delayed gratification. it’s something we are growing used to in these days of days. anticipatory glee. it’s all an exponential wait-for-it. as relatively impatient people, these are mostly new learnings. there is no date on which we can hang our all-will-be-normal hats. we must vamp until we know.
a long, long time ago, in the end of march, there was an opinion written by a woman with two teenage daughters who had a new appreciation for the way her grandparents lived. she expressed that these grandparents owned a tiny home and had simple furnishings. they took pleasure in the most basic of things: dancing in the living room, watching a bare minimum on tv, sitting on the porch, crossword puzzles, having conversation, walking the familiar sidewalks of their tiny town over and over again, handwashing the dishes. in the midst of this pandemic she could see their shining appreciation of the smallness, the stillness. she could see the brilliance.
it occurs to me that we are living elements of her grandparents’ lives; i hope the same wisdoms will be bestowed upon us. in the time after we have finished our work, we dance on the patio, watch little on tv, converse together, in texts, on the phone, on videoconferences, across driveways. we sit on the deck or in the sunroom and watch spring chuggingly arrive. we walk the same sidewalks we have walked together for years, noticing small changes: the heaved concrete or the bloomed daffodils, new mulch in gardens or new sturdy fencing. we cook dinner; we do the dishes. we are both quiet as we wait for what will come and we are just a little noisy in the moment.
to everything there is a season. a time to plan. where we will go, what we will do, who we will visit. gratification, yes, delayed, but sage learnings in the moment.
one of the memorable texts of this waiting-place was one from a friend. after some really serious life conversation, back and forth texting, she wrote, “let’s go out and have a drink.” before i could wonder when we could do that, her next text arrived, “next year,” she added.
in the meanwhile we’ll do the dishes by hand and walk the sidewalks, waiting and planning, yearning, vamping till the song starts.
the contagion is not merely the virus, although that is more than enough for this tenuous world to handle. the contagion is seeping into relationship, into communities, into cities and states. it exhibits as an inability for people to have conversation about this pandemic. it is a pestilence that hovers over the virtual aisle between us, waiting to swarm in locust fashion. it is pervasive. it is contention.
we took the helm of a performing arts center last year. when we started, we sat with the board of directors at our first official board meeting and told them that, in all things, we would be wearing our ‘what’s best for TPAC?’ hats. we would ask questions: what is best for the whole? what is best to move the organization in a progressive way? what is best to open the organization’s heart to embrace ideas in an equitable way, in a forward-thinking way, in a way that will keep the organization safe from harm and pushing toward better health. we have worn the ‘what’s best for TPAC?’ hats proudly, through thick and thin, for it is in the organization-as-a-whole that we are invested. we haven’t always been popular, and in fact at times have been shunned in silence by this same board, but we have stayed steady in our quest to keep the performing arts center and its needs central and not to get lost in self-serving contention that exhibits as peripheral arguments or sidelined motives. the possibilities of grand health and as a wildly successful place artists wish to be are all within reach for TPAC; all personal agenda need be left at the door and the wooden stage of this beautiful performing arts center will be filled with creating, performing, reaching audiences of all manner, flourishing, as the mission statement tagline reads.
our country sits smack in the middle of a global pandemic that demands we put on our ‘what’s best for ALL of us?’ hats. we are seeking health. and, though we as a world have not garnered all the information about this specific covid-19 disease that we need, it seems that the brilliant scientists and doctors, epidemiologists, researchers and public health experts have asked an abundance of questions and given us some guidelines. these guidelines, put in place and central, are not the stuff of popularity contests. they are the stuff of those ‘what’s best?’ hats, the stuff of steady leadership, the stuff of keeping people safe from harm and pushing toward bettering health. through thick and thin, and with sacrifice, it doesn’t seem too much to adhere to these guidelines as a means to an end.
but cavalier complaint, unrest and protest are rampant. and contention ensues. ‘we’ll have to agree to disagree’ we hear time and again. i wonder what it is we are disagreeing on? can we ask questions: is it the wish for all people to be well? is it cooperation with each other to that end? is it communal responsibility? is it adhering to recommended guidelines, among others: to stay home, maintain social distancing, wear a mask? these are not difficult asks and have proven to be effective at flattening the curve of this disease, a disease whose myriad symptoms exhibit in so many ways, in which dying is devastatingly painful and lonely, and one is suffocated with the pansy words ‘agree to disagree’, tentacles of irony and shameful smugness killing any chance of conversation. misinformation begets misinformation. it encourages loud dissension, infighting, uprisings bearing arms, people basing decisions on erroneous reports; it misguides. instead, misinformation guides people down paths of complacency, lazy inaction, self-serving-disregard-for-others the hat of choice.
