Stranger Things

Two summers ago, we binge-watched Stranger Things like the world was about to end. My two college-aged sons, my youngest son’s girlfriend, and my husband and I bunched together on the sectional couch and chairs and collectively gasped over the shivery genius thing that Netflix was streaming in front of us. It quickly became a family event for which our impromptu Stranger Things club made one rule: nobody could watch the next episode without the group. It wasn’t a hard-nosed rule. It came organically as our solidarity grew.

Our club had a wonderful run until the end of the summer when everyone dispersed to different colleges, to business travel, or simply to hold down the fort at home. There were various versions of a sad goodbye to each other and to Stranger Things, but our plan was clear and decided: we’d meet up in our TV room the following summer when the next season of the show would be released, and a new summer break had commenced. Little did any of us know that half a year later Covid would hit and the world as we always knew it was about to end.

Then, one summer ago, despite the sad unfolding of the havoc circling the planet, I was milling around in my house silently pleading with the television gods: Pleeeease! Do anything within your power to allow Stranger Things to film their next season! Of course, the TV gods had other plans, being in cahoots with a virus as it happened, and I was left to kick the ground in disappointment. It would have been perfect if while we were all in isolation, we could have enjoyed the old delights of the summer before.

And, of course, it’s mortifying to even write that. The world was crashing, and I was bummed about the lack of a television show. Except this was a common disappointment at the time. We were all coming to the slow realization of what the pandemic meant, even at the most insignificant level. Each tiny domino to topple was another aftershock to the system. I don’t need to explain how it went to you. You were there.

Finally, this summer brings us a new version of the old world. We don’t yet understand what we have in front of us, nor are we clear on what was left behind, but there is no Stranger Things still and it’s hard to recall what it was ever like to innocently presume we knew how a year in the future would be.

I’m clear on one thing, though. A great television show is nice, but a cohesive group enjoying anything together is far better, and frankly, the main draw. If I want to test this theory, I only need to imagine watching the next season of Stranger Things alone: after the girlfriend in our group has now left the picture, after my oldest would be graduated and gone, after the youngest could be at a summer internship, after my husband might be away on travel.

Would I watch it? No. It wouldn’t be the same. Would I watch it if the club decided to watch together remotely? I would consider that. You see how this goes. It was never Stranger Things. It was us, together as a unit.

So, things come and go. Time passes, hardships develop and dissolve, life progresses, memories replace what was. The pandemic taught us much about these truths. I no longer kick the ground because of a loss of a TV show. (One would hope!) I also don’t kick it because of the loss of our jolly little horror-sci-fi club either, though that’s not to say I didn’t mourn the changing of the times. This is a new kind of summer. We find ourselves enjoying the incredible feeling of being in a group with less caution and concern. It’s like the old times, but not. It’s the new times with some weighty hindsight.

If Stranger Things ever ends up releasing its next season when my kids are around, I’m sure we’ll meet up to watch. But if not, I’m fine hanging out together doing anything under the sun. It doesn’t matter to me. These last moments while we’re still all under the same roof are beyond precious, and I know it. I wish I could convey this somehow to younger folks. Plenty of people tried to impress it upon me years ago. The terrible irony is that this knowledge must be earned. I didn’t make that rule. The universe did. There are stranger ironies out there than this, to be sure. But not many.

In the meantime, I guess we all have our own version of trying to wrap our heads around the value of the present moment. That’s a tough one. It’s an elusive concept, and a slippery habit to build. As soon as you think you’ve figured it out, it slips out from under, and you’re focused on other things. But that’s normal and how we tick. I find it helps to keep bringing it back to truly reveling in the joys, savoring them, even the most tiny. In this way, afterwards I can locate what was of high value, for example being a family club of anything. For me, I hope in ten years what I remember of the summer of 2019 is what it felt like to lounge together in my family room like we were a pile of happy pets, and nothing of the television show.