Week #30: Dancing in Circles

It’s frustrating that we don’t seem to be making much progress with fighting this pandemic. Even with the vaccine, we seem to be slipping back to the worry felt last year, like we were climbing up a big muddy hill, almost reaching the top before starting to slip back downward.

We are a few weeks away from our second oldest son’s bar mitzvah and it’s difficult to make definite plans because we’re not sure if the Delta variant will affect it – even though a few months ago, it seemed certain that we’d be in the clear by now. We knew nothing was certain – at the time we weren’t sure if the vaccines would work, how long they’d be effective, etc. – but as time passed, the outlook seemed sunnier. Until this past week, when the CDC recommended that even those who are vaccinated wear masks indoors because they can still spread the virus and get sick from it.

And now here we are a few weeks away and there are still things up in the air, just as they were for all the families who planned their lifecycle events in 2020. At that time, events were being cancelled every day, my calendar cleared at an alarming rate. That’s when I wrote this week’s song, “Dancing in Circles.”

I don’t know what day it is
Saw the sun rise and set
An invitation on the desk
Reminds me where I should have been

It became difficult to keep track of what day it was because there wasn’t anywhere to go and all plans were cancelled. Yet in my dreams, things seemed normal.

Oh-oh what a dream I dreamt
Oh, I didn’t want it to end
We were dancing in circles
With a smile on our face
Twirling and spinning
As the chandelier swayed
Dancing in circles, hand in hand
When will we be dancing in circles again?

With the way things were going, the simple pleasures that we previously took for granted – such as dancing in circles together at weddings and other celebrations – were suddenly gone and it was unclear when we’d be able to safely do that again.

Changes came so quickly
Now we stay home inside
Holding on to our memories
Those treasures of time

And yet, this couldn’t be it for those type of celebrations, right? There would come a day when we can all safely come together to celebrate happy occasions. Certainly there were some who didn’t let COVID disrupt their celebrations – many initially postponed and then found ways to do it safely, such as requiring guests to take COVID tests beforehand, but the idea that we would even need to worry that our lives could be in danger by dancing together felt so foreign in spring 2020.

However, we have to believe that this won’t last forever and soon we can gather together and hold hands and dance and sing together to celebrate happy occasions – without masks and gloves and the fear that our loved ones can get deathly ill from our being together.

Oh-oh, what a dream I can dream
Oh, if I believe
We’ll be dancing in circles
With a smile on our face
Twirling and spinning
As the chandelier sways
Dancing in circles, hand in hand
Soon we’ll be dancing in circles again.