An Odyssey

Soldiers rarely come home from battle to find the world the way it was when they left. The most famous example is Odysseus who’s unrecognized when he returns home except by his dog Argos. William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives describes the return of three soldiers from the Second World War. Many people who’ve gone through the past three years of the pandemic have been disappointed when they expected to pick up where they left off. It’s a different world, on the most simplistic level, because time has passed and they’ve aged--in some cases experiencing a diminution of their faculties, manifest when they finally emerge from one degree or another of isolation. Intrapsychically, those who may have previously been intrepid might have been chastened not only by the virus, but also the turbulence of MAGA Republicans and the threat to democracy. In terms of the exterior world, there were businesses that didn't make it and others that came into being. Main Street no longer looks quite like it once was.

read "MAGA and the Coronavirus" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Night Fever" by The Beegees