The Governor comes in singing, Good Morning, it’s Monday!
He seems to truly realize how crucial it is to stay positive. Despite it all, find some light. Or maybe it was just the spaghetti and meatballs.
I go out in the world, the first time outside my home zone in a while. The reason is a chiropractor visit. They have a new office location, for reasons unknown to me, and when I arrive the waiting room, the entire place is furnished with 3D-printed cardboard furniture. I sit on a cardboard armchair, and find it disturbingly comfortable. The feeling the world gives me now is tender, slightly melancholic. Now we begin to grieve something that has too many names of ever call.
Intimacy of other bodies, proximity of other lands, the smell of a stranger’s cologne.
In the United States Trump closes the border to all immigration, or at least attempts to do so. I can imagine we are moving towards a civil war scenario, in between Sanity, or shall we say, Common Sense, and Greed. Common Sense in the sense of recognizing what is common to us all, valuing and preserving that.
What is the other side truly fighting for, besides the preservation of their precious enemy, that oppositional being against whom they hold themselves? Once that being disappears, they will collapse on the ground, void of any internal strength or posture.
Oil is virtually useless.
We are losing an entire generation. The news headlines darken, and deepen, like nightfall. Naples, that beautiful seaside town I was supposed to visit with my mother this summer, is now all but completely shuttered, lives devastated, fragile economies destroyed, mothers and fathers dead, nothing to eat but flour. Other things, less tragic, still telling, like schedule of international dance festivals evaporating overnight. All those private jets, grounded.
Underwater, the whales keep singing.
We should sing like them. And maybe we could also swim like them, through this time, keeping our eye on a further destination, rather than just what is in front of our eye. Two times I have swam with whales in my life, and each one touched my soul more than almost anything. Made me want to relinquish all of life above the surface and grab a fin, let myself be pulled down to the original Atlantis. The incredible mass of their bodies, their ambient energy — once, in a bay made dark and blind with tiny fish, an enormous humpback whale swam right past me, invisible yet inches away, this animal whose capacity to sense its surrounding is so far beyond human limits that its mere presence is humbling beyond measure. This is what we are lacking, as humans; humility. I believe I’ve said that already. For all the tragic tristeza, we did bring this upon ourselves, collectively. Here we thought we were just going to use up the resources on Earth, then move on to colonize Mars. Turns out that may not be the final story.
The blue Garza is standing watch on the water again this evening, almost a gesture of education for the human creature — look, don’t touch — and maybe don’t even look so much. Just appreciate. A fox runs by a while later in the growing crepuscule with complete nonchalance, flicking his tail as if to say, What are you looking at? Animals taking back the world that they have always already owned.
This is Cause and Effect on steroids, the Governor says. The future really is in our hands.
So let us Build Back Better. It’s not about the money, at least not only — it’s about the division of labor and responsibility. The federal government paints a room with a roller, and the state government comes back through with a brush and does the trim. At least that is how it was designed. Now it’s more like tribalism, a matter of pure proximity and force. The forces of Good and Evil, once again at a head.
Is this a rolling curve, she asks?
I see an ocean, he says, full of waves. Don’t get cocky, just cause you kept your footing with this one doesn’t mean the next one isn’t going to knock you on your ass. And then what? Then what are you going to do? Are you going to get up?
Get up. Have the strength to get up. That is the only honorable thing to do.
When things get tough we are given a snapshot at the foundation of a person’s character.
What do you do under pressure?
Meanwhile the reporters seem to finally be taking in the sense that they need not shout over each other to make themselves heard. That they are actually sitting at the Cuomo dinner table, and having a civilized conversation in which it is important that they mind their manners.
They ask about reopening. Rather than Reopen, how about Revitalize? There is a sanity quotient to all of this, which may outspeak the projections. If they understand the why, they’ll do it.
(I wouldn’t bet the farm on it, and I don’t even have a farm)
There will always be people who deny everything. But we are NY Tough, he reminds us (Smart, Unified, Disciplined, Loving) and we are all of the above, because we are special. Civic education is to balance personal responsibility with social consciousness. This is a place where You Have My Word, and that means something. But Bob, life is a fine line. Just tell the truth.
Are you smiling? I can’t tell behind the mask.
You want to go back to work? So go back to work! Become and essential worker. They’re hiring. Hopefully you won’t kill anyone.
The fact that it is a marathon feels more palpable now, and it is better than not to embrace it. The Chancellor of Germany says to settle in for the long haul. Maybe that means tomorrow is the day to start running, or at least embark on those High Intensity Training exercises.
(I think he smiled at me because I wasn’t wearing a mask, because he could see me smile)
It is lilac season überall right now, over everything, and when I comment to another biker about his pretty flowers attached to the back of his bike he seems pleased to be able to speak words out loud to another person. I start to think about other people, too, and speaking to them. It feels like breaking the wall.
I found a hole in my heart tonight, found the place where all the love is draining out. It came down from my voice, lifting me up to see the starlight, the big open mouth of my heart, of my pelvis, desiring pleasure, learning to speak her truth. Ignoring the obvious omission.
If there was every a time for decency it was now. Strong enough to say love, and actually live it.
Oh no, you go ahead.
The reporters are going out of their way now, giving space to each other.