Chapter 9: What We Did in the Time Being
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The poem opens with a series of checklisted actions the collective “we” undertook to adapt: striving to become stronger, exercising, expressing themselves, staying home, preserving sanity, baking bread until ovens were full, and filling phones with digital party invitations. Physical connection gave way to screens, turning people into “Zoombies”—faces trapped inside a prism of video calls. The speaker then questions what might have been done differently, acknowledging that the only certain way to avoid death was isolation. The poem ends with a blessing: may future children never fully understand the sacrifices required, and if they forget, may this forgetting be a gift.
Key Events
- The speaker lists collective survival behaviors: exercise, self‑expression, staying home, staying sane.
- Baking bread becomes a ritual of comfort and productivity.
- Social life shifts to phone screens and video calls.
- The term “Zoombies” captures the dehumanizing effect of constant virtual presence.
- A rhetorical question about alternative actions underscores the lack of choices.
- The poem concludes with a wish that future generations forget the pandemic’s hardships.
Character Development
The chapter does not feature named characters. Instead, the collective “we” evolves from an active, striving group (checking off tasks) into a more reflective voice that questions its own actions. By the end, the speaker adopts a protective, almost parental tone, hoping to shield children from the memory of suffering. This shift from doing to reflecting marks a quiet emotional arc.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
- Isolation and Connection – Phones and screens are both lifelines and prisons; the “slash of a screen” replaces physical touch.
- Technology as Dehumanizing – “Zoombies” fuses “Zoom” and “zombie,” implying a loss of vitality and humanity in digital interaction.
- Survival and Sacrifice – The checklist format suggests a grim, bureaucratic approach to staying alive.
- Memory and Forgetting – The final stanza treats forgetting as a blessing, suggesting that some pains are too heavy to pass on.
- Time Being – The title plays on the double meaning of “time being” as the present moment and a temporary state.
Why This Chapter Matters
This poem crystallizes the shared experience of early‑pandemic lockdowns, making it a cultural document as well as a literary one. Gorman’s ingenious wordplay—”Zoombies,” “prism”—turns the familiar into something strange and revealing. The poem’s longing for a future that forgets the trauma speaks to a universal desire to protect innocence, while the checkboxes mirror the way many people tried to measure and control chaos. It shows how poetry can capture both the quotidian details and the existential weight of a historical moment.
Study Questions and Answers
1. What does the term “Zoombies” suggest about the speaker’s view of virtual life?
“Zoombies” combines “Zoom” with “zombie,” implying that constant video calling drains people of vitality and individuality. The speaker feels like a face “trapped in a prison of a prism,” suggesting that screens distort and confine rather than connect.
2. Why does the poem use a checklist format?
The checklists mimic a to‑do list, reducing survival behaviors to items that can be ticked off. This format highlights the mechanical, almost desperate effort to impose order during a crisis. It also contrasts the mundane actions (baking bread, exercising) with the profound stakes (staying alive).
3. What is the effect of the final blessing: “Grant them this poem / If they do forget it”?
The speaker paradoxically hopes that future children will forget the struggle, yet offers the poem as a record. This suggests that forgetting is a kind of grace, but that the act of writing preserves the truth. The line treats forgetting not as failure but as a mercy.