Quarantine: The New Normal

 It's 2:31pm on a Friday. After showering this morning, I dressed in sweatpants, a t-shirt, a hoodie, and slippers. I put on earrings - one of the many pairs that I have made since quarantine started - and padded downstairs, coffee in hand.

Another day, similar to so many that came before it over the last seven months.

I try not to dress in sweats that often - something about "dress for success!" lessons of the 1980s apparently stuck with me. When I wear sweats, I know I've given up, and that all hope is lost of any sense of normalcy: I wouldn't teach in sweats on a regular school day - the idea wouldn't occur to me. (Not that I dress up a lot, but cotton dresses, jeans and sweaters, the occasional blouse and skirt with boots, are all regular items in my teaching wardrobe.

But I digress, as I do.

Every day bleeds into the next, a mad blur of staring at the computer and sleeping and cooking and dimly watching the news scroll past my phone, terrible idea after horrible happening after tragedy after hideous unkindnesses. The details of racial injustice, disease, missing children and/or parents at the border,death, lies fly by, one outrageous idea after the next, each one in turn both shocking and, in this strange version of reality, expected.

I watch television, look at books, my mind unfocused. I make soup, or bread, or bake. I move the broom or the lawn mower. I walk the dog (not nearly as frequently as I should). I promise myself to do yoga.

I teach pixels, not people. Most of my students appear only as dots, much less often as voices, and far less often as images.

The picnics of summer have slipped away. Paddle boarding is in the past.

Time feels flexible, dragging on endlessly, then speeding up until suddenly a month has whipped past.

***

The hardest part is not knowing when things will change. The hardest part is realizing that it's out of my control. The hardest part is feeling lonely. The hardest part is helping Tessa to manage her feelings, just about being a teenager, but also her own uncertainty in quarantine.

There are a lot of hard parts.

*** 

The good parts exist. I love my home, and I am comfortable and safe here. I have a real office, and so does Tessa, so we're not too underfoot for each other. Our pets make us laugh. There is unlimited food, books, music, movies. There are cozy clothes, warm blankets, enough tea for an army. Tessa and I sometimes laugh. Making jewelry is fun, and I'm writing again. I have many who love me, even if I can't see them face to face.

***

It is a small life, right now. 

It will be small for a while longer.

It's time to learn how to make the best of it.

Women's Suffrage, Women's Rights, and Election 2020

 We are just days away from election day in the US, and our national anxiety is spiraling out of control. I am trying to remember, to remind myself, that in Dr. Martin Luther King's words, "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice" and that we are in the long part right now. That doesn't mean we won't get there, but right now, we're in the struggle part, not the justice part. It would be easy to lose sight of hope because when in the midst of the struggle, justice seems so far removed... but now is not the time to give up.

Ever since I've been old enough to form opinions, I have a political perspective. I started off by just parroting my parents' views, by asking questions about what "we" thought, and accepting what I was told at face value. This is a somewhat peaceful way to exist: there was no angst, no worry, no doubt. I had faith that my parents knew what was best, and so I would agree with them always.

It will come as no shock to anyone who has ever been a teenager that this fell apart.

One time (for it was a process), it fell apart in English class in high school. My teacher assigned Judy Brady's "I want a wife" essay, and I thought, "MY MOTHER NEEDS A WIFE!" I grew up in a household where my father spent his mornings moaning "How can I get dressed if I don't have socks? (MOM'S NAME) WHERE ARE MY SOCKS?" because she laid out his clothes every day for him to get dressed; never mind that his drawer was full of socks only two feet away from the bed, and he was a grown man perfectly capable of opening that drawer. I grew up in a household where, to the best of my recollection, my father only cooked one meal in my entire childhood (it was horrible: the recipe called for a tablespoon of capers, but he used the whole bottle of them plus their juice; my mother told us that we were grounded if we said one negative thing about it).

When I read Brady's essay and we explored the ideas in class, my world burst open. My peers found it funny and silly, because their families weren't so backwards thinking. It dawned on me that not every marriage was like my parents' marriage, and that there were other ways for me, a woman, to live. 

