I’ll kick off this post with a French phrase that is often used in legal contracts: force majeure. The website Investopedia.com describes it thus:
“Force majeure is a clause that is included in contracts to remove liability for natural and unavoidable catastrophes. It also encompasses human actions, such as armed conflict…French law applies three tests for whether a force majeure defense is applicable— the event must be unforeseeable, external, and irresistible.”
Note the word “and” in that last sentence. Then think of the pandemic. No wonder we are all feeling crazy. We have spent the past two years living in a state of force majeure.
For those who read part 1 of this series, thank you! I can now report that I still don’t have a clear answer to the question I asked myself: “What kind of crazy am I?” However I did manage to identify some of the things are making me crazy. All of them fall into the category of “force majeure.” As humans, we can’t stop reacting to natural and unavoidable catastrophe. For example, as I am writing this, I stop to check the news so that I can react to natural and unavoidable catastrophe.
Ugh. Is there a way to make this into a helpful writing tool? Drifting along on that thought, I remember a recent incident. It was just after Christmas and I was packing up a box of presents. These presents were supposed to have been packed in my suitcase on December 21, the day we planned to joyfully arrive in California to celebrate the holiday with family. Instead…force majeure. At the last minute, Omicron’s shadow swallowed on the plans we’d made months earlier.
Plans included buying presents and cards. I think it was sometime in early November when I visited a favorite shop to find the right card to go with the gifts I would be taking to Caliifornia. There it was…a beautiful, lovingly detailed artist’s rendering of a Big Sur coastline, dotted with California poppies. The inside was blank for my certain-to-be-insightful message.
But in real life, those spectacular towering Big Sur cliffs are unstable. Highway 1 regularly closes when parts of nature’s masterpiece fall with elegance and grace, spilling down to land in a messy delta of rubble.
This image surfaced in my mind as I held the Christmas card before throwing it in the recycle bin. I’d written a note to say how happy I was that we were all going to spend the holiday together. So much for all of that, and so much for the beautiful card, which I had envisioned on their mantelpiece, or at least getting admired a few times. Force majeure had ruined all my plans and I was all-out angry and sad…a messy delta of rubble.
The frugal part of me would have carefully scissored the card in two, saving the image side and throwing out the useless message. But then what? Probably it would land in the pile of stuff I save until I wonder why I saved it. Each look would have reminded me of a dark day in pandemic force majeure – overpowering any joy I might have in looking at the beautiful image. Best to just get rid of it. Bring out the bulldozers, scoop up the rubble and move on – like that Beatles song on Abbey Road: “Step on the gas and wipe that tear away.” And then, remind myself that the poppies will bloom soon.
