The Quiet Genius of Call the Midwife

Cake, death and the romance of mutual aid.

Another summer, another lockdown. Last night, we watched a small, rowdy right-wing rally against our city’s latest, necessary quarantine order lollop along under our window, all of them hollering their ambient refusal to be inconveninced so that their neighbors don’t die.

There’s no neat slogan for how much hurts to be a person at times like this. Times when social trust is threadbare, and taking minimal care of yourself and the people around you feels like running up the down escalator, wearing yourself to exhaustion just to stand still.

This is not an essay about any of that.

This is not an essay about vaccine nationalism. It is not an essay about crypto-fascism. It is not an essay about the economic crisis, or the coming mental health epidemics, or the taste of the air outside my window in Los Angeles in February, where so many corpses remained unburied that environmental restrictions have been lifted so the crematoriums can work all night.

This is an essay about a television show.

Specifically, this is an essay about the best television show you ought to be watching right now. Specifically now. It is an essay about the essential romance of public health infrastructure and the…