like to live through the collapse of the Soviet Union as everything seemed to keep getting worse and worse, and adults saw no end in sight.
But, perhaps because the Zoom session was relatively short, it really wasn't bad at all. And I did manage to make a speech about some things that I'm thankful for. I did ended up going on a little rant about Zoom, which kind of summed up some of what I wrote above. Overall, with all of the inevitable limitations of that sort of thing, it was nice.
Before she left for Finland, she sent me some food through Vlad - her vegetable soup, mashed potatoes and cake. I figured that the pre-cooked chicken from Devon Market was a good substitute for turkey. I got cranberry nectar imported from Russia so I'd have something to toast with.
And, inspired by Anna's story about how she found red caviar in Milwaukee, I ended up buying a can of caviar of my own. And making some sandwiches.
Later, I talked to Aunt Anya, and later my cousin, Timofey.
After our conversation, I found myself thinking, not for the first time, about all of the places I would like to show him back in St. Petersburg. Along the many, many places on that list is a look at the prison where our grandfathers were imprisoned before they got sent to labor camps. And I found myself thinking, not for the first time, that our very existence is a giant middle finger to Stalin's regime and every one who enabled it. The repressions broke our great-grandmother, traumatized our respective grandfathers, but we are here. Our family was wounded, but not destroyed. We exist. We remember. We continue on.
And, for the first time in months, I felt... motivated.
Someone wiser than me has said that it doesn't matter how often we stumble, or what setbacks we face, or how we fail. The important thing is to keep going. To get back up and keep going. And all the sudden, keeping going in spite of everything that was done to our family seemed like a good reason to.
I don't know if I'd feel the same way later, but for right now... I actually feel good this Thanksgiving.
So Happy (American) Thankgsiving, Livejournal and all of the social media networks out there. Thank you for all the help and support you've shown me and my family.
And, seriously - screw Zoom. I can't wait until I will no longer have to use the bloody thing.