I know many of us are feeling like that poor bastard must be feeling: WTF is happening? So maybe don't scroll the news first/last thing every day all through the day until you feel like screaming, crying, cowering in a corner, or all of the above. Take a moment to feel afraid and uncertain and stressed out of your mind. But only a moment. Is Itsy Bitsy Spider your handwashing song? [Sooo important, handwashing. We got lucky in one respect: unlike some viruses, this one is coated in fat. And what dissolves grease? A good, thorough lather. Sorry. I ❤️ science. Back to the songs.] Choose another and lose yourself in the horror of it all. Once a day, wallow away. And for the rest of the day, do something else. Unless you're on the front line fighting this virus, you really can't do much but look after yourself, your family, friends, community. So focus on that and keep going. Life may seem unrecognizable, but it goes on.
I'm not making light of anyone's plight, so please take this the right way: Countless lives have been turned upside down in the blink of an eye; life has turned out to be unpredictable, uncontrollable and unfair; loved ones and livelihoods lost; plans, hopes and dreams crushed, just like that. But fragile and arbitrary is how life has always been, sweetie darlings, this microscopic little thing only made that...visible. And frighteningly tangible.
Don't let a perfectly horrible crisis go to waste. Keep going. Turn a different corner. Or walk the same street but look at it with fresh eyes. Where do we go from here? I don't know. You tell me. I hope it's someplace good, loving and kind. I hope to see you there.
Anybody else feel like the past week has lasted a month, maybe two? Sweet baby Jesus, the pace things are moving at. And it’s not as if the world has stopped moving. The war in Syria has entered its tenth year (10th!), the climate crisis is still on, and Trump has a chance of getting re-elected. It’s just a lot to process, everything that is going on, and people have to actively turn to brighter and lighter things on occasion to remain sane and function. A goldfinch found our bird feeder. Sakura season! The canals of Venice look like...what they ought to look like!! Spring equinox!!! Oh, and did you see those penguins? Adorable.
I work from home, so self-isolation is my default setting; but suddenly my workplace is teeming with people and activities I’m not used to, so resuming semi-normal workaday functions will take some time. Homeschooling, homework, news upon news after news, keeping in touch with family, friends and colleagues… It’s hard to concentrate. I asked my unflappable little brother (father of three) how he’s faring working from home with the kids. “I had to go sit in the car.” Whatever works, right?
For the young ones, this feels like a punishment. I want my friends and I want my hobbies and I want my freedom of movement and every other thing I’m used to. Well, you can’t have them right now, and that’s just the way it is. If my boys start grumbling, I’ll start telling them about their great-grandfather in WWII while their great-grandmother worked 36 hours a day back home and what the last trimester of pregnancy feels like to say nothing of giving birth. Stuff and stories like that. I know something closer to home and frame of reference might work better. But they’re neither little nor stupid, so I choose the big guns. Make ‘em count their blessings. Give them pause, perspective, you know. Works like a charm.
Some are upset their spring break got cancelled, their summer holiday plans are ruined, their online shopping is stuck somewhere and this doesn’t really concern them since they’re young and in good health and clubbing is a human right. How easy it is to start thinking that you’re entitled to things you’re simply accustomed to. Some are about to lose their jobs. Some could lose their homes. Some will lose their lives. Let’s see how humans and humanity rate on less easily quantifiable things such as cooperation and resilience now that we are all in this together. Kinda. Sorta. Not really. Some have withdrawn to an all-inclusive resort. Some are battling the elements beyond the gates. So many freelancers, single parents, the anxiety-ridden, homeless men/women/teens/families, struggling-to-begin-with artists/performing artists/artists period, small business owners, large families living in a shoebox of an apartment, refugees, people whose proverbial bootstraps are about to snap…destitute fellow humans for whom this is a disaster in every meaning of the word. If you have the means, seek ways to help, personally as a patron or through an organization. Support your local at every turn so that they’ll still be there when the smoke clears. If they’ve been forced to close shop for now, throw disposable income at them as soon as possible. This affects everyone directly and immediately or indirectly and over time. We are the market. We are the economy.
And who said there is no such thing as society? [Thatcher.] We are it. Nothing without each other. We are all part and parcel of this network we keep going and which keeps us busy and flowing. I know society seems like an amorphous beast because each individual is different, but when push comes to shove, we have one mission and only one mission: to protect one another. In that sense, we are in this together. You and I, and your lovely neighbors, and that cagey guy from work, and the cashier at the grocer’s, you know, that sweet old lady who’s worked there since the beginning of time, and your old teacher, the one with cancer, and everyone we cross paths with daily and will never cross paths with.
