Essential California May 1, 2020 Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, May 1, and I’m writing from Los Angeles. Even amid the jargon-filled wasteland of modern email correspondence, there remains nary a phrase more ubiquitous in inboxes than “I hope this finds you well” and variations thereof. But what happens when a novel virus wreaking destruction across the globe makes the very presumption that anyone might be “well” seem absurd? For many, figuring out how — and if — to address the pandemic-shaped elephant lurking in every room has added a unique wrinkle to their inboxes as they navigate personal and work correspondence. On one hand, the question of how to handle email pleasantries in the face of the coronavirus might seem laughably unimportant when so many are sick, dying and struggling to pay the rent. On the other hand, these are not necessarily two separate Venn diagrams. I am more aware than ever when I hit “send” that I have little idea about what the person on the receiving end’s life might look like at the moment. And that even if they’ve been relatively untouched by the worst of things, their life is still drastically different than it was six weeks ago. Of course, saying nothing at all is always an option. But when a once-ordinary trip to the store or walk around the block already deserves an entry in the cognitive dissonance Olympics, it can feel odd to carry on casual correspondence without at least acknowledging the shared circumstances at hand. The question, then, is what to say. Over a relatively short period of time, a whole new lexicon of pandemic-friendly phrases has taken root in my inbox: Stay healthy. Be well. Hope you’re hanging in there. Hope you’re staying safe and sane. In a recent update from a city councilperson’s office, the exhortation “please stay safe!” appeared just above the pasted-in press release. Laura Bliss, a journalist in the Bay Area, has taken to opening her messages with “I hope this email finds you safe and healthy,” and then continuing on as normal from there. Dara Resnik, a showrunner in Los Angeles, is now starting her emails with “hope you’re hanging in there,” and then closing with either “be safe” or “wash your hands.” The latter, she explained, was meant with some levity, but not entirely. Her pandemic-related sign-offs, which Resnik was using for work and personal emails, also varied slightly based on the recipient. “Obviously, I’m not telling the president of Paramount TV to wash her hands.” Allegra Hobbs, a New York City-based writer, has spent “unhinged amounts of time” agonizing over how, exactly, to handle the email conundrum. Ignoring the circumstances we’ve all suddenly found ourselves in felt unnatural to her, as did skipping over the pleasantries altogether. After much thought, she ended up going with some variation of “Hope you’re doing alright, all things considered.” She thought it seemed “more nice and professional than opening an email with ‘I know everything is terrible and you’re probably having a bad time, but I have an unrelated question.’” That’s the crux of what most of us are struggling to convey, isn’t it? Even if the now-shopworn phrases about health, safety and sanity feel increasingly rote, they are still an attempted shorthand for addressing a quite startling experience: You are a person and I am a person, and both of our lives have invariably been upended by this once-in-a-century pandemic. But also, the world keeps turning and this email still needs to be sent. For Jonathan Pacheco Bell, an urban planner in South L.A. who also serves as union delegate with the California Assn. of Professional Employees, the difference hasn’t been in the actual wording, but rather the breadth of what he now hopes to convey. Like many organizers, Bell has long employed “in solidarity” as his sign-off in union-related emails — a valediction that’s relatively common in labor and progressive circles. But these days, Bell is using the sign-off for all his emails, not just union-related correspondence. In his view, as a pandemic that has disproportionately affected L.A.’s working-class communities of color wears on, the solidarity imperative is more urgent and needed than ever. “Before the pandemic, this sign-off told my fellow union members that we’re united as one,” he explained. “In using this sign-off now for all my emails, I’m conveying to every recipient that we must unite in solidarity to get through COVID-19.” “It’s a small act, but I’m trying to reach people by way of my email valediction.” And now, here’s what’s happening across California: Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered a temporary “hard close” of all state and local beaches in Orange County despite the protests of elected officials, surfers and cooped-up people who just want to dip their toes in the sand after six weeks of stay-at-home orders. In doing so, he touched a nerve in a state where a day at the beach is akin to a birthright. Los Angeles Times Reopening California by summer will be an arduous task requiring vast changes — and it won’t be quick. Despite people being desperate to get back to work, California officials still have a lot to do before they can meet the technological benchmarks that Newsom set to reopen the economy and lift restrictions on daily life. Los Angeles Times