we are living in a state of ‘agree to disagree’ and where has it gotten us? agree to disagree. at what cost? over 1.1 million americans have already contracted this virus and over 65,000 have died.
is there a chance we could agree to agree? can we ask questions: that perhaps over 64,000 in two months is too many deaths? that humanity – each of us – is not dispensable? that we cannot move anything forward without health, without living and breathing people, including an economy of any value to humankind?
what’s really ‘best for ALL of us’? can we ask questions: in this country touting that it is helping each of us, might it be possible to actually help each of us, instead of the not-so-hidden inequity sorely apparent even in the structure of stimulus bills and tax packages? might it be possible to recognize that goading people into angry protest is not a responsible re-election campaign strategy? might it be possible that angrily and aggressively bearing automatic weapons in public venues is unacceptable? might it be possible that bullying should not be seen as a substitute for incompetent leadership? that division is not a cure; it will neither heal or stimulate. division will further divide this indivisible-one-nation-under-God. “the ‘invisible enemy’, as the so-called leader of this country refers to coronavirus, is not the pandemic, but, rather, the malignancy in this current administration. in this country of hats, can we please wear the ‘what’s best for ALL of us?’ hats?
the wooden stage waits ad nauseam for all of us to have conversation, to ask questions, to work together, to agree to agree; it waits while we heal, while we ensure people can be well, while we take steps forward-thinking, while we leave personal agenda at the door, escape from the grasp of this viral pandemic and, maybe even more, from this corrupt nation-destructing contagion.
and then, bathed in a spotlight aimed at our ‘what’s best for ALL?’ hats, we will flourish.
and as yesterday passed into today and i drifted off to sleep i knew, despite that she is on a different plane of existence, my sweet momma was holding me close to her. it was bracing to think of the five year mark that has just passed now since she has been gone and the every-day-missing-her that goes along with that. no different with my dad. in a month it will be eight years and i can hear his “hi brat” in my heart. i have no doubt that he is right there, holding on tightly. both of them. forever and ever.
it is a fact. this parenthood thing is mind-bogglingly paramount. ever forward from the day they are born. it is all-consuming. in every good and every daunting way. every most-jubilant and every brutally-difficult way. every securely-confident and every tumultuously-distressing way. every way.
in this pandemic time of chaos we pine for a sense of normal which escapes us. anxiety barges in and replaces our regular routines; peace escapes us. we long to see each other. we feel tired; we feel restless. we sleep more; we cannot sleep. we are astounded by the surrealness of this; we are crushed by how real this is. and we worry. it is hard to be away from those whom we love and knowing that right now we cannot go to them compounds it. my heart needs to hug My Girl and My Boy and see that all is well. we feel anxious. our wishes go unfulfilled.
and yet as today passes into tomorrow and they drift off to sleep i know, despite how busy they may be or where they are in the world, that i am holding them close. that no doubt can exist – i am right there, holding on tightly.
and i hope, like you with your beloved children, that they can feel it. forever and ever.
anticipation. it’s the stuff of songs. the stuff of great love. the stuff of waiting for the worst to be over. the stuff of all moms everywhere.
we wait. we wait for them to be born. we wait for them to fall asleep. we wait for them outside the elementary school, gleefully skipping down the sidewalk toward us. and then we wait for them outside the middle school, hidden in the shadows down the road to avoid seventh grade embarrassment. we wait for them at the end of sport meets and music recitals, to congratulate or cajole. we wait for them after the day is done at school. we wait for them to return home in the family car. we lay awake, waiting for them a wee bit past curfew. we wait for them to return home from college. we wait for them to come home from afar. we wait for them to say, “yes, all is well,” and we wait for them to sound genuinely happy. we are not settled if they are not settled.
and now we wait – apart. all of us.
we all wonder what day it is and we wonder when this waiting will be over. we look to each other – on texts, on the phone, on social media, on videoconferencing – for words of wisdom, for encouragement, for reassurance, for a chance to say, “yes, i feel that way, too!” we need meet on common ground; we are alive and we are vested in staying well and staying safe. so we compare notes and share ideas and recipes and cartoons and articles and youtube songs and moments that make us weep.
