Hey, guess what? It’s flu season.

(Ducks to avoid rotten tomatoes, paper airplanes made from cancelled flight tickets, and cardboard boxes now empty of disposable masks.)

Yeah, I know. Remember the good ole days, those days of auld lang syne, when one would get the flu and puke your guts out and moan for a few days and have to learn how to walk all over again just to get on the scale and find out that you lost 7 pounds in addition to maybe three days of your life?

Yeah, coronavirus is not that kind of flu.

I have my share of vivid memories of having the flu. Me, nine months pregnant with Timmy, huddled over a basin on the floor trying to manage dry-heaving and Braxton-Hicks contractions at the same time. Me, again, last Christmas when I was deathly ill from a flu I caught from my husband that we then shared with EVERYONE else in our vicinity. (And that we secretly wonder if it was some sort of pandemic-prequel.)

I have another flu-tinged memory: me, again, back before I got pregnant with Tim. My dear friend Lynn took care of Gil until his daddy got home from work, leaving me alone to my symptoms. Too weak (maybe?) to climb the stairs to my bed, I opted for the floor in front of the television. This was back when we had Super Channel – the premier movie subscription channel of the time. The movie playing was The English Patient. I wasn’t English and I wasn’t wrapped up in bandages, but at that moment in time, Ralph Fiennes and I had our supine positions in common.

And I will forever hate that movie.

Was it the flu that colored my dislike so much? Or did I somehow peer into the future and see Lord Voldemort? I’ll never know because I WILL NOT RE-WATCH THAT MOVIE OR READ THAT BOOK. Just the thought of it makes me nauseated.

It makes me wonder what about this whole world-wide virus epidemic will leave us with bad associations. Presidential races? (Well, the virus can’t be completely to blame for that.) The smell of tequila-tinged hand sanitizer? The feel of a giant Q-tip up your nose assessing your positive or negative status because you sneezed a couple times at your place of employ?

Yes, there will be bad memories when we think of 2020. Just the idea of another holiday coming up and wondering how to navigate it makes us wonder about the whole notion of Thanksgiving. (Let’s not even start thinking ahead to Christmas.)

I had a chance encounter this week with an old friend at the Coop where we were buying our Thanksgiving turkeys. I bemoaned the idea of another ambiguous get-together: I miss the freedom of hugging with abandon, of open door policies for the boys’ friends, of not having to THINK about dos and don’ts so much when it comes to just celebrating with family. And my friend reminded me that, on the flip side, many people are more thankful for their families than they were before coronavirus.

It’s good spiritual chiropractic, to have your thinking adjusted like that. There’s a lot that’s wrong with the world right now. But, as always, there’s a lot that is right.

Happy Thanksgiving.