A 2020 DIARY FROM THE WALL GROUP + FRIENDS
Editor’s Note
What will we tell future generations about 2020? Which parts will burrow into our hippocampus?
Will it be the protracted sense of unease? The ambient dread? The trauma bonds forged between neighbors and internet friends? The visceral absence of loved ones? The astrological melee? The financial anxiety? The dull ache of isolation and depression? The overwhelming sense of loss?
Or, perhaps, our recollection of the past 10 months will feel much more acute—
The 7pm cheers. The dystopian city streets. The incessant sirens. Making the bed and other mundane daily triumphs. Zoom fatigue. Pandemic parenting. The mask breakouts. The awkward negotiation of space in the frozen meal aisle. The parks closing. The parks reopening. Learning a new vocabulary: PPE, furlough, antiracist, murder hornets. The local haunts we've lost forever. Looking systemic racism in the eye. The feeling of hope and community during the Black Lives Matter protests. The donation of masks, water bottles, and snacks to friendly strangers. The sharp pain of injustice when police officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove weren't charged with the murder of Breonna Taylor. The heartbreaking violence against peaceful protesters in Lagos. Rising authoritarianism in Poland, Turkey, and Hungary. The Proud Boys cop LARPing for incel clout. The Fox News Antifa psyop that gripped our relatives. The most consequential presidential election of the century. The Needle inching blue in Georgia. The all-consuming psychology of 45. The feeling of his white-knuckled relevance slipping away. The cacophonous celebration that Saturday in early November. The AP mobile alert for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The newfound sincerity in casual interactions. The resiliency of the human condition.
Putting this issue together, we thought a lot about how memory works. We wanted to document our 2020 experiences as we understand them in real time—before a one-dimensional story is told back to us years from now. Was this the beginning of the end of U.S. democracy? A period of deglobalization and great power competition? Or will this year be remembered as an overdue racial reckoning and the start of a new chapter as we grapple with the ways our systems have failed us.
We can’t know this now, of course. So we decided to pay homage to our current realities. The pieces of chaos, boredom, fear, and creativity are bucketed into two chapters: Inside and Outside.
Highlighted Features
Where were you on March 11th, 2020?
Please enjoy this brief intermission.
What were you doing on May 25th, 2020?