A friend and I chatted this morning as she made photocopies, commiserating over the inconvenience of this whole COVID thing. As she walked out the door, her parting words bounced through the library and in my mind: “But this is not forever!”

Over the past several months, I’ve been thinking about what to call this. Most people, including myself most of the time, just call it “the pandemic,” but something about that label doesn’t feel quite right. It’s accurate yet incomplete; it doesn’t cover all that we’ve experienced thus far this year.

A poet whose blog I enjoy calls it “the pandammit,” which made me chuckle when I read it. This label gets points for trying to incorporate the frustration of being hemmed in and inevitably fraying at the edges. Suggested usage: “Man, my nerves are frayed by this never-ending pandammit.”

My sister has embraced the term “jackass season,” which is apt if you’ve spent any time on the road lately. Driving skills and common courtesy have deteriorated in this period of upheaval. Has the concept of right of way lost all meaning? Amanda and I now use the term to explain bad behavior, as in, “What’s with the monster truck passing on the imaginary shoulder of the road?” “Ope, well, guess you hadn’t heard — they extended jackass season this year.” The obvious problem with this terminology is that, although it follows the pattern of “deer season” or “turkey season,” the jackasses are not being hunted. Instead, it seems they are running the show.

My friend Amy has taken to calling it “the apocalypse,” half-jokingly. She enjoys dropping this dire term into everyday conversation, as in, “We had a great turnout at the dance studio fundraiser, despite the apocalypse.” While I haven’t adopted the everyday use of “apocalypse,” I appreciate its literal meaning: a revealing. The times, they are revealing, that’s for sure.

I’ll probably just continue to call it “the pandemic” or, more cryptically, “these strange times,” but I think “the corrections” might just work. In the context of the stock market, corrections are U-turns in trends. At least that’s my feeble understanding – a zag in response to an over-zealous zig. As so many of us have become more individualistic, this awful pandemic offers a chance to consider the health and well-being of others — an invitation to care. Maybe someday I’ll tell my grandkids, “Those of us who lived through the corrections of 2020 came out humbler and wiser on the other side.”

Without a doubt, this is something that no one asked for, but it forces us to consider people other than ourselves. Indeed, the only way out of this contagious pandammit, or jackass season, or apocalypse, or strange time is through taking the welfare of others just as seriously as I take my own.

Will “the corrections” catch on? Probably not. To date, I’ve only used the term in my head. Still, it’s a helpful way to think about the sacrifices we are making to ensure that this is not forever. Come to think of it, maybe that’s the best name for this season: “Not Forever.”