and, like the day that your beloved child doesn’t tell you of their arrival ahead, surprises you and makes your heart swell with joy by walking in the front door, we wait for the hoped-for-but-unexpected. the flattened curve. the antibodies that prevail over the virus. the vaccine. the end of this profound worry, this herculean effort of medical workers, this exponentially terrifying pandemic. in our world, our country, our state, our community, our midst. in our circle.
we know one of these days this too shall pass. and in the meanwhile, we are honing our waiting skills. becoming adept at patience and being in the moment, not sure of what day it is exactly, but sure of the passing of days. time will bring us to a new day and one of these days, just like our grown child unexpectedly bursting through the front door, Next will burst in and exclaim, “surprise! i am here!” and our hearts will explode with gratitude.
on island we rarely heard airplanes overhead. if we did, they were small cessnas and pipers, low-wing and high-wing single engine airplanes, buzzing over the shoreline heading for the small grass strip airport. otherwise, it was quiet. very.
lately, here, we have noticed that it is quieter than normal. we are in what is generally an approach for the milwaukee airport and we often see airplanes overhead heading north or airplanes coming across the lake in line for o’hare, south of us. it seems more of a rarity now to hear a jet overhead. it makes us pay attention. it makes us look up. it makes us ponder.
we wonder where it is coming from, where its final destination. we wonder how many passengers are on board. in these times of no-travel, the contrail seems a contradiction of this time, a plane leaving its mark on the day.
in my previous life i had some time at the controls of both small airplanes and helicopters. the jargon was language i was accustomed to. there are languages of career. we all have them, words, expressions, theories specific to our chosen work; we learn our spouse’s language, even just enough to understand just enough.
i’m better at the controls than in the passenger seat of a small airplane; motion sickness rules less if you are ‘driving’. i never got near the point of solo-ing on any flying machine. there was much to learn in ground school and hours rented on an airplane or a helicopter were expensive for an already-stretched budget. but, stick in hand, flying a helicopter over the woods of new hampshire while employed at an aviation college there, brilliant new england fall colors beneath us, i could see how the flying-bug could bite.
and now it is quiet. a few moments ago, while writing this, a jet flew overhead. i stopped typing to pay attention and looked out the window. i wondered: where is that plane going? who is on that plane? do they feel safe? are they wearing masks? did they turn their blower off? are they sitting six feet apart?
and i pondered: what state might that plane be flying here from? what are the covid-19-numbers in that state? are people staying safe-at-home? are there protests in that state, people who are placing everyone in their ever-widening concentric circles at risk for contagion? are there people who are laissez-faire-individualizing this global-everyone-is-affected-pandemic, rejecting commonsense social distancing and simple respectful preventative measures? are there people making homemade masks, like here, because there isn’t enough PPE to go around? are they wondering why the federal government of fifty states and five territories is hostage-taking necessary supplies, pitting governors against each other, encouraging a competition for lifesaving devices, blaspheming good works, eliminating knowledgeable workers, warping what is important vs not important, encouraging bracing and dangerous practices? are they shocked and dismayed at the ever-widening inequity, the gross partisanship? are they stunned into disbelief at the absolute lack of sane and measured leadership? are they embarrassed and profoundly saddened?
and i wondered: when will we go on an airplane next? where will we go? when will we feel safe? will everyone wear a mask? will everyone sit six feet apart?
and i thought, as we are apt to do after-the-fact: i should have gotten my pilot’s license.
20 years ago. apparently the last time gas was 99 cents a gallon in wisconsin was 20 years ago. i don’t remember that in particular; my children were young and things were busy. how strange to now be able to purchase gas for 99 cents a gallon, filling up little-baby-scion for about $10, and not be able to go anywhere.
20 years before 20 years ago i remember gas being 79 cents a gallon or so. on long island, i would go to the citgo station on the corner of larkfield and clay pitts road in my vw bug, filling up for well under $10. they pumped your gas for you back then. i had one of my first credit cards, a citgo card, in those days. on one occasion, a couple days after i got gas, i received a phone call. it was from the guy who had pumped my gas. he had saved my information post-pumping and looked my last name up in the phone book. he called to ask me to go on a date. he was always nice to me every single time i got gas, so i thought it perfectly innocent to accept. i don’t remember where we went, but i do remember thinking that i would absolutely not repeat the date – the somewhat unusual way he got my number (i’m thinking that would be against credit card protection acts these days) was befitting of his um, unusual-ness. “she’s not home,” my mom would tell him time and again when he called. after a plethora of calls over a series of days, i told him i wasn’t interested. i started going to mobil.
