As she prepared to leave there was a small pause, then we both leaned in for a hug. It seemed like the right thing to do, a mark of solidarity. We had just spent the last 12 hours together or so, more time that either one of us had spent with another human in over a month, and I found myself smiling for no reason other than that — the effect another human being can have on us. It feels palpably novel, this powerful sense of human influence, and how despite our personalities and psychologies, we are still animals that benefit from association. I walked out into the park, slowly returning to the comforts of my individualized isolation. We had done human things, like eat and celebrate and drink too much wine. Together. That was the most visceral part — being together.
People speak about the virus less these days. In some ways the reality has become more obvious. There is also a palpable feeling of lightness, the impact nearly a month of societal vacation is beginning to have on the population in general. Society in general seems, for the most part, less stressed out. I take my shoes off and stand in the dirt under a pine tree, the sap dripping slowly onto my shoulder. They haven’t said how long the virus lasts in dirt. One has to wonder, if they are perhaps so many other organisms living there already, that they crowd the virus out. For now it feels healthy, clean. Playing around in the dirt, getting my dose of Vitamin D.
Still we will be challenged to maintain our connections, despite the distance that may become as normalized as taking our shoes off for security in the airport. The Governor says some doctors have been telling him for years that shaking hands is a very unsanitary thing that we shouldn‘t be doing anyway. I wonder then, what will we do to fill that void of a clasp hand, which used to symbolize mutual trust? Will we learn to bow, or simply forgo these (essential) formalities of expressing confidence? We have probably all had an experience of a clammy limp fish handshake, and how uncomfortable that makes one feel; and likewise, the instant sense of faith that comes from a really good one, firm, warm, but not too tight. Someone who you can believe in.
There are so many opportunities in this window, so many lessons to learn. It is a time to make real structural improvements, both societally, as well as in our personal lives. How busy we all were, always, and many of us so remain, even in quarantine, even home from work and school and all plans canceled. The epidemic of busy-ness. But the Governor is right, again — real human relationships take time; people don‘t just open up in a four minute conversation. We are being challenged now to simplify our lives and reprioritize, for when it comes down to it, having a cup of coffee with our mother really might be the most important thing we do all day. So now we get to ask ourselves, what were we really so busy with all that time, and did it really matter?
Sometimes you don’t miss something, he said, until it’s taken away.
(As if to prove a point that we must start changing the way we are with each other immediately, he finally asks the reporters to stop shouting their questions at him and over each other. Let‘s just go one at a time, he said. You will each have a chance.)
…
We are descending because we must, because the caveat swallows the premise. The wave has crested but we are a long way from shore yet, and there are many more waves coming. The Chinese government revises the count of its death toll to double what it previously was, and there is no way to confirm the information, because the majority of foreign journalists have had their visas revoked. They do not like the story the American journalists are telling; they want to display for all to see that their enlightened authoritarianism handled the crisis better than their democratic counterparts. There is a phrase they use, “triumphal-ism” — I have never heard that before. This virus spread through the world like a fire through dry grass, and we can only wonder what will come from the ashes it leaves behind.
Since Mexico introduced its first safety measures to curb the virus outbreak on March 23, 646 people have been murdered, roughly the same amount as have died from coronavirus. Last year, an average 95 individuals per day died a violent death in Mexico. In the midst of all our anthropogenic noise, we would not have even noticed.
Though this phenomena is a beautiful metaphor of how many people attempt to communicate these days, shouting over each other like journalists in a press conference, each trying their best to drown the other people out, it is an actual measurable quantity also, both in the atmosphere, as well as underwater. Drilling for oil and gas fills entire ocean basins with a storm of noise, which clearly affects the animals we share this planet with, some of whom are much more sensitive to sound than we are. Recent studies show the stress hormone levels in right whales to be less than normal, coinciding directly with the decrease in international shipping. To be honest, we really haven’t been the best neighbors, not even close.