I ran home, excitedly pulled the essay out of my backpack, and said, "MOM! Look! You need a wife!" I was one hundred percent convinced that when she read it, she would have an epiphany about her sexist marriage (I was pretty sure she didn't like the "WHERE ARE MY SOCKS?!" conversation every day either, and convinced as well that she didn't put out the socks as she was supposed to because it was her small rebellion). I thought about my mother rising up to face my father, saying "You're a grown man. Open the drawer yourself!" and I thought "My mother is free to become a writer, as she dreamed!" and that, her mind blown by Brady, everything would be different.

Ahhh, youth. I was a fool.

My mother was offended, not amused or inspired. She defended her marriage; she defended her life. She told me how lucky she was to have my father, how they took care of each other. (She sometimes cried at his treatment of her, and she often complained about him to me, but at the sight of the Brady essay she forgot those things.)

***

Being raised by people who think that "feminist" is a dirty word has certainly informed me that not everyone will agree with my politics, and it has also informed me about how much work we have to do to get to womens equality. (Where, oh where, is the E.R.A.?!) I can hardly believe that I'm 51 years old in modern America, and women are still grasping at "firsts" and at full admission to society. When Brock Turner is let off with a scolding, when Brett Kavanagh is believed over Christine Blasey Ford, when women represent so few at the highest levels of government and business, when "the canon" is filled with white men, and when the gender pay gap prevails... I know why I must be feminist. And when my parents scoff at such "stupid" and "illogical" viewpoints, I know that we've got a long way to go.

It's wearying.

I'm weary.

How can it be that I'm 51 years old, that I read Brady's essay in when I was still sweet 16, and that so much of it is still true? In the COVID pandemic, women have started falling apart as they work their full time jobs from home, yet somehow are expected to continue with childcare, cooking, and cleaning so their husbands can work?

When presidential nominee Trump was recorded with the infamous "grab 'em by the pussy" talk, I thought, "Okay, that's it - he's done. Every woman in America will be as disgusted as I am."

Wrong again, but this time I can't blame youth. And it's women just like me who have supported him: white, middle aged women are one of his strongest demographics. Don't they realize that what he said wasn't funny, it was dangerous? Don't they realize that rape culture isn't just a phrase, it is the reality for 1 in 4 women? Aren't they...disgusted?

But they forgave. They have been so soaked in the world of misogyny that they don't even realize their own pain, they accept it as just the way things are.

And so here we are.

Some days, it seems unmanageable, unbearable, untenable, and un****ingbelievable.

But then I remember.

I remember that when my grandmother was born, she couldn't vote because of her gender...and now she can vote.

I remember that when I was born, I couldn't get my own mortgage because of my gender.

I remember that when I was born, there were different job listings for men and women in the classifieds.

I remember that we've had progress with the gender pay gap, though it's nowhere near where I want it to be (equal - the goal is to be equal).

And then I remember Abigail Adams.

***

As her husband helped to form The Declaration of Indpendence, declaring that "all men are created equal," she wrote to him to "remember the ladies" - and we know, of course, that he did not.

That letter was written in 1776, and it is a reasonable and cogent argument as to why women's rights mattered, too, but despite their loving relationship, and despite the anger at tyrants who stole natural rights from people, Abigail Adams died without seeing progress.

Women's suffrage is said to have begun in earnest in 1840, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Stanton died in 1902, 18 years before women received the right to vote; Mott died in 1880, a full 40 years before women received the right to vote. The women who laid the foundation for women's rights in America were dead and gone before they ever saw the benefit of those rights.

I know that I'm just a baby in the women's rights journey. I know that the women before me fought harder, against worse odds. Shirley Chisholm argued for the Equal Rights Amendment in 1970, when I was still a baby; she died without seeing it ratified, and still we wait.

***

I'm frustrated, and weary, and disappointed. At about 51% of the population, women are considered a minority interest, and in the workplace and in our own homes, we have to fight to be heard, to not have to work twice as hard. For women of color, it's significantly worse: the gender pay gap is worse, employment statistics are worse; discrimination is worse. Much worse.

It is cause for anger, fear, and frustration.

But it's not cause to give up.