One microscopic little thing. That was all it took. How fragile, how vulnerable humans and our endeavors are. How I wish that something good comes out of this. Everyone keeps saying how this will change things for good, as in irrevocably. I hope good is the operative word. Because we will have to make a choice. Where do we go from here? How do we get there? What do we do about seemingly endless conflicts? What do we do about slowly but surely evolving crises? What do we do about threats to democracy and equality? How do we protect humanity from future pandemics? Every step we take will pave a path. Better watch where we’re going, dearest denizens.
Traveler, there is no road; the road is made as you go. ~Antonio Machado
Temperature: It’s 6/43 degrees on the 133rd of November. Winter never came, spring hasn’t quite arrived, so it feels like November; a rainy, dreary, endless November.
Eating: nuts and raisins
Drinking: Saving all my thirst for St. Patrick’s.
Watching: my husband grow a beard, which he has never sported in all our years together. Gotta say, and I’m not the only one saying it, he looks mighty handsome. He has those classic good looks where you could dress him up in clothes from any era and he wouldn’t look out of place.
Listening: to my firstborn wry-wit-wrangling the classics: “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a coughing fit.”
Reading: My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci
Thinking: about my sister-in-law and her husband, and his poor mother who found out that her mother has tested positive for Covid-19 but was sent home because the hospital is about to burst. Neither elderly mother nor distraught daughter or grandson are allowed to travel. I hope she pulls through, but she is in her nineties. So many old, frail and ailing among us. Watch over them, dearest denizens, whichever way you can. And be well, sweetie darlings, wherever you are.
Oh, the places you’ll go on Netflix. With Netflix. Talking about shows on Netflix. Like Unbelievable. Have you seen it? It was a miscellaneous group trading viewing recommendations, and it was a revelation of the disheartening kind. And I’m not talking about personal taste in television, I’m talking about a discussion that ensued around sexual assault. If this topic is too raw for you, please feel free to stop reading. If you think this topic has been blown out of proportion and doesn’t merit all the attention it’s getting because it can’t possibly be as bad as advertised, you have never harassed let alone assaulted anyone and don’t know a single guy who would, then you, my friend, should read on.
First, tell me if you agree with the following: Sexual assault is just that. An assault like any other. That is what a gentleman in that miscellaneous group admitted to. He didn’t understand the "fuss” (his word). Why is sexual assault such a big deal? Men get pummeled since the day they enter a playground and take it in their stride. Fact of life: If you’re male, you’ll probably get mugged at some point. Women run the risk of being raped. Same difference. My heart sank there and then. This is it, isn’t it? The reason for the lack of empathy, the nonchalance. How many men see and think of sexual assault in exactly this way? How many women feel the same? What’s the fuss? Stop fussing. Stop overstating. It’s an assault like any other. It’s just an assault.
Now. Listen carefully. It. Is. Not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. If you have trouble believing women, try finding a man who has been both battered and raped and ask him if it’s the same thing, an interchangeable assault.
I know it can be difficult to internalize something that has never happened to you and probably never will. I know it’s difficult to imagine something as horrendous as rape happening to someone you care about. But if a woman (or man, any fellow human) comes to you with the most painful thing that ever happened to her, I hope your first instinct is to believe her. Maybe you don’t know a woman or girl who has been assaulted, but maybe you just don’t know that you know one. Sexual assault is a highly under-reported crime. The sheer trauma of the event, the knowledge that you will have to relive it and recount it several times if you come forward, makes women and girls think twice. The fear that maybe you won’t be believed, that your every word, piece of clothing and action, past and present, will be scrutinized doesn’t help. The feeling that you will be held accountable until somehow proven otherwise, is too much for too many.
So, women and girls end up suffering in silence, coping. Or not. It’s hard to move on when even the stats say that justice won’t be done. The perpetrator won’t get caught. Or if he is, he will get away with it, or he’ll get a slap on the wrist. What kind of message is that, to victims and offenders alike? What sort of system is this? These are not trick questions. These are questions that remain unanswered, and every yeah-but hurts victims while letting perpetrators off the hook. Nothing justifies or legitimizes rape. A sexual act without explicit consent is not a sexual act, it’s assault. An assault is not sex, it’s just violence. A felony. You know what is unbelievable? That in 2020, it’s still not investigated and prosecuted as such. Without exception. Until it is, women and girls will continue to think twice before reporting these incidents, and perpetrators will keep thinking nothing of it.
