It’s hard to believe that it has been 5 years since the world was turned upside down by Covid. I was teaching at CUNY Law School that semester, and one day in March 2020, I realized that we were all having trouble concentrating on family law because we were so worried. So we made a list of things we could do to keep ourselves and each other safe. My blog post that month (which shows the list) was Love in the Time of Coronavirus. That was the last in-person class of the year.
One of my most visceral memories from the shutdown is of hearing the ambulance sirens outside my apartment. I assumed that each one was to signal someone being rushed to the hospital because they had difficulty breathing. I remember seeing an EMT worker on the news who said, “If someone in your family goes to the hospital in an ambulance with COVID, you should say goodbye to them now because you won’t get another chance.” What a thought! We couldn’t go outside, we couldn’t be with our loved ones in their time of need. There were no COVID-19 vaccines and there was no cure. It was terrifying and we all felt helpless. At one point, the sirens were so frequent and so upsetting that I wrote down the time I heard them because it was the only thing I could do to bear witness. 12:42. 12:49. 1:14. 1:35 …
Well, here we are in March 2025, and this feels like an equally scary and uncertain time – except that now the alarm bells come each time we hear the news. This time, the seismic shift is being orchestrated by people, not by nature. People who WANT us to be afraid – who are TRYING to make us afraid. How do we respond?
One of my great joys now is singing with the Rockland Pride Chorus. We held our second concert last night, and I took a small solo on the sixties song, Get Together by the Youngbloods. (We changed the words just a bit). I share the words that I sang, which seems particularly poignant for this moment:
If you hear the song I sing
You will understand
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It’s there at your command
Come on people now, smile on each other
Everybody get together try to love one another right now.
How do we respond to this moment out of love and not with fear? Just as we had heroes in the hospital workers and the people who delivered groceries during Covid, so now we have heroes who are protesting and calling Congress and judges who are standing up to power.
We who love are still here. I can’t wait to see how we will each do our parts to step up.