***

My grandma had no control over her own life, because she had no access to education as a girl, and because society told her that she had to do what her husband told her to do. She gained the right to vote, but she never saw people who looked like her hold public office.

It's different for me. I had to fight hard (against my parents' wishes for me) to get an education, but I did get that education, and as a result I have a rewarding career. Both of my congressmen are women; my representative is a woman. I have voted for a female U.S. President, and I've voted for a female U.S. Vice President. My name is the only name on the deed to my car, and on my mortgage, and on my credit card. When I went to college, my granny was proud of me. She saw how different my life was from hers, and she cheered for me. I missed her funeral because I had to take a final exam (I was able to show up for the gathering afterwards), and I know she understood, even though it broke my heart. I had to fight to get the life never offered to her.

***

As election 2020 nears, and we find out who holds the fate of not just our nation but of our day to day lives, it's hard for me not to spin out of control with fear and nausea. Will my daughter be granted autonomy over her own body? Will my rights ever be declared? Will men feel authorized to grab 'em by the pussy, or will they know that they will be held accountable?

Women's rights are far from the only thing on the ballot, and far from the only thing I care about, but they're what I'm thinking of today.

I'm thinking of Abigail Adams, and how she knew that she deserved more, but she never lived to see her rights come to fruition. I'm thinking about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, and how they never got to cast a vote. I'm thinking how hopeless they must have felt on their deathbeds, wondering why all of their hard work had not paid off, why their dreams did not come true.

And yet, their work was not fruitless.

Here I am, centuries later, and I have the right to demand more than the rights that I am given, even when I have so many more rights than they did. I have the right to be angry that I am not declared and equal, and I have the right to vote for a woman as Vice President.

Progress is so slow that it hurts, but it is progress.

Today, as I wonder if America will vote to encourage racial, gender, and sexual equality, or to deny rights to others, I take comfort in knowing that even when we can't see progress happening, even when it seems like progress is impossibly slow, it is inevitable that progress WILL happen.

We will make it. I hope it's soon - on Tuesday - that the next steps of progress are made, but today I comfort myself with the knowledge that progress WILL happen, sooner or later.

I voted for "sooner."

A hard week

 I'm having a hard week.

I hate to admit that, because I like to think that I am the very model of a role model for optimism, a badass with a smile.

Not today.

Quarantine is getting really, really old - but more than that, it's getting lonely.

I'm behind at work.

I'm sick, and so is Tessa. We got COVID testing today. I expect it to be negative, but negative or positive, we don't feel well, and it sucks.

Last week I had identity theft (and the accompanying police reports, bank account changes, and more - who knew how time consuming identity theft was!).

And my fear over the election feels overwhelming in a way that I've never experienced before.

There is too much in the world right now that feels uncertain, strange, and deeply troubling. There is economic uncertainty - a phrase that sounds academic more than the reality, because the reality is that little phrase means some kids are going hungry, some mothers are looking at piles of pink envelopes that they are afraid to open, some fathers are pretending that they're okay even though they're trying not to vomit, some seniors are sitting in the cold. Businesses that were once vibrant are now gone, or holding on by a thread.

And this is contrasted by incredible financial gains from Microsoft, Amazon, and a handful of others. I cannot wrap my head around the wealth of someone like Jeff Bezos in a world where a few miles from him (or, likely, much closer than that) people are hardly holding on.

It's so hard for me to wrap my head around the president of the USA saying that it's all under control, that we've turned the corner with coronavirus when over 225,000 have died and we are experiencing record numbers of new diagnoses every day. (Waiting to see if my number will be added to the 8.8+ million doesn't help.)

I can't wrap my head around it.

As I wait to find out if our country values compassion over belligerence, integrity over bluster, facts over lies, leadership over rage, I wonder how I will make it through the next week. As I wait to hear if Americans care more about protecting people of color, or believing some lie that anti-racism is anti-American, I feel panicked. As I wait to see if Americans still believe that a man with a host of credible rape allegations is fit to be President, I tremble at the thought of what that means for myself, and my daughter. I think about my LGBTQ friends, and how they wonder if their marriages will be honored.

