Tag: coronavirus

sleeping woman

How Do You Sleep?

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Perhaps the best way to explain morality and our actions is by asking the question how do you sleep? Morals are subjective. Personal morals might be influenced by some outside source like religion or what we call “politics,” but at the end of the day the only judgement you really have to live with is that from yourself. So again I ask—how do you sleep?

Personally, if I’m stressing about a decision I’ve made because of its moral ramifications, I will not be able to sleep. As I mentioned in an earlier post I was who you might consider one of those irresponsible spring breakers living it up at the clubs in Cancún in March as the coronavirus pandemic slowly and then rapidly broke out in the US and beyond. But let me tell you: the night before I left, I barely slept. Tossing and turning at the thought that I would get somebody sick or be perceived as a malicious and ignorant person kept me awake.

And yes, again, I did go. Because we all have limits for what we’ll just accept and get over or negotiate our morals, right? This is not to say “poor poor pitiful me, I couldn’t sleep the night before vacation.” It’s to say that I personally deal with a physical response when I compromise on my own morals. I’ve done things against my morals for friends or due to peer pressure, or because I simply told myself “it’s not that bad.” We all do. That’s human nature and it’s part of growth. Personal morals change over time.

Yet, frankly I see so many people and experience myself this endless anxiety over a new moral panic every week. Whether it’s a massive event like a pandemic or national protest or a viral Instagram challenge, we’re constantly faced with these things that become moral dilemmas while we decide whether or not to participate. Celebrities get caught up in this time and time again where they do a thing or share a thing without doing an hour of research and find themselves “canceled” or “called out” or “clapped back” because their good intentions were lost in translation. 

Remember the ice bucket challenge? It was like a hundred years ago or something and thousands of people shared videos of themselves dumping ice water on their heads to “raise awareness” and money for ALS research. In one sense it was another stupid internet trend. In a more important sense, it raised millions of dollars for ALS research, which even led to a breakthrough in the fight against the disease. 

You will not find a video of me participating in the ice bucket challenge in the archives of the internet. Am I pro-ALS? No. IF I even was officially “challenged” at the time I didn’t feel like I had the means to make a donation, so I simply didn’t participate in the self-serving part of the challenge (sharing a video of myself for likes). The point is while I understood the fun and importance of raising awareness through this medium, by the time it was “my turn” to participate, I wasn’t adding anything. Everyone I would reach with my platform was more than likely already aware of the disease and/or the challenge. 

Did I lose sleep over my lack of participation? Not really. I did weigh the moral implications of how I would feel if I made a video and didn’t donate. While morally, I supported and believed in the importance of the cause, I was able to sleep tight knowing there were plenty of other people doing the work who could do it better than me.

Whenever you’re faced with a moral challenge such as: do I join this protest? Do I speak in support of this issue? Do I take part in this social media challenge? Ask yourself: how will you sleep? I haven’t joined a protest since ever, frankly. One time I went to a DACA protest but I left to have a panic attack in Central Park instead of marching. But Kamaron, don’t you harp on action and being real and standing up for what’s right? Yes! But I know my limits and my place and it is not the streets. How do I sleep knowing my friends, my peers, people I don’t know are out in the streets taking bullets, tear gas, and beatings for me and my rights? I find my place to support. I give money. I write. I share information. I talk to people, try to educate where I can. Those are some of my places. 

In recent years as it appears the general population has become more and more politically (I use that word loosely) engaged, I keep seeing the phrase “silence is violence” as well as that Desmond Tutu quote about being neutral in the face of oppression. Most recently, I’ve found myself brimming with rage at the silence of some of my peers when it has come to such issues as whether or not Black people deserve rights among plenty of other atrocities. At the same time, I’ve seen plenty of people “speak out” on issues by way of posting a black square or cute graphic saying “racism is bad” with little or no other visible work being done for the cause. 

