Since the onslaught of COVID-19, I’ve asked friends , “What movie or novel are you in during this pandemic?” Responses include La Peste (The Plague) by Albert Camus, Blindness, by Jose Saramago, On the Beach by Nevil Shute, and the film Soylent Green. I’m sure those reading this will have your own responses. I’d love to hear from you in the Comments section!

For me, Beckett’s Waiting For Godot comes to mind. My close friends will not be surprised. I often bring up the plight of Vladimir and Estragon (ad nauseum to some, I’m sure), whenever I encounter an absurd situation, a “catch-22” (after the novel by Joseph Heller–another one to add to the list). During his teen years, my son, as he sat back in the passenger seat of my Subaru, his baseball cap pushed down to cover his eyes, refused to attend a production of Godot with me at Stratford. Why would I want to see two men sitting around talking, waiting for somebody who never comes? Now, as adult, he looks forward to his first live performance of this play.

When I taught Godot, I remember telling students, “Read Act I. Don’t worry whether you understand anything in it. Just read it with an open mind.” And later, “This play is like a big bowl of stew. From time to time, ingredients such a beef, carrots, potatoes, will rise to the surface, not all at the same time. The possible meanings in this play are like that–they rise to the surface, disconnected to one another. Then they disappear again into the stew. You’ll find something for yourself there.” I looked forward to the next class meeting, to students’ quizzical faces. Perhaps like me, in Waiting for Godot, students encountered for the first time a work which did not give answers but rather asked questions, ones which only students could answer for themselves. Perhaps, like me, some of them now recall both the humor and the uncertainty of the play. Perhaps they understand its long-reaching impact.

And perhaps Beckett’s play is an apt metaphor for where we are at this moment–in isolation, unsure of what, if anything, will save us (a vaccine, tests for antibodies, a new president).

We do what we can, for now. I sing songs, maybe even dance when I ask Alexa to play Gordon Lightfoot or Chicago. I keep myself occupied, not with “busy” activities, but with tasks that have meaning– helping my students to finish a stressful term amidst a pandemic, attending Zoom meetings with my church and my literary community, calling to check up on friends who are more isolated than I, watching and reading real news to stay updated on the virus, spending time with my partner/husband, talking and watching films and well-done series on TV.

After all, we can be happy now, maybe not in the same ways we’re used to thinking of “happiness.” In the midst of despair, hopeless, uncertainty, Vladimir urges Estragon to find his happiness within the gloom of waiting:
Estragon: What am I to say?
Vladimir: Say, I am happy.
Estragon: I am happy.
Vladimir: So am I.
Estragon: So am I.
Vladimir: We are happy.
Estragon: We are happy. *

There is No Third Act, and
Godot Does Nothing

I read about this mysterious chap
in French class, fall of 1966,
was just engaged, ripe for discontent,
disillusion, wondering why I
needed someone so desperately,
looking for meaning in a phrase
or a glance from anyone with
special knowledge, an explanation
of being. a personal god with white
beard quaquaquaqua outside time
without extension who . . . loves
us dearly with exceptions for reasons
unknown but time will tell…

At the end of Act Two I searched
for another page, another act or
scene to make sense of what
was not there. I thought my copy
was defective, just as I was,
without a clear path, without
a goal, without a savior.

Minute after minute I waited
with two men by a tree,
in the moonlight.

What does he do, Mr. Godot?
Vladimir asks the Boy. He
does nothing, the Boy says.

There is no third act.

From Portals: A Memoir in Verse. Kelsay Books, 2019
web site

*Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in 2 Acts. New York: Grove Press, 2011.