CHAPTER ONE
some names have been changed
September 29, 2020
It is the year of the pandemic, the year of Covid. The year of distance learning, uprisings in my beloved city of Minneapolis and everywhere, the year of lockdowns and curfews and wildfires. The year of that small man, our president, still alive, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, newly dead. The year of fake news. It is nearly impossible to write when surrounded by the incredulous.
Why didn’t I begin this journal on the day that George Floyd was murdered by a policeman, just eight city blocks from my apartment? Why didn’t I start it before then, when the small man with the big voice was elected president and I dragged my teenage daughter onto a bus and rode 22 hours to protest? Why didn’t I start it when the Muslim ban was announced, and my students cried openly in my classroom? Why didn’t I start it when we first saw footage, carefully edited, of the caravans of migrants coming to the border, or the children separated from their parents and put in cages? It’s amazing how we can spend a lifetime looking for stories, and when they come, like a hurricane of heartbreak, the words just swirl around and cannot land. All I do is dodge and stay alive.
Yes, I should have started at the beginning, but who, being alive in the present moment, knows when the beginning begins? I cannot attempt to sum up the days and months that have preceded this day, this ordinary day, in an extraordinary year. The history books will undoubtedly fill in the details. But I wish to record something—some little piece of humanity—every day if possible, starting today.
Tonight was the debate between the small man and Biden. We wanted to watch it indoors with friends, but it’s Covid, and indoor gatherings are prohibited. My partner and I draped a sheet on his garage and set up a projector. We started the bonfire. The drone helicopters were circling overhead, swooping and rumbling, as they have been since my city started on fire a few months back. God, how I hate those helicopters. A few friends in masks stopped by, sitting six feet apart around the fire pit, bringing their own food and beverages so as not to spread the droplets of death, and we projected the debate for all to see. It was horrific. Yelling, interrupting, and posturing (mostly by me) but also by that small bully who was somehow elected president. And then the zinger: the small man with the big voice refused to condemn white supremacists. This should have been no surprise. In 2017, when white nationalist James Alex Fields Jr. deliberately drove his car into a crowd of protestors and killed Heather Heyer, an activist advocating for the removal of racist monuments, the small man said there were “good people on both sides.” Tonight, he was given a chance to walk back those statements. To amend them. But he didn’t. He told the neo-Nazi’s to “stand back and stand by.” Did he really say that? We paused the debate, rewound it and pressed play. Yes, he said it. On national TV. The guests all left, sullen and speechless. What else was there to hear? As my boyfriend took apart the projector, I sat paralyzed in my lawn chair, under the moonlight, until the queasiness overtook me, and I vomited quietly next to the dead lilac bush.
September 30, 2020
Today, I made soup. Potato leek. It is warm for September, but I keep the windows closed to drown out the helicopters who are still swooping overhead, taking pictures of my friends, my students, who are still vigilantly protesting police brutality in my city. The people for whom the video of George Floyd’s murder will never be a distant memory, because it is replicated on the daily. Because it has been replicated for 400 years. Darnella Frazier just brought it to the nation’s attention. The soup is on the oven right now. It smells delicious, but I still do not have the stomach to eat.
My son Quincy started a new job today working with homeless youth. Maybe the new job will keep him off the streets, away from the protests. I am proud of him, the work he has done and continues to do to organize the people. He assembles supply backpacks full of masks, bandages, water, Neosporin, and milk of magnesia, water and Tylenol. He delivers the packs to the medics who are on the front line, treating the protesters who have been tear-gassed or beaten. I keep seventy-three dollars cash in my pocket at all times, in case I get the call and need to bail him out. My daughter Georgia moved back to Portland a week ago, where she should have been starting her sophomore year of college. She is not. She is taking a gap semester, and saving money, trying to avoid catching Covid in the dorms. Unfortunately, my eighteen-year-old niece was not so lucky. She, and all of her friends, contracted the virus during “Welcome Week” at Winona State. She is recovering now. My oldest daughter, Maddy, began her first year teaching in Chicago, remotely. One of her kindergartners asks her, every day, over Google Meet, “Miss Teacher? Why the bus no pick me up today?”
We’ve all missed the bus, I am afraid. Fascism is here.
Some protest. Some make soup they cannot swallow and worry.
