nakedjen

We Are All In This Together

One month ago I was sitting in the airport in Seoul, Korea rolling the dice.  My own dice.  I had gotten the last flight out of Bali and I was on the last flight leaving Seoul for America.  The destination was Seattle.  The big question was if it was actually going to depart?  Delta Airlines seemed to believe that it would, but that were not 100% positive.  No one could be, of course.  I had already spent the last 48 hours scrambling with flights out of Bali.  I knew that Korea was actually a fairly safe spot to be in terms of the virus and I actually have a good network of support there so I made the decision that if the flight was cancelled I was going to just leave the airport and stick it out in Seoul.  

I am not going to lie.  Making that decision gave me a real sense of peace.  It took all the anxiety out of the situation.  I was either going back to America or I was not.  But now it was no longer really up to me.  It was a matter of whether or not Delta decided to fly the plane. 

The flight from Seoul to Seattle actually did happen that evening.  It had very few passengers and the most surprising part of the whole journey, to me, was that while I was vetted thoroughly in Korea before boarding (temperature, travel, physical health) when I landed in America in Seattle no one was wearing a mask or gloves and I was not told to self-quarantine or even asked about where I had been.  I just walked right off the plane and right into America and was welcomed home practically with a bear hug.  In fact, my suitcase had literally EXPLODED on its way off the plane and all my stuff was all over the luggage carousel and everyone was quite helpful in helping me gather it up and shove it inside and then the people who help with luggage (I still had to fly to Salt Lake City) were also very helpful in duct taping my suitcase up so it could make its final journey home. 

America was not in any way prepared for the virus.  There were no marks, yet, on the airport floor telling me to keep my social distance.  There was no signage about the virus.  Seattle, which was at the time a HOT SPOT, had very few people at the airport, but they had yet to alert the world that perhaps we should be taking very careful precautions.  I eventually made my way to Salt Lake City, quarantined myself for 14 days, have still continued to practice careful precautions and have watched as our numbers in America follow the predicted trajectory.  Math and science and data of this virus are proving more powerful than whatever magical thinking we all wish to apply.

*****

I am a healthy white woman with access to excellent health care.  I even was able to get a test for the virus once I got back to Utah.  I do not feel unsafe here, but the color of my skin and my own demographics create a very privileged bubble that allow me to shelter in place and order my groceries online and not worry about how I'll feed my dog and even to send money and supplies and food to my friends (and strangers) who are not nearly as privileged as I am.  

Before all of this began, long before, I would say to the people in our community clinic that we're all in this together. 

I still believe that.  

Now, more than ever.  

I have no illusions that it probably is going to get a whole lot worse before it ever starts even begins to creep towards getting better.  I also can't even imagine what better looks like at this point, only that it looks incredibly different than anything we ever knew before.  

In fact, we can only hope that it will for the survival of us all. 

Always be a lady.

Always be a lady.

Pfft. 

My mother has said to me in only the way a mother can, I don't know how many times, "Jennifer, act like a lady."

A lady. 

I don't think, even now, I understand exactly what that means?  

I do have lady parts. Yes.  I think this lady business stops right there.  Or does it?

Is it about being soft?  I don't do soft.  I'm not soft.  I have never been soft. I don't even like soft. 

How about I just not conform to preconceived notions of gender norms and instead march in support of the voice that says I am here as LOVE personified? 

I'm loud and crass and very hard around the edges.  I stomp in my boots and you can hear me coming ten minutes before I arrive. 

I do not have a filter.  I tell you what I'm thinking.  It flashes from my eyes and spills from my mouth and sometimes I realize far too late that I might have wanted to actually swallow some of all of that rather than actually vomiting it all over your pretty lady shoes.

Fuck this lady business. Whatever it is supposed to be? 

I like me. 

I'll always be me. 

I am in no hurry to die

1,000,000

That's a lot of zeros. 

