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Outdated again: Memorial in Washington for 200,000 US corona deaths (January 2021)
Photo: Carlos Barria / REUTERS
"You still have a German accent," marvels the former Munich resident, adding proudly: "Mine is long gone."
What can I say?
Up until now I thought that after almost 30 years in the USA I spoke English without an accent.
But the German exile, a woman in her mid-sixties with tanned skin and bleached hair, taught me otherwise, in accent-free English.
She, too, has lived in America for a long time, most recently here in Santa Barbara, north of Los Angeles on the beautiful, expensive "Gold Coast" of California.
Retired and »independently wealthy« – meaning: good inheritance – she enjoys the year-round dream weather of this dream region, apart from the occasional forest fire, mountain slides and earthquakes.
Oprah, Ariana Grande and Meghan and Harry live around the corner.
But at this moment, the ex-Munich woman seems happy to meet another German again.
We don't actually know each other.
I'm in Santa Barbara doing research and I'm sitting with another interviewee in a café whose "more than 70 types of roasted coffee" (self-promotion) are all being roasted loudly at the same time when the tanned ex-Munich resident appears.
She is an acquaintance of my interviewee, both are involved in charitable work for Ukraine refugees, the homeless and drug addicts, because they exist even in this dream region.
How commendable.
We chat in German, babbling small talk - until suddenly, without warning, she detonates a bomb.
She's flying to Germany, she says and then adds nonchalantly: "I'm not vaccinated." I frown reflexively, but before I can ask, she explains it to me: "I don't believe in vaccinations.
I think this is a conspiracy.
Joe Biden wants to make us all sterile.
Thank God Donald Trump is coming back soon.«
Where do you want to start there?
First thought: Is infertility an issue for you?
But I prefer to keep quiet.
Nothing is as it was
A perceived abyss opens up between us on the tiled floor of the café with more than 70 types of coffee.
Just as emigrants in familiar German unity, suddenly nothing more in common.
She was so nice until she revealed the QAnon grimace.
Further small talk is now impossible.
She senses my hesitation, my struggle to politely turn away.
"Oh, you're one of
them
," she sighs, now in distant English again.
Hello, "new normal".
The new normal.
Trump, Corona, war in Europe: the past few years - and the past few weeks even more so - have mixed everything up and shaken the parameters of togetherness.
We act like everything's okay.
But nothing is okay.
Nothing is the same anymore and no one knows what will happen next.
Every day is a new freak show, even here in upscale Santa Barbara.
What we once found nice, or at least tolerable, is no longer nice but intolerable.
Friends become corona deniers, relatives become Putin understanders, and the grocer on the corner from whom we used to get milk in Brooklyn (not anymore!) when the supermarket was closed is a Trumpist.
And the fear of nuclear war always lurks in the background, as if it were 1986.
I'm confused, frustrated, disoriented, but mostly exhausted and lately often angry.
I've never yelled at other drivers through the windshield before.
I then quickly hum »Ommmmm«, as I learned in the meditation course, but it doesn't help.
My post-pandemic fuses keep blowing.
Life is bitchy
I would never have dreamed of that when I was older.
After half a century I thought I had learned not to get upset about the imponderables of existence.
life as it comes.
»Life's a bitch.« Life is bitchy.
But
so
bitchy?
Biden has only just given us courage that everything will be fine again soon.
"We're here to show the country that we can get through this pandemic," he said at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, the US equivalent of the federal press ball (which took place the day before).
We can do it in evening dress and tuxedo.
It was the first time since Corona that this elite US media spree has taken place - and, thanks to Trump's defiant boycott, the first time since 2016 that the President has attended.
I wasn't invited, but I heard hundreds of journalists, politicians and Kim Kardashian jostling in the ballroom, mostly without masks because they were supposedly vaccinated and tested.
Vice President Kamala Harris was absent, she had Covid-19.