Oct 1, 2020
Today, I feel like a washrag that has been wrung too many times. I was up late last night, grading papers, returning emails from frightened and bewildered parents, and watching tutorials that made me want to cry. I have been a teacher for almost thirty years, but everything is different now. Nearpod, Flipgrid, Zoom breakout groups, Screencastify. There’s no one to help me. It’s not as if a teacher friend could lean over my shoulder and say, “Just click here, and then here, and then here.” I feel like an idiot. I am an idiot. I wake every day at 6am, put my work clothes on and shuffle to my makeshift office, which is a thirteen-step commute in my slippers. I drink coffee and make last minute preparations until the students slowly begin to appear on my screen. Some of them show their cameras, but most do not. They are each represented by a colored dot, and by the time my first class begins, it looks like my screen is covered with skittles. “Good morning, Mohamed!” I say to the yellow skittle with an M in the middle. “Good morning, Ashley! It’s a beautiful day today! Good morning, Samson. So glad you are here!” My voice is bright and cheerful. A few students type “hi” in the chat. No caps. “Who is ready to LEARN?” Some days I am grateful that I can’t see their eye rolls.
When the schools first shut down, in March, I never imagined we would still be home now, eight months later. We teachers were asked to completely reinvent education in like, six minutes. They lauded us as “heroes” but didn’t pay us a nickel more. I work fifty to sixty hours a week now, which is significantly down from March, but I still spend more time on the computer than ever in my life. The blue lights flash before my eyes, the letters blur together, the dizziness rushes in, the fear, the fear, the fear… please not today. DO NOT HAVE A SEIZURE, I say to myself. Please, not in front of my students.
I am an epileptic teacher in a pandemic.
Oct 2, 2020
We do a journal on the first day of each week. It is always the same prompt: What’s going on in your world? Globally? Nationally? In your community? In your personal life? I play some chill music, and they write. “Why do we always do the same journal?” one of the kids asks.
“We are not just human beings; we are writers living in extraordinary times,” I say. “And your thoughts, your fears, your joys, are extraordinarily important. We are the ones who will document these days. The big moments. The little things.” I am on a roll. “Like, how Gabe misses playing soccer with his friends.”
Gabe’s microphone light turns on. His sleepy voice comes out of my screen. “Did you say my name, Miss? Sorry I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Right. It’s all-good, Gabe. I was just saying that little things, they count. Like how scared Kyjuan was when his grandfather was put on the ventilator, as he was telling us last week. Or how Eva learned to make bread with no yeast. One day, when your grandchildren ask you about life in the Covid era, you will pull out this ratty journal, and you will have before you an entire school year of insignificant things that are significant. You will tell them, ‘Look what I survived.””
No one says, “Wow, Ms. Marsnik. That’s really profound.” No one says anything. It’s just me, talking to an inanimate object. Again. My students don’t think of themselves as extraordinary. They don’t think of these times as extraordinary. This is their life, and they are mostly bored or tired. But they do their journal because they have nothing else to do.
I write with them. Every week. Today, October 2nd, my journal is short. Two sentences: After weeks of hosting unmasked super-spreader rallies, our dangerous president and his deplorable wife have tested positive for coronavirus. Word of the day: Schadenfreude.
Oct 12, 2020
Today is Indigenous People’s Day. When I was in school, we celebrated a different holiday. But things have changed. I’ve invited two of my Ojibwe students to teach the class today and they begin class with this beautiful poem:
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
--Hopi Elders' Prophecy, June 8, 2000
You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.
Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.
And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
Oct 13, 2020
I haven’t had a seizure in three weeks. Not even a small one. I think I’m healed.
Oct 14, 2020
In February of 2020, I travelled to Portland to attend my nephew’s wedding. It was pretty awesome. My nephew dressed up as Warf from Star Trek and his lovely bride was some other character I don’t know and they exchanged their vows in Klingon with an English interpreter. There was an incredibly large sword involved, but I don’t remember exactly why. While in Portland, I rented a two-bedroom airbnb with my sister, the mother of the groom, which should have been roomy, but a bunch of young friends of the Klingon couple had no place to stay so our place was packed with twenty-somethings who played noise music on the record player. If you don’t know what noise music is, you should google it and make a mental note not to listen to it unless you are in the mood for auditory flogging. The twenty-somethings slept on our couches and floors. They drank Hams beer, which is disgusting, but apparently very hip in their circle. I come from a monstrously large, artsy-fartsy family, so I was used to this kind of unexpected chaos, and I pretty much loved it, despite the fact that I had to share a bed with my sister and someone named Cloud.