Do you all have a “moral obligation” to do something? Well, what are your morals? How do you sleep at night knowing there are thousands of kids sleeping on floors in cages? How do you sleep at night knowing the president is sending rogue militia to kidnap people off the street? How do you sleep at night knowing people will be homeless due to an ongoing pandemic? How do you sleep at night knowing people will die from this pandemic not from the illness outright, but because they couldn’t afford treatment? How do you sleep at night knowing people in this country have been dying every day for years simply because they can’t afford simple medical treatment? 

There is too much work to be done for any of us to be sleeping at night, yes. But my point is are you doing enough to feel like you are contributing something for the sake of your own beliefs? No I don’t lose sleep over the fact that I didn’t solve homelessness today, but I might sleep better knowing I engaged with someone on the street today or even helped support them financially today. 

But Kamaron, isn’t it performative to do things just to make yourself feel better? Well dear reader, let me ask you this: what makes you feel good? Nothing makes me feel better, frankly, than justice and seeing people if only for a moment get a little bit better. So when I do things for what I believe are the greater good, I feel good. Sometimes I need more time to understand what I believe, but when I form an opinion, I usually share it one way or another. And if it’s something I’m willing to fight for, you bet I’m finding a way to fight for it. 

Some people can’t say the same. Or they say they believe something but their actions to support that statement are few or nonexistent. To those people, I ask: how do you sleep? And I know some of them have trouble sleeping because they get back on social media after they’ve been called out to try to defend themselves. I mean it’s one thing when they just get something wrong and they come back and say “I messed up.” I’m talking about the defenders who “do a thing” and after some backlash come back to say they “stand by” that thing “but some parts should have been thought through more” and they’re “listening and learning.” All that apologetic poetry that just says: “this was stupid and I thought it was cute.” 

Remember the “Imagine” video? Something like 17 years ago Wonder Woman herself Gal Gadot led a bunch of celebrities in creating a montage of them poorly singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” in an effort to cheer up the world engulfed in a pandemic. It did not go over well for several reasons, but as with plenty of things I think the backlash was a bit excessive. However, had each celebrity that participated done something meaningful to accompany this dumb gratuitious bit, no one would have made fun of their impeccable inability to keep a tune to one of the most recognizable songs in the world.

People scoffed and memed and mocked because all these celebrities filmed themselves in their million dollar mansions pretending that it was hard for them to “be in lockdown” too. Meanwhile, hospital staffers used garbage bags for protection and millions of people filed for unemployment. What Gal Gadot and company did was not harmful or even wrong in my view, but it just begs the question: how do you sleep? If you’re a multi-million dollar earning entertainer who uses their platform to speak about how you want people to have better conditions, you want people to feel better, you want things to get better—it would occur to me that you could use your endless supply of resources to do something meaningful towards those goals. Tell me you didn’t think singing Imagine was the best you thought you could do—how would you sleep?

And maybe they all sleep just fine, because again—it’s personal. And it can be private. There is also not a ton of good in announcing every time you do a good thing, but that’s my point. If you are able to go to sleep every night assuring yourself you helped make the world a better place today, then sweet dreams. But if you’re not sleeping well, maybe there’s a reason. 

It’s a Trap

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They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. They do not warn you just how exhausting that whole exercise can be. It has taken me days to try to put together some words about what I’m feeling right now. I’ve started and stopped several different pieces, started conversations and abandoned them citing a lack of energy. 

Is this the week that America snapped? The timeline of events has been flashing through my head over and over again in mixed up disarray. Did that video just come out? Was it an old video or was that the other one? Wait and they killed her just last week? And didn’t we just do this?

It feels like a trap. Because the murder of George Floyd was nothing new. Having it on video was nothing new. We had the verbatim script from Eric Garner—the t-shirts were already printed. Yet now? During a global pandemic which was only receding because we were staying inside we have been dragged out of our homes to try to tell the world yet again Black lives—our lives—matter?

