To Lonnie Dupre, the Grand Marais-based Arctic explorer and mountaineer, enduring a pandemic is a little like trekking to the North Pole, something he's done twice.
The trip involves traversing the Arctic Ocean, which is roughly 1½ times the size of the United States and frozen into a jumble of pack ice. Temperatures hover around 50 below, you're dragging a 200-pound sled behind your skis and the treacherous ice mass is moving, so with every step forward, you're slowly drifting back.
With our coronavirus "journey," Dupre said, there's no way to know how much longer it will last: "Is it a two-month expedition, or a three-year expedition?"
The pandemic has upended the world's daily rhythms and sense of security. It has killed half a million people and ravaged the global economy.
All the while, Americans have continued to underestimate this invisible, unforgiving foe. We have repeatedly clung to false hope. Summer's heat and humidity would kill the virus, wouldn't they? Surely schools would fully reopen in the fall, right? We endured the hardships of sheltering in place — the canceled celebrations, vacations and camps — in hopes of emerging a couple of months later COVID-free.
Instead, the country's case count is skyrocketing. Any return to normalcy sits well beyond the horizon. It's like we've run 25 miles of a marathon … and somebody just moved the finish line.
With the race far from over, reframing our perspective can help, say psychologists who study resilience. As can the experiences of people who have endured hardship.
Dupre suggests thinking like an arctic explorer: not too far ahead.