citgo, dairy barn, king kullen, genovese drugs, the card store – these were all around the corner, up the hill and turn right. to get there you’d go right by tommy’s house on the hill. and just today i found out that tommy, one of the absolute cutest-boys-in-high-school, has died. a man taken by coronavirus, i read the posts on facebook remembering him. it seems, as we lose track of people in our orbit, that they freeze in time – i never knew tommy as an adult so he remains age 18 in my mind’s eye. we lose track of them and we don’t know their successes or their challenges, things they struggled with or how their lives were shaped as they ‘grew up’. we make assumptions and find out later that their lives were impacted in ways we never could have guessed, in ways we would have never wished for anyone. it saddens me deeply to think of tommy, the cool-boy-in-school, struggling in his life, trying to get a firm hold on steady. the things we don’t know, riding our bikes up that hill just to get a glimpse and maybe wave to him.
20 years go by. and another 20.
and we sit at the pump where it’s 99 cents a gallon. there is a global pandemic. we have a blank triptik. as we drove away from the pump, we looked at each other and pondered without answering, ‘where would we go if we could go?’
but right now, there is no where to go. were i to be on long island, i would go back to my growing-up house and sit on the curb for a bit. then i’d go around the corner and up the hill. and i’d wave as i’d pass tommy’s old house.
the pressure. gee-willikers! you simply cannot browse through any social media platform without seeing family’s and friends’ beautifully-prepared foods or rustic breads fresh out of the oven, off the grill, sizzling on the griddle, staged and plated for photos.
the pressure. my first question is always one about wondering how, in the middle of this socially-distanced-stay-at-home-pandemic, all-these-people have all-those-ingredients in their homes at-the-ready. we must be pretty basic shoppers; our larders are not filled with the likes of these ingredients. we plan ahead; like you, we are shopping very rarely, limiting our exposure. we miss our peeps at festival; we used to see them almost daily, as we would cruise about town to get fresh fruits and veggies.
the pressure. neither of us wanted to go out to the store the other day. we had chicken out to prepare, but, low on or depleted of fresh vegetables and potatoes, a side dish escaped us. we did, however, have a multitude of pears, because you can’t purchase a normal amount of pears at costco; instead, it is assumed you have an army of pear-eaters and you will all devour them before the dreaded brown spots form on the outside of its smooth green-pear-skin.
the pressure. what to do with pears, other than just, say, slice and eat them. we googled. every pear recipe has goat cheese in it, for good reason. i love goat cheese and wish we could eat goat cheese, but a dairy free diet precludes that. so we had to move on.
knowing that you must be sitting on the edge of your seat as you (maybe) read this, i’ll tell you what happened: we looked in the freezer to see what else was there. bacon! now, i really love bacon. i probably shouldn’t, but i do. thinking we were being brilliant, we googled what you could make with pears and bacon. those of you out there in perfect cooking/baking/inspired feasting social media land will say ‘no duh’ when i tell you we found -drumroll, please- bacon-wrapped pears! simple! you slice a pear into quarters and wrap bacon around the slices. place in 400 degree oven and bake. that’s it! they were freaking amazing!
the pressure. so then the pressure was to NOT post this pear-bacon-pairing-extravaganza on social media. we sent a picture to a couple friends who knew of our facebook-meal-snack-drink ogling and we sent a picture to The Girl and The Boy.
our friends responded enthusiastically but our more recipe-savvy children did not. i suppose they just thought to themselves: yup. pears. bacon. pears + bacon = bacon-wrapped pears. yup. the pressure.
it’s a wave. and, like the tide, we ride it out to sea and back in to shore. we grab handfuls of sand when we hit the beach, to remind ourselves that we are indeed of this earth and this is real. and then we read or watch the news and see the charts and the numbers-who-are-people-not-numbers and we are back out to sea, on precarious standup boards.
it’s almost a mantra “staying more or less sane.” we wake in the morning and, for the first few delicious seconds, we don’t remember. but as we share dreams – the dreams we can remember – we know that even our subconscious are trying to process all this.
we compare notes with others: what is acceptable to do in these restricted times, what is not. we are aghast at the impropriety of the suggestion of large gatherings, no matter where they are. even small gatherings of people not isolating together are questionable. we wonder if we will all be agoraphobic when it’s time to cease restrictions. we worry that this decision will be made irresponsibly, skewed in the direction of the ever-important dollar and not in the interest of people being healthy, getting better, staying alive. we are afraid.