Do not read this as me saying that people should not be protesting. I stand behind the movement although I am not with them physically. I am saying it feels like some greater force orchestrated this whole sinister thing: make a pandemic, make it disproportionately affect Black people, then do something so heinous on camera and spread it faster than the virus to make Black people so mad they leave the safety of their homes, then spray them with chemicals that can make them more susceptible to the virus. Yes I know, the master composers here are Racism™   and probably Murphy’s law but I also want to imagine a Joker-esque madman behind the curtain.

When I first read about the Trojan horse I felt like, “That’s crazy. Why would the Trojans just welcome this random giant horse into their city?” The video of Floyd’s murder hit my timeline and for a brief moment I felt like “That’s crazy. Why would Black people just welcome this random giant horse into their city?” I am praying that we do not see this pandemic completely explode following these protests. I know people are taking precautions. But when we’ve seen so many of these unjust murders happen when we weren’t in a pandemic, there’s that cautious part of me that begs why now—yes why did they have to kill George now? Of course—why did they have to kill him at all? But why is he the tipping point this time? Why is this the video that made so many people in my timeline, so many CEOs, so many PR agents say, “You know what? I think Black Lives might Matter!” 

Something had to give. Racism, theoretically, is not eternally sustainable given the rate of intermixing. And something tells me that all the Februaries in the world were not going to change enough hearts to rid the world of the plague that is racism. We’ve hit another boiling point, and I do hope somehow it’s the last one and at some point we all come out of this singing Kumbaya.

The point of a revolution is for the ideas to go mainstream, right? We want to totally replace the “old way” with a new way. So I am celebrating the huge mass of social media posts I’ve seen from just about everyone in my networks. People I thought would never utter the words “Black Lives Matter” had tributes to Ahmaud Arbery in their stories. These were not racists in my head, just not people who had ever spoken out against racism to my knowledge. And there is the part of me that dismisses these posts. They’re disingenuous. They’re performative. They’re for the benefit of the poster, not the cause. But I do appreciate the turnout of awareness regardless of my skepticism. Everybody has to start somewhere.

But like my social media followers, the brands got on board very quickly too. Suddenly places I’d shopped were sending me emails about what they’re doing for social justice. Again, I’m baffled at the speed at which this moment caught on. I mean—the speed and the slowness, right? Because it has taken centuries for Black Lives Matter to go mainstream but it also only took a week? 

I’m old enough to remember 6 years ago when the rest of the country watched Ferguson on the news as if it was somewhere we were bombing in the Middle East. This time everyone watched Minneapolis and said “I want in!” It’s incredible to see this movement go mainstream. And I am praying that we see positive change come because of it. But I am also fuming.

The adults—and particularly the white adults—in the room of America should be so ashamed of themselves. We don’t have a single excuse to be uneducated to the issues affecting us. Racism affects everyone. How has it taken so many people this long to figure that out? Did they think Obama fixed everything? Did you think we were kidding every time we pointed out symptoms of the problem?

Yes we’re marching for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and every other Black person killed or harmed by state violence, but we’re also still marching because #OscarsSoWhite. We’re also still marching for equal pay. We’re also still marching to make you stop wearing blackface. We’re also still marching for reparations. We’re marching for all those things you said “weren’t a big deal” while also marching for this the thing that has made you realize it’s a big deal. 

I’m trying to channel all of my anger where it belongs: at the structures that are upholding white supremacy, not the people who are at least pretending to fight it. There are a lot of moving parts to a revolution and it is far from my job to be taking attendance and temperature checks at the door. 

When This is All Over I’ll Be Angry Then

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A couple of weeks ago (lol) I started to wonder when our “quarantine” behavior just becomes our normal behavior. From the moment Americans started social distancing and staying at home, the major messages I started to see from the Positive Vibes Only™ section of the internet included: “Be kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up over missed workouts or extra snacks. This is a pandemic you’re trying to survive—forget all the nonsense of looking Instagram-perfect.” All great messages.