Corona pope Anthony Fauci also canceled: First he found that the USA was “out of the pandemic phase”, then he corrected himself: “The pandemic is not over.” Even the Fauci oracle does not know what is going on.
Hello, "new normal".
Corona numbers are rising again all over the USA.
There is already talk of another but "invisible wave" .
Doesn't matter!
Washington's other political gala of the season, the Gridiron Dinner, was a superspreader event that infected more than 80 guests.
According to the US health authority CDC, almost 60 percent of Americans now have Covid-19, including 75 percent of all children and adolescents.
The real stats are likely higher.
I've gotten away with it myself so far.
mouth shut and through.
From now on everyone is dependent on themselves.
New York's "Covid collectivism" is long gone, postulates the "New York Magazine".
In its place is now »the era of ›good luck with that‹.« All the best and good luck in living with the virus.
California also wants to make people forget about Covid-19.
The new state of emergency du jour is drought: The Metropolitan Water District in the greater Los Angeles area has limited open-air water consumption to one day a week from June 1st.
Goodbye Corona.
Hello brown lawn.
One million US corona deaths
Still, even with my California research, the virus remains inescapable, like the annoying partygoer who doesn't want to leave so you can clean up.
Every conversation begins with the awkward welcome dance (shake hands or elbows?), the rules are still hanging everywhere, which no one follows anymore ("Entrance only with a mask"), counters are further behind Plexiglas, the hotel breakfast comes in a box.
nothing is normal
The official statistics for US corona deaths will soon exceed one million, a mark initially unthinkable even for Fauci.
At the same time, life expectancy in the USA fell, not least thanks to opponents of vaccination such as the ex-Munich woman in Santa Barbara, from 78.86 to 76.60 years - more than since the Second World War and faster than in 19 other countries industrialized countries.
My midlife phase is shrinking noticeably.
A million dead who are mourned privately but are no longer publicly registered.
You accept them, don't think about them.
The nation mourned for decades after the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
nothing is normal
More midlife columns
Is anyone else vaccinating here?: Looking for a doctor (m/f/d)A midlife column by Christina Pohl
Outrage and serenity: Why I generally like to answer letters to the editorThe midlife column by Stefan Weigel
Brigitte Bardot and France's rights: animal love and misanthropy Juno Vai's midlife column
Corona disappears from consciousness, the damage remains.
"We will feel the long-term effects on our society and individuals for generations to come," demographer Nyesha Black told Scientific American.
In particular, the approximately 243,000 children who have lost parents and caregivers are likely to experience lifelong "aftershocks," psychological and otherwise.
If a trauma is not processed, it breaks free differently.
I'm not the only one yelling through the windshield.
"Road rage" has increased dramatically in the United States, last year one person was the victim of gun violence on the road every 17 hours.
It was also a record year for airline passenger freaks, with more than 1,000 cases registered by the FAA, an increase of nearly 500 percent.
Not to mention the general spate of deadly violence, especially against minorities.
In the New York subway, it is not only the fear of corona that travels with you.
"Evil is far away here"
The pandemic has shattered "our moral compass" (Jonathan Moens, "Atlantic") and "exposed our empathy deficit" (Charles Blow, "New York Times").
We all collide on our ego trips.
Only the super-rich are unscathed in their penthouses and their private jets and in the fashion narcissism of the Met Gala, which was revived in Manhattan Monday night.
Look, Kim Kardashian again!
I wasn't invited there either.
Instead, I brood over my existential fears, which Corona has boiled up and the war in Ukraine has intensified.
I wouldn't have dreamed of that either, in the second half of life you want to be more relaxed, at least you should.
I lie awake at night fantasizing about Armageddon.
"Move to California," the ex-Munich vaccination denier advised me with a cough.
"Evil is far away here." Instead, I'm back home on the east coast now.
While I’m typing these lines in my home office at night, the New York City Council informs me via social media that they have increased the corona risk in the city to “medium”: please wear masks indoors again.