we do whatever we can, whatever works; we are all in different places on the what-works-for-you continuum. outside of working we struggle to fill in time. we take on new projects; we sit quietly. we bake loaves and loaves of bread and test new recipes; we cook just whatever is necessary. we obsessively deep clean the closets, the cabinets, the basement; we pick up around ourselves and disinfect what needs disinfecting. we organize, organize, organize; we have trouble paying attention, finishing going through the piles. we watch movies and binge on sitcoms; we look out the window and get lost in thought. we spend time on our muse; we stay away from that which makes us feel more deeply. we spend vast amounts of time on social media and video-conferencing apps; we desperately miss those we love and yearn for them. we get impatient; we wait.
we are a world of people-people, broken and reeling, and we are all trying to stay more or less sane.
sometimes we are silent. sometimes it’s better that way. a fluid point, a fine line of balance, there’s so much to say; there’s so much we should avoid saying. silent days.
we walk or hike outside, we take limited trips to the grocery store. not a lot of interaction, the way it is supposed to be right now. with varying cautions about distancing and asymptomatic spreading and aerosol molecules, the experts have my rapt attention. although i do not have the ability to make as much of a difference in this as those who are on the front lines, i need do my part. responsibly and respectfully.
making do with texts, phone calls, work videoconferences, online hangouts with friends, it’s still much more silent than it ever is, normally.
there are reports of residents hearing birds again in wuhan. the woodpecker is busy in our backyard, the mourning doves call, the frogs quip to each other in the woods.
and so we walk, quietly. we cross to the other side of the street, we single-file on the other side of the path. maybe here and there people answer to our soft hello as we pass. we shop, rarely, pushing a cart, quickly assembling what we need. we listen to the sounds that often linger unheard below the noise.
and even above the masks, even in the silence, i can see their tentative smiles.
WRITTEN THE MORNING OF WISCONSIN’S PRIMARY ELECTION DAY – APRIL 7, 2020
“the court’s suggestion that the current situation is not ‘substantially different’ from an ‘ordinary election’ boggles the mind.” (justice ruth bader ginsburg)
i have lived in this state for over three decades now. i have never been more disappointed or embarrassed. or angry.
in the middle of washing every single piece of fruit and vegetable that enters this house, in the middle of disinfecting the mail and all packages, in the middle of mask-wearing and social distancing, in the middle of streaming or video-conferencing anything work-related, in the middle of a global pandemic that is eating away at people’s lives and threatens the lives of thousands more (if we could even somewhat accurately predict) this state’s officials – wisconsin – has the gall, the audacity, the very blatant disregard of human life and human safety to continue to hold its primary election today, putting anyone at risk who goes to the very few open and staffed polls. other options are confusing for people – drive-throughs, curbside – these make the assumption that voters have transportation and can go to one of the few places there are voting sites. milwaukee, a city that usually has 180 polls, has 5 open today. 5. for a population of half a million. even if 50,000 people vote in those 5 places, that would mean 10,000 people a polling site, and yes – that is slightly higher than the recommended number of people present in one place at one time (10) during this PANDEMIC. in one of the most self-serving moves of all time (although then we would have to ignore the skewed self-servingness of our previous governor) the republicans of this state (and i call them out because they ARE the ones who voted the postponement down) have decided that the people of wisconsin are dispensable. with absentee ballots not even in all voters’ mailboxes, no opportunity to absentee vote later than today is being afforded. the wisconsin populace is disenfranchised and it is despicable. adding greater insult, the majority of the supreme court of the united states put its indelible signature on this atrocious decision.
i don’t even know what to say. between the federal government’s response to this pandemic and the inbred infighting, the blatant aggression and ineptitude of the president, the pitting of the country’s states against each other (even reading that makes me nauseous), i feel grossly let down. yes, justice ginsburg, it boggles my mind. it undermines everything i thought this country was about. it’s exhausting. aren’t we all tired?
and where do we go from here? WISCONSIN, where do we go from here? how will the coronavirus curve change now? how will the inability of everyone voting play to the few who voted down the postponement? don’t we already know? do the leaders blocking a later date for this primary election really expect people to perilously exercise their fundamental right to vote yet not give a damn that people are putting their very lives at risk? WHY ARE WE WASHING OUR FRUIT?
reverse threading 