But at the same time, we’re in the middle of a global crisis, one that will only end if people do what they’re supposed to do. So when people aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do, it’s difficult not to judge them, at least for me. Still, it’s a pandemic—most of us did not know what it was like to live with any kind of restrictions like the ones with which we’ve been living. How could I expect an entire population to just change their lives in a snap? Well, I did it, so…

I’m trying not to be angry now, in the name of survival. Spending most of your time between four walls with no one but your reflection shockingly does not leave a lot of space for bad energy. But it does give me plenty of time to see and think about everything happening all around me.

As with my other posts addressing this crisis, I have to acknowledge my privilege. I have the privilege of having a job, a home, and food to eat. My job was largely unaffected by the crisis, and the crisis, in fact, has been somewhat good for our business. Therefore, while I have been uncomfortable, upset, and annoyed with the whole pandemic, I have always acknowledged the privileges I have had throughout. In the grand scheme of things, COVID-19 has been a minor inconvenience to me.

That being said, for those of us not financially or physically affected by the pandemic, we are allowed to gripe. It’s hard. It’s new and different and scary, frankly, because we acknowledge that today we have the privilege of health as well. But that could change with the next trip to the grocery store. For me it did change with an afternoon run that broke my ankle and took the privilege of total ability out of my reach for the time being. It’s fine. I’m fine. This is fine.

We can gripe, but for the love of God can we calm down? I’m saying “we” to be nice when I really am pointing a finger at some of the behavior I have seen during these uncertain times.

Thankfully, I do not know anyone personally who has been protesting in the streets for businesses to reopen. But I sure do know some people who have been really loud about what I—as a fellow privileged person—would consider minor inconveniences. I know folks who complain about having to stay inside, yet they are also outside and at places or visiting friends or having driveway parties or what have you.

People I know have lost a little business, and that sucks I won’t take away from that. But some of those same people also still have a business and know they will have a business when this is over.

You know I love to think about history and imagine what it would be like to have lived through some of the crazy eras of time. Sometimes I struggle to think about being a person in history who would have had to do something. Like if I were an 18-year-old boy during the Vietnam War—would I have tried to dodge the draft? Would I have known the war was an imperialistic disaster? It’s likely I would have had to act.

This blip in history is not even really asking most of us to act, yet here some of you are acting out like you want to be the next Donkey of the Year. I can’t believe if we make it to 2080 I’ll be telling my grandkids about how I survived because I decided I could do my nails at home.

“Were you brave grandma?”
“Well kids, it was hard. But by the grace of God, we had Instacart.”

Seriously. It’s been said that this disease has been “The Great Equalizer” and then that was quickly rebuked by the fact that we told everyone to “go home” when hundreds of thousands of people don’t have such a thing. Not only has this exposed the wealthy for their gross gluttony, it has also exposed the way they cannot handle minor inconveniences.

Controversial philosopher Kylie Jenner once theorized that 2016 was the year of “realizing things.” As it turns out we have not stopped realizing things since 2016. Things have happened that have appeared unfamiliar, but more or less nothing new has occurred. They have felt new because they have happened with new lenses available that have exposed sometimes hidden meanings.

What I’m saying is wealth inequality is nothing new. But when you have millions of people unsure about how they’re going to pay rent, while you have other people complaining about the cell reception at their beach house, it’s very easy to realize that wealth inequality exists. Racism is nothing new, but when a novel virus starts infecting Black and brown communities at disproportionately higher rates, it becomes pretty easy to realize that racism exists.

Likewise—selfish, greedy, unsympathetic, and ignorant people have always existed. But when scientists beg them to stay home for a few weeks for their own benefit and the benefit of others, I quickly realized how many of those people I know.

It is true that our governments have failed us. It is also true that a lot of the people griping about the restrictions put those governments in place.

When I started writing this George Floyd was still alive. Black Americans and some others were still mourning Breonna Taylor or raging over Chris Cooper while thanking God he’s still alive. Yet when the videos of Floyd’s horrific murder began flooding my timelines, it occurred to me that people all around me were realizing that we aren’t kidding when we say they are killing us in the broad daylight.