Then, as if to prove that people can take anything seriously, a German animal rights charity recently called for a campaign to save pigeons from starvation during the coronavirus pandemic. Pigeons are very loyal to their local habitat, said the expert, and will continue to roam empty plazas rather than go search for food elsewhere. She says we owe it to them, that humans have a special relationship to these animals because we in part domesticated them. Maybe that’s a good question for the governor at the next press conference — what are we going to do about New York’s starving pigeons?
We have the phase of crisis, and then we must also reopen — open to each other, to the world again. Open to the possibility of infection and dirty handshakes and maybe a heartfelt hug or two. Open to the challenge of being tough, and smart, and united, and disciplined, and loving, still. Open to this life, and the death that is inevitable.
“Then she said to him, ‘You’re coming with me.’ It’s like they got on the bus, together.”
Except it was a hearse, carrying them to be cremated. Fifty years of marriage for this pair of Puerto Rican immigrants, dying within 24 hours of each other, one in a nursing home, and the other quarantined across town.
What will rise from our ashes?
Liberation, if we’re lucky.
The days grow longer and as they do so does my appreciation of them. The shades of light that come through the window each day, noticing them changing. Watching the last daffodil in the park fade away.
Today I sat next to a blue Garza for some time; he was huge, and elegant, soft blue grey feathers, just there standing watch, atypically close to the walking path. It was Saturday, no less, fairly crowded. But he just stayed there, aware of everyone that stopped in proximity to stare, and likewise gauging them. After some time a father came by with his two children and dog in a bicycle cart, and rather than inviting them out of the cart to look at the bird, he plowed right on over the barrier into the sunny spot next to the lake, completely disregarding and nearly running over the Garza, who of course was quick enough to react and flew off with his long beautiful wings. I couldn’t figure out if the guy didn’t see him, or just didn’t care. Actually, probably the latter; his whole posture and attire suggested expired laissez-faire, and not in a way relevant to the current corona crisis. One does not grow a beer belly over night, or that kind of posture. All the same it was a bit depressing in a human kind of way, to see all the unconscious people in the world, plowing through the social distance that this man should have given to that bird, if only out of politeness.
The crepuscule seems to last forever tonight, steel blue and grey, yet illuminated, not like a rainy day. Crepuscule. As the evening passes I realize my systems are getting more organized, slowly but surely. How I do dishes, what I eat, how I organize the recycling, how I order my closet. How I work, most of all, some kind of randomly synchronized series of thought and action. But there is method there, not only madness. Much more method than I ever could appreciate, now that I have the time to actually look at it. Our voices, written and spoken, sound in particular ways, dependent upon how we use them.
Reminds me I want to partake in a recent offering from one of my high school best friends, the guy I first smoked weed with and who introduced me to Kerouac. We used to go to the Barnes and Noble bookstore coffeeshop in a midsize stripmall of suburban Massachusetts. Now he’s a voice teacher, and is giving voice lessons on YouTube. I have just been learning myself how to actually lift my head up, carry the weight of my brain and mind and skull, rather than just collapsing on my scales and into my heart all the time. It is such a profoundly subtle stretch and strength builder, just looking up, to see the stars, the birds in the trees. To actually let the heart go before the head. Rather than leaning in, I maintain my social distance, and maybe you come to me anyway, eye to eye instead of mind to mind.
As this time goes on, it seems to smoke out everyone eventually. I saw people in the park today who looked like they had never been in the park, as if being in the park was the equivalent of being sent to one’s room, like punishment, or perhaps some kind of healthy food that doesn’t taste good but you know it’s good for you. May they learn to enjoy it. And you, arrogant office man with your child and dog scaring off other species, I hope one of those animals pees on you some day and wakes you up.
(Natural limp dick)
The natural world always wants us to make love to her, and that can mean so many things. Most of all she wants us to enjoy it, and pay attention.
I discover the French horn I thought I heard the other day actually is a French horn; there he is, sitting on a decisive Park bench. There are Nightingales here, in this selectively unkempt urban refuge, but no starlings. There are fewer starlings these days, than in previous generations. For a starling needs open space, and here there is not so much of that.