It is the sound of silence that will always haunt me when I
think about 2020.
But like most sound and fury, it ultimately signified
nothing.
That’s why the sound of silence that took over Washington,
D.C. is the sound I’ll never forget from this year.
It began in mid-March when businesses closed, office workers
like me retreated to home offices, and we embarked on our new abnormal lives.
In those days, I really only left my apartment for two reasons – to go to the
grocery store and take my dog for a walk. And while I love walking my dog, those
eerie walks have lingered.
Taking my dog for a work in the afternoon – especially on a
nice day – was usually accompanied by a lot of noise. Cars driving by and
honking. People sitting eating and drinking at restaurants. Groups walking
together. Runners, bikers, you name it, the streets would be alive on a sunny day.
Instead, the streets were empty. You may take the silence for
granted if you live outside of a city, like my parents in eastern Connecticut.
But in Washington, D.C.? The silence was worrisome.
As the months progressed, the silence remained because we all
wore masks. Even as more people went outside, they were largely silent as they
went about their days. For people running errands, or getting exercise, it was
usually done in solitude and done quietly.
I noticed the difference in the grocery store too. We all
walked up and down the aisles in silence. What was there to say?
I am lucky enough to be within walking distance of my office
and though I haven’t been there regularly since March, I have gone a handful of
times for various reasons.
The walk from my apartment to my office after COVID hit can only
be described as eerily quiet and overwhelmingly depressing. No buses. No hot dog vendors. No tourists. Just
vast stretches of open sidewalks.
The area around my office in downtown D.C. on K Street – an area
almost completely void of residential buildings – had become a ghost town. The restaurants,
delis, bars, and coffee shops were shuttered. The two hotels by our office,
once bustling with taxis and school groups, sat largely deserted. Those few
walks to work became infinitely depressing.
Where did all the people go?
The office building itself was also a ghost town. None of
the other tenants have returned since we all left in March. In my multiple trips back
in the past nine months, I have seen maybe one or two other people who weren’t security guards. The elevators, the hallways, and the stairwells – all quiet
and lonesome.
The silence piled up through the year, making it harder and
harder to believe that life will ever return to anything even resembling what
we used to remember.
As I prepared to write this essay, I became depressed. How
do you write about nothing? How do you convey the feeling of hopelessness that
has lived with us all year without becoming overwhelmed?
It was then I realized the worst part of the silence – the lack
of laughter.
Who was laughing this year? Why would someone even be laughing? When I
think back to summer and autumns past, it struck me that my memories of large
groups of people involved them laughing. There were having good times – that’s
why they were at brunch, that’s why they went to a Caps game, that’s why they
were celebrating a birthday.
In 2020, we didn’t do any of that. Even the day that Joe
Biden was declared the next President – the only happy day in D.C. since March –
the celebration was more of a needed release than a party.
For years and decades to come, people will be asked what
they remember about the year of COVID that was 2020. When I explain it to my
kids and my grandkids, I will start with the silence. The uncomfortable,
unsettling silence.
What do I want to hear on the streets in 2021? Anything.
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