I’ve found in recent years I’ve become much more sensitive to graphic violence. I recognize this as a positive thing because it reminds me that I am still soft and human despite years of desensitizing. But at the same time I’ve become more sensitive than I ever was before social media. Scary movies though unrealistic have become more difficult to watch—though I also acknowledge scary movies have gotten a lot darker thematically. I digress.

Seeing George Floyd’s murder on video, and seeing the still image of the cop’s knee into his neck made my skin boil. But further, seeing the outpouring of people I know clicking retweet or like or share so so fast on these images. Did you even process it? Something has happened that is good—at least in my circles, fewer people are denying the truth of such a video or the relevance of such an image. But something horrible has also happened that has made a lot of those people very comfortable to continue dispersing those images carelessly.

Further, it occurred to me that suddenly a lot of people recognize racism when they see a white man kill a Black man on video. However, those same people could not recognize it weeks ago when they learned COVID-19 has infected Black people at a higher rate than white men. Racism wasn’t a problem if it meant we could “return to normal” and go back to not tipping enough at restaurants that employ so many Black and brown folks.

I’ve written incessantly about the Civil War and how bloody it was and how such mass mourning reshaped America. Across four years of fighting, over 600,000 people died in the Civil War. In just around 4 months, over 100,000 Americans have perished from this disease. But if we don’t mourn them, nothing will change.

The Chronicles of Quarnia: The Cryin’, the B*tch, and the Wardrobe

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Let the record show that I do not live alone. I have two roommates, one of whom has been in the apartment for the duration of the coronavirus lockdown. She’s nice and we get along fine, but truth be told we met on Facebook and have not yet become friends who hang out together. All of this to say, it has felt very much like I live alone, sometimes going days without even seeing my roommate, just hearing her footsteps. 

When I moved in I had the luck of moving into a furnished room. The furniture, however, left much to be desired and my ever-expanding collection of clothing wore out the dresser long ago. Despite my passion for shopping, furniture is one of those areas of expenses that doesn’t really give me that shoppers’ high I crave. At least it didn’t before I was trapped in my apartment for three months. But before that I dreaded spending money on something I actually needed. A new dresser would not bring me joy. I couldn’t get any fun out of it. It’s like buying band-aids. 

Thus the first dresser I bought was the cheapest $60 I could waste.  It took me forever to build, did not meet my space expectations by a mile (because I also disregarded the reviews), and it fell apart almost immediately. That begrudged dresser would become a raggedly upcycled shoe rack.

I don’t know about you, but spending nearly every hour of every day in my home has inspired me to upgrade my home. It was time to stop staring at a dresser that was missing the front of the bottom drawer. I put on my big girl pants and started shopping. Picking out an Ikea dresser that fit my budget and my needs made me excited about transforming my little space. I’d built Ikea furniture before—and I’d built a dresser before. I knew it wasn’t a walk in the park, but I was prepared for the challenge. 

The instructions adorably suggested two people work together to build this dresser. How discriminatory! Without a partner and the appropriate space, frankly, I set out to build a new home for the threads I love. 

Ikea instructions are so simple they’re easy to overthink, I think. Or maybe they’re just bad. There are minimal captions which is infuriating. Sometimes the pictures will say it’s not the tiny screw that looks like this, it’s the tiny screw that looks like that. I think two of the hundred parts were labeled which was a fun puzzle. But I got the frame together in just under five hours. Finally it was time to put the top on, and when I realized it was not smooth sailing.

Building furniture is kind of like doing sudoku. You can get away with little mistakes in the short-term, but they will reveal themselves in real-time. The 9 looks like it can work in that box but when you move to the next column you’re going to see trouble.

The instructions told me to insert eleven no. 118331 screws in the top piece. But I only had 7. I searched high and low for the missing screws, but resolved that Ikea must not have sent them and I could live without. The top didn’t fit right on the frame. Shifting and shoving, I measured and raged how could this possibly not work? Sure there were missing screws but could there also be missing holes? I went to bed, deciding to take a break and look at it with fresh eyes in the morning.

