The Recalibration Paradox: ‘Nevermore’?

The recalibration under way

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…”

Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven,” 1845

Here, during London’s lockdown, we’ve seen many ravens. My wife, Fiona, recently reminded me of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” the much-adored lamentation for the lost and unknown. Repeatedly, a raven tells Poe’s protagonist that what’s gone is gone and that the departed Lenore will never return (nor, by extension, will he ever know what might have saved her).

I fear that Poe (who as a boy went to school just 18 miles away from my desk), may have left his stubborn raven behind. Here, in London, a voice akin to Poe’s raven haunts me within public spaces emerging from lockdown — an existential caution that comes not from physical places, but from the underlying narrative they reflect. Consistent with Poe’s message, I hear stern warnings about what we may have lost, in some countries more than others. Is this truly “Nevermore” for caring and community?

I’m finding improvised bike lanes and sidewalks to be places of hope and harsh reality all at once, full of both excitement and trepidation. These provisional, transitional, and recalibrated places bring out unresolved societal divides and show a paradox between the ideals of community and the selfishness of ill-informed shortcuts and rule-bending.