It's all on the line.

Personally, I'm not at my best. I'm getting lonely, because pixels aren't people, even though I know I'm surrounded by people who care about me as much as I care about them. Everything seems harder lately. I take some small comfort in knowing that I'm not alone, that I'm not the only one struggling, that so many of us feel like that - but then I think "how on earth can we all go around feeling like THIS?!" because it seems too much, too hard to be true. Personally, I have a sore throat, muscle aches, and I woke up coughing in the night, and I think it's just some random fall crud, but there's always the possibility that somehow I have managed to pick up COVID at the grocery store or some-such. 

I'm tired. I'm weary of so much struggle, and then I feel guilty because I have it so much easier than so many other people: my work is stable, I have a wonderful comfortable home, I have friends who love me. I have hope that one day it will get better.

I hope that my test result is negative for covid, and that as I start to feel better, I feel my old energy and optimism return. I hope that next Tuesday we'll watch the returns come in, and I will cry tears of happiness at the hope that this nation can rebuild, and cement in stone the inalienable rights which belong to all of us, not just some of us. I hope that I can catch up, hit my deadlines, and do right by all of my students.

I hope.

If I have covid, I hope that it's not a bad case.

If this country's blood runs red, not blue, I hope that I have misunderstood what that means, and that justice will prevail in the end.

I hope that I am using my life wisely to help others through a hard time.

I hope.

***

Too often, when things are rough, we tell ourselves that we're doing it wrong, that we have to work harder at feeling better. Well, that's not what I'm telling myself right now.

I feel terrible right now because in this moment things feel pretty terrible.

Yes, they're worse for some, but they're nowhere as good as they can be, and that's disappointing.

I'm not doing it wrong. I'm human, and sometimes humans struggle, and I'm struggling. There is no shame in struggle.

It's a hard week. I am miserable with how hard it is, and I also feel hope. This is what it is to be human: it's a mixture of the good and the painful, the wonder and the confusion. I'm a hot mess, and I've got it all together, depending on the minute, the day, the year.

There is nothing to do, but keep going. I won't figure it all out, but I'll figure out bits of it. Much of it is out of my control but I will control what I can (for example, I did vote, but I can't control the outcome). Some of the news will be great, some of it will be troubling, and some of it I will misinterpret.

***

Yesterday the dog needed a walk, and so after work I dragged myself out of the house to get us both some exercise. The sky was blue, the leaves on the trees were filled with golden light, and it was beautiful. It made me think about the seasons, and how grateful I am to have seasons to remind me that even though soon the skies will be leaden, the branches bare and dark, the days short. It will rain, and rain, and rain, and it will feel like it's dark most of the time (because it is)...even though all that is true, and predictable, I can also predict cherry blossoms, and daffodils, and summer days with picnics and ocean swims and paddle boarding. It's not supposed to be clear and dry in Seattle all the time, and I love having seasons, even though some are easier than others. The hard days make the lovely days all the lovelier, and I appreciate the goodness in my life because I know what hard days are like.

Cancer. Divorce. Some really dark, hard days, when I didn't think I had what it took to get to the other side, and when I wondered if the other side actually contained any happiness. I know hard days, intimately. They are old friends.

And I know joy. I'm better at joy than most people: the joy I take in the small joys is exponential because I can compare them to my lows. I know how it could be, and when it's better than that, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude. When I am picnicking with a friend, I know I could be in a chemo chair. When I'm walking in the woods, I know I could be talking to a divorce mediator. When I'm coaching a student through an English paper, I know that I could be wondering how to find my career path (which is much worse than it sounds - I was adrift for a while).

So - right now it's bad. It's not as bad as cancer and divorce, although it does feel lonelier due to quarantine. There is too much that is wrong, but there is right, too.

It's just a bad day, a bad week, a bad month. And this too shall pass. It won't stay like this forever.

Just a bad week.

***

Here's a song that got me through chemo; I listened on repeat. Maybe it'll help me (or you) again today.

https://youtu.be/QuR6ACrbC70

Bad Day, Daniel Powter.

***

How do you get through bad days? Are you struggling right now, too?