While we were there, Corona virus, or the “Chinese virus” as the small man called it, broke out at a nursing home in Seattle. On my way back to Minneapolis, I had a two-hour layover in Seattle. No one was wearing masks, then, of course. I bought a small bottle of hand sanitizer in the airport and tried to keep to myself. On the airplane, every time a passenger coughed, I cringed. I’m going to die. I kept thinking about that movie “Contagion,” and I hoped I wouldn’t spontaneously start bleeding out of my mouth and then have a made-for-TV seizure. I started wishing I had slept with a stranger or stolen a leopard from the Portland zoo or done something regrettably deviant before meeting my untimely death on a Spirit Airlines airplane.
When I went back to work, the following Monday, I was still consumed with horror that I might have contracted the virus. What if I gave it to my students? There was no way to know for certain, as our president did not believe in testing, as that would make it seem as if more people had it. Numbers. He hated numbers. The virus was a hoax planned and perpetrated by his enemies. I arrived in my classroom at 6:30 am, put on my yellow gloves that I use to scrub floors in my apartment, and sprayed every desk with bleached water. There was no hand sanitizer left at the school, so I had to make do. The virus, we were told, spreads on surfaces. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. But don’t buy masks; they don’t work.
We talked about it in school, of course. Everyone was talking about it. “More people die of the flu than the corona virus,” one of my students said. “Young people cannot get it,” another student said. “Black people cannot get it,” someone said.
“Where did you hear that?” I asked. “Are you sure that’s true?”
“Right here,” the student said. He showed me an Instagram post on his phone.
“My mom went to Costco and filled our minivan with toilet paper,” another student said.
“Toilet paper?” I asked. “Why?”
October 16, 2020
Today, as I drove home from my boyfriend’s house, it was snowing. Big, awkward flakes that were more rectangular than round. I was not expecting snow, so early. So my first thought was that my city was once again on fire. The snowflakes looked like newspaper strips turned to ash, floating from the clouds and disappearing on my windshield. It was barely dawn, but surely someone, somewhere, had reason to light some building on fire.
George Floyd was murdered on Memorial Day. There was no school that day, and I had been working all morning and afternoon putting together an end-of-the-year award ceremony for my students on something called “zoom.” I hadn’t turned on the news all day. Around 3pm, I flopped on the couch and turned to Facebook. There it was. The video. It was 8 minutes and 45 seconds long. Derek Chauvin had his knee on George Floyd’s neck. Floyd said he couldn’t breathe. He called out for his mother. And then he was gone. Three officers watched it happen. Let it happen. One brave teenager, the same age as my students, filmed it. There were bystanders begging the officer to stop. To let that poor man go.
Murder in Minneapolis. Murder.
Today, Derek Chauvin is out on bail. And George Floyd’s children are fatherless.
In this morning’s creative writing class, I wrote about Amy Coney Barrett. The republicans are rushing her nomination to the Supreme Court. Amy Coney Barrett, a constitutionalist who believes in following that sacred document to the letter. Which doesn’t sound so bad, unless you consider who wrote it, and who it was meant to protect. Not women. Not one. Not people of color. Not one. Not poor people. Barrett, who has made a career of upholding racist and sexist doctrines, has spent a lifetime trying to overturn Roe vs. Wade. If she gets confirmed, we will roll the clock black a solid thirty years. Let the Handmaid’s Tale begin.
The small man is becoming increasingly unraveled as Election Day approaches. The tweets, the rants, the lies. Today, he said that the only way he will not win is if the election is stolen. Stolen? He makes no sense. Last night, my boyfriend and I watched television. We are both political junkies; news is our heroin and politicians are our Kardashians. But yesterday was tough. Biden had a boring, measured, steady town hall and the small man with the big voice held a super spreader rally in which he praised Q-anon, espoused conspiracy theories and announced that the virus is going away.
