Self Portrait

What will life look like when later in this century researchers look back on 2021? 

 I was interested in contrasting my current life as a single elderly woman living alone in the past few days with that of one of my oldest friends.  I was able to renew contact via email with her daughter and hoped that we could connect via technology during the current lockdown.  This is not easy, she said, because her mother’s hearing is challenged, even with hearing aids, and her sight because of macular degeneration. Personal visits are best and her children are frequent visitors – but since she lives in another city, that is not an option for me right now.

 There are similarities, but key differences for which I have every reason to be grateful. I also wear hearing aids but they allow me to hear well.  My optometrist can see tiny beginnings of macular degeneration, but taking a supplemental vitamin is currently preventing an increase showing in the sophisticated optimal scan.  I am also reasonably mobile so long as I do gentle exercise regularly.  My friend is confined to a wheelchair.

 But I can also see how changes in technology make my current life not only tolerable but extremely rich during lockdown.

 Books – As a child I could walk to the local public library and sometimes read a picture book on its steps and then returned it right away. I still enjoy hard cover books and am currently reading Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste, a provocative and deeply troubling portrayal of a humanly constructed system of superiority with profound implications.

 Much – even most of my reading, of course is now online – via a laptop, a tablet and a phone. I first turned on a desktop in 1984 to use office software, but computing is now just part of living.  Reading books happens through Kindle or Libby, the public library app, and that can include both print and audio books.   My morning starts with online newspapers, New York Times, Washington Post , the Ontario edition of Canada’s Globe and Mail – and sometimes the aggregated Apple News.  I still have a paper subscription to the New Yorker but I can read a library version of The Economist.  These give me some balance between progressive and conservative views about current issues.

 Then there are online newsletters.  I first picked up the initial edition of the magazine Fast Company in an airport when I was still working, and I liked its approach to innovation.  I still do.  There are eclectic ones like Brain Pickings, Maria Popova’s weekly aggregations of famous writings and wonderful illustrations from children’s books that she finds in public libraries - and Aeon, an Australian newsletter with wide reaching topics. I also scan most many of the environmental newsletters referenced under the resource section of this site.

 As a former resident, I’m somewhat of an American news junkie and dive in an out of CNN and PBS – as well as the Canadian channels, CBC and CTV.  These can all be accessed both live and after the fact through recordings.  I might turn later to Prime or Brit Box for a series of two.

 There is still the telephone.  I pick up less and less to avoid the robocalls – but I can see whether it’s a son calling from Hong Kong or another one who wants to borrow my car which is an easier one for his teen age son to practice driving between online lessons - or a friend wishing me a happy birthday. Less welcome is a call from a colleague who has clearly traveled down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. All I can do is remind him of the caring person I have known in the past – but I doubt if I have changed his view.

And I realize that in the week that the only live face to face conversations I have had is a brief one with the son and grandson picking up the car keys – and the concierge when I picked up a food box.  A couple of Zoom meetings lasted much longer and provided views of welcome faces.  And I’m back taking art lessons on Zoom where the gifted instructor can receive our works in progress and make suggestions for improvement, The six learners share their work and we admire one another’s creations and learn.  My twice monthly piano lesson on Zoom also provide good instruction and learning.

This is a pretty rich environment where I am lucky to be alive and experience.  One of the things that has struck me in writing this.  While I have social media accounts, I feel almost no need to access them at this point. What that means is that I’m not part of the world totally immersed in lack of truth.  And the challenge for others and for me is – how to I change that from where I sit now?