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I Moved to Three Different States During a Pandemic. AMA.
What I saw made me question everything, including myself
The other night, I walked by a crowded bar. Inside, I saw dozens of people clustered together without masks, laughing and drinking. In an adjoining room, a DJ played ’80s classics to a throng of writhing and jerking bodies.
Six weeks ago, before I took up temporary residence in the South, I would have looked with horror at such a bacchanalian scene, seeing it as a selfish and self-destructive display of disregard for Covid safety protocols. Over half a million dead and nearly 30 million cases in the U.S. A cratered economy, thousands of livelihoods lost. And still, these people had the gall to dance indoors, breathing and sweating all over each other.
But after just a few weeks living in the South, I found my baseline viewpoint shifting. Now, as I peered inside the barroom window, watching this display of fun — of heedless, reckless, legally permitted in-person conviviality — I felt a sharp and surprising pang boil up. I was jealous.
My girlfriend and I had abandoned New York City nearly a year earlier. We had good reason to leave. We had just signed a lease on a Brooklyn apartment that turned out to be nearly uninhabitable, as the landlord was unable to finish building out the…