Back in February when I was still trying to suss out if I would actually get on the plane to Bali or not, there were 19 known cases of Covid19 in Indonesia.  I knew that number could not possibly account for all possible cases in Indonesia because testing was not widely available and at that point in time it was only being provided to people who were actually presenting with all known symptoms at hospitals.  We now know there are plenty of additional symptoms and plenty of people that are wandering around who are asymptomatic and who can have this virus and be spreading it among the community without even knowing it at all. 

Just now the numbers of known identified cases in America tipped over to 1,000,000 cases.  Known.  Identified.  This means someone had a test and tested positive.  

The good news, if there's going to be good news, is that we're providing a lot more tests in America.  The better news, if you'd like it, is that the majority of those 1,000,000 cases will make a full recovery.  The disheartening news is that for every single one of those cases there are probably at least one if not two cases that are currently undiagnosed.  Walking among us somewhere in this country and maybe standing not quite six feet away from you or me in line at a grocery store waiting patiently to check-out without a mask on because, well, they don't have symptoms and do not believe they actually need to wear a mask and it makes them uncomfortable.  Later today that same person who stood not six feet from you or me and coughed gently will go visit their own mother at the eldercare facility.   They may, also, for all we know be one of our valuable essential workers.  Again, this virus is not picky.  It doesn't care who you happen to be or where you happen to live or what precautions you actually take with your own health.  If it wants to infect you, it will.  

America might be in a hurry to lift restrictions and get back to business.  

I am in no hurry to die.  

Tell Me Something Happy

The sun came up today.  

I know, I know.  But it did.  Just as it seems to do every day.  

You asked me to tell you something happy and that was the first thing that popped into my head.  

I feel like that's a fairly good indication of the sign of these times.  Also a sign of these times is that the second thing that popped into my head was that a New York ER doctor suicided after taking care of so many COVID19 patients.  She couldn't take it anymore.  Immediately, I chastised myself for even thinking about it because, of course, it is not very happy.  

How can we have found ourselves here?  Where the happy thing is suicide?

I know how we found ourselves here, intellectually.  Of course.  As a nation we focused on more for ourselves, selfish taking, laughing and pointing at the orange man in the White House and ribbing our neighbors at his foibles every time he said or did anything to make the United States look stupid to the rest of the world all the while ignoring the blaring sirens of the warning signals ALL AROUND US.  

They were very loud and obvious and we did not listen because why should we?  We could push BUY IT NOW and have whatever we wanted on our doorstep by the end of the day.  Life was so damn grand.  

Except that it was all an illusion. 

It certainly was not really happy.  

Now we have dead bodies piled up.  Kids who are not able to go to school.  Millions without a job.  Domestic violence on the rise. Doctors taking their own lives.  

I can't possibly tell you something happy.

The sun will come up tomorrow. 

Free Hugs

That sign. 

There was a time, not even that long ago, as recently as January, when I would pass a total and complete stranger holding that sign and I'd gladly drop everything that I had and outstretch my arms and sink in for a long embrace.  I'd touch my heart to theirs and feel it pound away.  I'd not worry who they were or where they'd been or what might be lurking on their clothes.  I'd breathe deeply and take in their scent, their essence, wallow in all of their everything.

I'd hug them fiercely.  Love the stuffing out of them.  With abandon.  Because that is who I am and that is what they offered.  

For free.

And now?

That sign feels like a death threat.  

Not intentional.  Cloaked in hippie innocence.  From a time when all we wanted for the world was to please put down our angry masks and our guns and our selfish intentional walks and instead to share just a scant few moments of togetherness.  A genuine, full, warm embrace.  A simple act of love and kindness.  

I don my mask, I stand six feet away, I don't want to kill you. Not then, not now, not ever.  

But I really do miss hugging you.

Fiercely. 

feliz día de acción de gracias

We assumed, most likely because we were young and white and privileged, that there would be open restaurants with all kinds of delicious things to eat.  Why wouldn't there be?  This is America.  Land of plates of food so large that in any other country the same plate would feed an entire family.  