It kept me up for a little bit. Where did I go wrong? What’s the missing piece? When I returned to the instructions the next day, I swear to you they had changed from the night before. Allegedly, I put four of the 118331 screws in holes actually fit for the 603440 screws. Thus getting the top on was screwed. 

Filled with a rush of relief that I was not, in fact missing pieces, I worked through the rest of the instructions. Another five hours later I had completed nearly every step once incorrectly and then correctly. Put every drawer track on backwards.  Nailed the back on the front. And awoken anyone in my building trying to sleep in on a Saturday with my hammering or my expletives. 

But to see this beautiful dresser assembled and in place made me feel invincible. Lonely and invincible. “I can’t believe I did this by myself” met “I can’t believe I just had to do that by myself.” I’m still waiting for this dresser to get up and dance for me or something to just really make all the sweat and tears worth it, but I do appreciate finally having a proper place to store my bras.

On the Fringe

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When you’re alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go downtown
When you’ve got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know, downtown

The first time I remember hearing those words I knew I was a city girl. It was a credit card commercial that shows a young woman in the city seeing her life change before her eyes as she racks up credit card debt and acquires such beautiful things. Such a simple commercial that used a simply classic song made me long for such a magical life I knew was only possible in the city.

All my life I’ve lived somewhat on the fringe of New York. Growing up in Central Jersey, the city was convenient, but not necessary. I remember a few trips when I was a kid to see Broadway shows, but my family was never one to spend a lot of time in New York. I savored those little trips seeing the lights and that feeling like anything can happen.

It’s so cheesy but it’s so absolutely true that New York is a magical place. Being on the fringe, it both dulls and illuminates the sparkle. Ironically as I approached college I thought I wanted to be a California girl. I fell in love with the idea of living by the beach and getting açai bowls after yoga, but California respectfully declined. I wouldn’t quite say I settled for New York—I was and still am glad I made the choice—but at the time I thought maybe it wasn’t the dream.

Spending my college years even closer to the city but still maniacally on the fringe (just extend the subway into Yonkers—it’s not rocket science), I fell deeper and deeper in love. It was by no means an easy relationship. I got lost and angry with its “simple” grids. The cost of living never failed to shock me. The challenges of breaking into any industry in the city broke me more times than can remember. 

But I found spots I loved. Enjoyed stretches of Central Park I walked between my internship and my boyfriend’s apartment. I ran into people I knew from this life or that one. I settled in and soon found myself at home in the city. 

And yet when I finally moved in, I still found myself on the fringe of the New York that exists in mine and the rest of the world’s imagination. In one sense, I do live in the “Real” New York—older building, rich culture throughout the neighborhood, grit. But this also means that I live in the affordable New York, which is relative.

I love my neighborhood, and I love that it retains its authenticity against the squeaky clean WeWorkified Manhattan. But the reality is you don’t get that same “anything can happen” feeling when you walk up my street. I often walk up my street and wonder, “Am I going to be stabbed?” (It’s not that bad. I have never actually felt unsafe in my neighborhood, but I have seen some rather unsavory things that would make a stabbing less than shocking.) 

Despite what my mother might tell you, when you walk through the parts of New York that you see in movies and on Sex and the City, you are far far less likely to be stabbed. And if you are stabbed, Lady Gaga’s doorman will probably call an ambulance for you.

All of this to say, the beautiful and dreamy and spectacular New York is real, but it is devastatingly unattainable to so many people. And thus, I have in some sense “made it” but I continue to live on the fringe of this magical city which presents a perplexing complex when faced with something like this pandemic. 

The photos of “empty New York” do not tell the full story. My neighborhood has been all but bustling as usual. Every time I go out I see people loading off buses, heading to the subway, going about their days mask or not. I’m not saying they’re all ignoring any orders to stay inside, I’m saying these are the people who don’t have that privilege. 