October 18, 2020
I am old enough to remember when Wikipedia first became a thing. As an English teacher, it was a pretty standard practice for lazy students who did not want to do legitimate research to cut and paste from Wikipedia. So, I would tell them, go ahead and start with Wikipedia, but don’t end there. Go further. Use it as a jumping off point. But I just googled Q-anon and decided that Wikipedia pretty much nailed it:
QAnon is a disproven far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles operate a global child sex trafficking ring conspiring against President Donald Trump. QAnon has been described as a cult. Wikipedia
The small man would call Wikipedia “fake news.”
October 19, 2021
I do not only teach creative writing. I also teach a form of philosophy called Theory of Knowledge. How do we know what we know? How is it possible that experts with the same set of facts can reach different conclusions? I was up until 2am preparing my lecture, transferring all of my notes to Google slides, trying to find ways to digitize handouts I have used for years. I have given this lecture before, many times, and I know my material. A year ago, I would have leaned against my desk, asked some anticipatory questions, and then walked to the whiteboard. I would have written some key terms on the board, terms that were difficult to spell, like Metaphysics, Epistemology, Aesthetics, Consequentialism. And then I would speak, explain, check for comprehension. Tell a story about Kant, or Aristotle, or Simone de Beauvoir. I once gave an entire lecture on the philosophy behind Whitney Huston’s song, “How will I know?” How does Whitney know if he really loves her? How will she know if he’s thinking of her? What ways of knowing does she use in that song? Can she ever really be sure? Does she need objective proof? How reliable is sense perception?
Some days, pre-pandemic, in the gently warming spring or softly cooling fall, my students and I would go outside. We’d walk to a bucolic clearing by the lake near my school, and we would lie down on the ground. “Was Whitman right?” I’d ask my creative writers or philosophers. “Is it possible to see the entire universe in a blade of grass? In a field? What did he mean when he said, “I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.” What is God?”
Those days are over. Every word I say is scripted now. For years, I refused to show a PowerPoint, because I knew that the second a PowerPoint is put up on a screen, my students, who have underdeveloped frontal lobes and short attention spans, would be consumed with the desire to either stab forks into their faces, or to shut their eyes and dream about being a dolphin.
But here I am now, reading pedantic Google slides that took me three hours to prepare. I am reading out loud to 48 dots. Wait, now there are 47 dots. Someone’s Internet went out, or they got bored and left the meet to clip their toenails. I am reading my screen. “Metaphysics is derived from Greek,” I say. “Meta… Meta…”
I cannot say the word.
I am looking at it. I see the letters but I cannot form my words in my mouth.
The letters become disembodied and they dance across the screen like sprites in an Irish folktale. My tongue feels like heavy metal and I feel that oh-so-familiar whooshing feeling, as if I have left the skin and bones that are sitting on this chair, and I am hovering over myself, watching the shell of some unrecognizable shape morph into jello and then harden into brittle clay, waiting for it to crumple. In the old days, I used to get seizure warning signs two, sometimes three, days ahead of time. I’d get a distinct aura, a feeling of inexplicable irritability or a sense of impending doom. I’d feel light-headed and “out of it.” I would call in sick the next day and wait safely for the damn seizure to arrive and to leave. But now the seizures arrive like a rush of blinding locusts, fast and familiar, yet always somehow unexpected. I have had enough seizures since I started teaching remotely to know that things are different now. The screens are slowly killing me. I only have minutes, if not seconds, to get out of here. To make it to safely to my bed before my brain is filled with tiny explosions, one after another, until my brain is mush and my body is left so exhausted that I lack the strength to sit up or lift a glass of water to my lips, although I will be so thirsty I will feel as though I have been stranded in a desert for weeks.
I click the video icon to shut off my camera. In the chat, I type:
Klass is over. Sea you twomroe
I click the red button that says, “Leave Meet.”
October 21, 2021
Dr. Gonzales was the doctor who first diagnosed my epilepsy and I’ve been seeing him ever since. He’s a short, affable Philipino guy who loves soccer, his kids, and his wife, who cuts his hair. I always try to remember to compliment him on it. It’s nice hair. He’s one of the foremost epileptologists in the country, which is awesome, but he also has a tendency to giggle at odd times, which makes him human. He has never treated me like a lunatic or a sick person so I have always liked him, but at a routine appointment in February, I decided I loved him. Why? He suggested that I try Botox to treat my migraines, which often come before or after a seizure. “I’ve used it before,” he said. “When I worked at the VA. They let us try all kinds of things there (giggle) to treat the PTSD (serious face). It’s wildly successful with both migraines and seizures. The FDA has finally approved it for severe cases like yours. What do you think?”