Assumed.  Making an ass of both of us.  

That morning when we woke up and drove the winding road from our cavernous empty rental house into the sleepy beach town we were smacked right upside the head with the reality that there were no open restaurants at all.  None.  Not a one.  They were all closed.  

God Bless America.

I believe we got in quite an argument.  Car doors were slammed.  At least one of us stormed off and wandered around the empty streets of that sleepy beach town for quite a while wondering just what she had signed up for moving all the way over here from the security of all the way over there and finding herself here on this day tired from sleeping on a cement floor in a cavernous empty rental that had no electricity or running water (because, hello, holiday weekend and utilities needed someone to actually appear to turn them on) and contemplating exactly how many dollars she still had and if she might, just maybe, could put herself and the dog (you knew there was a dog, didn't you?!?) on a plane and get herself back to the security she had abandoned all the way over there, but eventually we found our way back to each other, hugs were shared (there are always hugs), sorries were said and then we drove back up that winding road and back to that cavernous empty rental house and before it was too dark we wandered the woods searching for anything, anything at all that we could burn in the wood stove because it was November and did I mention that it was cold?  

We ate lukewarm spaghetti that night.  We cooked it on our camping stove.  It took fucking forever and we tossed it with some Ragu and were thankful, sure, that we actually had some food.  There was not a whole lot of gratitude, though.  We weren't cognizant that we had it better than so many others.  It's interesting the things your mind does when you're a white privileged girl in America.


*****

That was 32 years ago.  

The woman I am today wants to tell that girl to remember that she's damn lucky to have spaghetti to put in her pot. That there's always enough, always.  To share her sandwiches no matter where she happens to find herself and to be grateful that she can. 

Chlorophytum Comosum

When I left, I gently squeezed you between the two front seats of the car.  I felt really lucky that there was even space for you there. Every time my elbow knocked you, I'd apologize, as if I could hear you complain about being stuck right there in that tiny space meant only for coffee and spare change.  You were far more important to me than spare change and coffee.  You'd been around since the days when I said hello to Santa Cruz and now, well, now you were there when I was saying goodbye.  A silent witness to every single day of my upside-down life. 

There are no magic words I can conjure up now to bring you back from the brink. 

I put you up on that ledge when we moved from that house to this house because I thought, right, it will be sunny and there will be less chance you'll be bothered by things.  What things, I don't even know, honestly? Just things. You know THINGS.  I wanted you to have a vantage point where you could just be...happy.  Up there.  Out of the way, I suppose, if I'm being the most honest with you.  With myself.  With all of us.

So up there, out of the way, above my head, where you wouldn't be bothered, where I did not notice you but you could see everything about me, I forget all about you and I let you die. 

Or nearly die.  

I'm sorry I left you alone.  I'm sorry I forgot about you.  You deserved better than me. 

You deserve better. Than. Me. 

****

When's the last time you took a drink of water?

How often am I asked that when I spit angry words at someone when they ask me about my day? 

Is it as simple as a long, cool drink of water?  

Water and we will be okay?

Words won't keep you from dying.  Water, though, water might just keep you here to witness what comes next. 

Seconds

Every second 6 babies are born.  
Every second 2 people will die. 

I'm wondering if those numbers are skewed at all right now in these pandemic times? Lopsided toward death?  Thinking that they just may be. 

I find it hard not to obsess over the numbers.  I look at them every morning when I wake up.  Later in the day, I look at them again.  And then again.  Then still later.  I am trying to find some sort of pattern, some sort of rhythm, some sort of something that will make sense of it for the person that lives inside my head that likes to make contingency plans.

I keep telling that person that there are no contingency plans for any of this.  There's no control in this situation.  The best she can do is to maybe stop looking at the numbers.  To maybe just go walk the dog.  To relish the sun that came up today and to celebrate that she is alive and healthy and that her own test came back negative.  

47 seconds just ticked by on my watch.

That's 282 new souls we've welcomed to this planet.  
And 94 we bid goodbye.