I make my fellah wake me up when he
gets up to go to work. It makes me feel normal, to be awake before the sun;
this was part of my everyday, and I want to keep it. After he leaves, I steam
my scalp and my face (the only time I’ve not been plagued by dry, embarrassing
skin was when I lived in the most humid place I ever plan to live), watch a few
episodes of Grace and Frankie with the subtitles on so I can hear it over the
hissing, and dress for my now daily walk to keep my steps in any sort of a
respectable range compared to the 15K I’d get daily in my classroom.
Today is a beautiful day to be outside,
but I wanted to experience it before it was beautiful, before it peeled off its overcast robe, shuffled down the driveway to retrieve the soggy newspaper,
before anyone knew what it would look like with its roots freshly dyed or its
eyes decrusted. I walked up and back down the winding, sidewalk-less roads
leading to intersections that led to the empty buildings of the Capital
Allentown Baptist Church, the Metropolitan Church of God, and then the immense
and equally empty Ebenezer AME Church. Gas is now down to $1.79.
My fellah works for Metro, and he called
to tell me that he had to transport a train operator who felt Covid-19 symptoms
to get tested. Later on, he texts me to say that his boss has now tested positive,
a man who fits the physical and health profile of most of the county residents
who do not fare well and have more often died from its complications: older,
African-American, obese, heart and breathing issues, etc. I’ve been home from teaching
since the Friday the 13th we had in March, and we’ve been spraying the
front door knobs with Lysol every time we leave the house, but I know this proximity
is wearing on him, even as he is no way near the front lines; he is still
leaving the house, and that is almost enough.
On days I leave my house, my one
errand is always the same: to replenish some phantom void in our food supply,
to feel a little normal. They’d had lines of people waiting to enter Trader Joe’s
for weeks now but, today, I learned that we can’t take in our reusable grocery bags,
and now all employees work behind masks and plexiglass shields. At the Giant,
there were neon tape arrows dictating which direction you should walk to avoid
crossing paths with people. My ever telescoping world is shrinking; there is
always some item that I normally get easily that, now when I see it in stock, I
buy two (but never the last two), and I feel like I’ve won some minor prize,
some free tube of toothpaste that comes attached to the box you were going to buy
anyway. While at Giant, I picked up some new flavor of sugar free energy drink
that I don’t even need because I took my Adderall-and-a-half, and by the time I
was home and halfway through the thing, I was tired of it but refused to waste
in and thought, wait, THIS would go well with some vodka and well, here I am, walking the imaginary fence with Calvin and Hobbes between two types of
stimulant.
If you can make something into a
game, you can make a game out of anything. In a delusion of productivity, I
bought a Stealth Core board that tricks you into holding dynamic plank
positions while you shoot planets using and app on your phone. There’s another
one on my wishlist that connects Kegel muscle exercises to shooting birds. I
can’t judge myself too harshly; my students play games where they cook burgers,
making ice cream sundaes. Hell, they have games where people remodel homes.
Glorious what the fuck? So yeah, today I played a hang gliding game and hit
balloons, trees, and birds, the whole time on my knees but, hey, that’s
actually progress.
I return home, make my first
responsible lunch so far this week, and listen to a podcast while I reorganize
my dresser drawers. I have a small pile of “grown up” bras for when I want to
dress like an adult, a small pile of “my thighs rub too much and it makes me uncomfortable”
accessories, and a couple “sports bras for when workouts make me bounce,” all
of which I hope I never need to need but refused to throw out. I still wear all
of my Lululemon yoga pants and, when I’m allowed to, I would like to get back
into hot yoga. I miss those moments most when you were expected to be around
other people but weren’t really expected to connect with them (aside from the
quick queue to receive either the Tranquility or Energy essential oil before you
began your practice).
Seeing everyone in masks reminds me
of how much I focus on people’s eyes when we’re talking, and I got this idea of
having people send me photos, and I’d make a quiz to see if people could tell
whose are whose if all they had was the eyes. I AM a teacher, after all, and it
would be nice to give a quiz that people actually took; I struggled to get
students to turn in work when they were right in front of me and, based on what
I’ve seen so far, planning and grading will take even less effort now than it
did then.
When I was around people all the
time, I used to contemplate people: their motivations, their allegiances, their
flaws and perfections. Then, when there were no people, I fell into
contemplating the politics defining this moment in geographic spaces. Starting
on March 23rd, I started tracking the Covid cases inside my state,
still doing it today. I’m not sure why, but I thought I’d use the numbers in an
art project or something; the act of writing down a number every day makes me
feel like I’m documenting something important, even though I don’t, as of yet,
have any personal connection to any of these numbers. It feels like I’m keeping
a candle burning, so of course it makes me feel empowered. Which of course is
false. It didn’t take long before I had to stop following the politics as well;
the sad part is that most of the comedians I follow for sanity have also been
sucked into the maelstrom, and I’m left to fend for myself.
Of course, I have little projects.
I’m watching beginner ASL videos. I signed myself up for a month of intestinal
cleansing. I’m slowly working through creating a book study for the Black Panther
graphic novels that Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote. I’m talking to my older brother on
the phone almost every day. I’m trying to set up video play dates with my
friends. I’m trying NOT to eat any more Oreos, trying to keep up a stamina for sex,
working at once to be spontaneous and steadfast in this feigned attempt at
having control in my life. I’m trying to be grateful for all the things that
have made this time much more bearable for me than others around me, trying to
also allow myself to FEEL lonely and lost.
The project, as always, is me.