This is where they live—the last “affordable” neighborhoods in Manhattan, which also are the ones with the highest rates of infection on the island. Manhattan itself, the wealthiest of the boroughs, has the lowest infection rate. If the disparities weren’t plainly obvious, look at the ways the NYPD has already begun policing these different parts of the city. 

I’m no New Yorker. I’m a proud Jersey Girl at heart, and it is the greatest privilege to be able to live and be trapped in this city, even on the fringe. But I can’t help but question what it means to be a part of the New York community when the divides are this disparate. 

Now more than ever I wish I could forget all my troubles, forget all my cares and go downtown.

The Quarantine Diaries

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You have my full permission to begin reading this by first stepping outside and screaming at the top of your lungs for a few seconds.

Welcome back. I have to be completely honest, and I don’t know if this makes me “that guy” for anybody, but ever since I was a kid I have always had a feeling deep in my spirit that I would be here on earth for the end of the world. Growing up in church whenever they talked about Jesus returning, I just kind of felt like I’m definitely going to be there when that happens. I imagine other people think about what retirement will look like or what dying will feel like. I have always had some kind of rapture while I’m still living.

I don’t bring up the end of the world because I think this pandemic is the end of the world. I bring it up because this is as close to the end of the world as I have ever felt. I’m young—I barely remember 9/11, I never experienced a situation like the draft or nuclear bomb drills. I imagine they felt kind of like this—unpredictable, chaotic, and confusing.

Full disclosure: I might be considered one of the pesky “spring breakers” who refused to give up her vacation as the pandemic unfolded. Yes I spent a week in Cancún right before the US started shutting down. I pray I am not carrying the disease and did not spread it to anyone down there or en route—yes, I took extra precautions to help that. But the night before I left as my friend’s parents begged me not to go, I thought you know, if the world is ending I wanna be on the beach.

By the time I returned to New York it was highly encouraged that I work from home, restaurants and bars were closing or going take-out only. Within a couple of days the gyms and everything else went too. I went to the grocery store and settled in to social distance.

Prior to my trip I was getting sick to my stomach and having trouble sleeping. The reports of what would become the current pandemic absolutely terrified me. The uncertainty of it all nauseated me. I have to shut my eyes and pretend I believe things are going to be normal again soon.

What surprised me is how quickly my body has adapted to the new normal. When I go outside and see flowers blooming, I have felt shock, like “Oh. It’s spring? And the world is still spinning out here?” Part of it comes with the homesickness. After a year of living in the city, I kind of forgot what nature sounds like—at least what it sounds like in the suburbs when you hear birds chirping and cicadas singing in the summer. I miss my family. They’re gonna read this and say “Why don’t you come home?” But it’s not safe. 

We humans are pretty good at adapting. We kick and scream and gnash our teeth about it but those of us in these super-infected areas have introduced an entirely different way of life in a couple of weeks. It’s not perfect. In fact, it’s very broken, but companies like mine that could move remote barely missed a beat. That’s why it’s so strange to me when I go out it feels like a zombie or apocalyptic movie. Things look and appear normal—not necessarily devastated by a huge disaster—but then you see a sign that’s like “Always carry your zombie repellant” and you’re like oh right that exists in this universe. I walk around the block and things are normal. Then I see the closed TJ Maxx and people in masks and I remember oh right this is my reality.

When I visited Italy last October, my friend and I had trouble appreciating the magnificence of the Vatican because the crowds were so overwhelming. It felt like I visited the inside of other people’s mouths for 2 hours. Seeing the pictures of Italy’s deserted streets and the ones right here in New York make me long for that sea of bodies (okay never that many people in such a tiny space again). It is one of those “be careful what you wish for” moments but of course, no one would have wished for this. 

I am blessed. I am eternally grateful that so far I have been relatively unaffected by this pandemic. My family is safe, I am safe, we have our jobs and our homes. We will probably get through this.

But wow this sucks.