What did I think? What did I think? I was a forty-nine year old mostly invisible woman well past my prime, and now this man was offering me BOTOX! I looked at him as if he were Ponce De Leon, offering me the fountain of youth. “Yes!” I said. “Yes!”
I realized I was a little too excited. I sounded like Meg Ryan in that famous scene from “When Harry met Sally.” I wanted to beat my fists on the Formica medical table and keep yelling, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” until my eyes rolled back into my head and I got all sweaty and panty. But faking an eye roll is not something you want to do in a neurology office, unless you want to end up with wires glued to your head, which is not that fun, believe me. I know. I cleared my throat and used my best, “I’m a serious grown-up with a life-threatening disability” voice. “I mean…” I coughed. “If you feel that it would help my condition, doctor, I would be willing to try it.” Dr. Gonzales giggled.
Of course, like giving a female an orgasm, getting insurance companies to approve Botox injections is not as easy as it might seem. Gonzales put in the order, but insurance cock-blocked it. I got the letter in the mail, and it read like a Dear John letter. “We regret to inform you that you are not approved for Botox injections because you have only tried seven million different remedies to treat your migraines and seizures, and you need to try eight million different kinds of drugs before we will pay for it.” Those weren’t the exact words. But that’s how I remember it. I called the insurance company immediately after reading it, and I sounded exactly like a jilted lover. “Please,” I said. “Just give me a chance.”
They said no, but assured me I was not out of options. I could either a). Pay $6,000 to receive the treatment out of pocket, or b.) Try one more medication—something called propranolol—and if it didn’t work, I could resubmit the request. “You do realize,” I told the faceless person on the other side of my cell phone, “that I am a single mother with three children in college.” What I wanted to say was, “Are you fucking kidding me? Six thousand dollars? Me paying for Botox would be like you working a job you sort of like.”
“I’m so sorry, Ma’am,” the voice said. “Your marital situation has absolutely no significance in regards to our decision. Every patient must exhaust all other resources before being approved for this service.”
Mother Fucker. I really didn’t want to go on another drug that made me groggy or hate sex or fart like a plumber. But I did. I tried the shitty drug, which did not work, even remotely. I gained seven pounds and contemplated joining a nunnery. And not the fun kind that Shakespeare used as a euphemism.
After the three-month trial, I was finally approved to try Botox, and I was pumped. “I am ready!” I said to Dr. Gonzales. I jumped up on the table with the white paper on it and kind of bounced around like a kid on stool at an ice cream shop, waiting for the peppermint bonbon cone to arrive.
“Sounds like someone’s excited,” Dr. Gonzales said. (Giggle). I watched as he inserted the needle into the vial that was going to make me look like a twenty-five year old co-ed. Maybe after this I’d flash my boobs at the suburban bar across the street. “You don’t have to sit on the table,” Gonzales said. “I prefer the chair; it’s easier for me to walk around and get to the back of your head.”
He told me that it wouldn’t hurt much, but that I might bleed a little. He started on the back of my neck; one quick prick followed by another, and slowly moved up to the scalp on my head.
“Umm…excuse me,” I said.
“Did that hurt?” he stopped.
“No, but Dolphie. When are you going to get to my face?” I didn’t want the serum to run out.
“Did you just call me Dolphie?”
“Yes. That’s your name, right? Adolpho Gonzales.”
(Giggle). “Correct. That is my name, but as I have told you many times, I prefer that you call me “doctor.”
“Got it. But just so you know, I also prefer that you call me doctor,” I said.
“What? Wait, you have your PhD? No…” he giggled. “You’re messing with me again.”
“True, Doctor. But I just want to make sure there is enough left for between my eyes. And you know, on the sides of my mouth? There’re these little crinkles, you know. Unsightly.”
He laughed. And then casually, he told me we weren’t going to do my face. That my migraines and seizures always start in the left temporal lobe, and the back of my neck, so the best course of action was to use the serum there.
I slumped in the chair like a deflated balloon.
“Don’t worry Doctor Marsnik,” he said (giggle). You will have the youngest looking scalp of all your friends. If you shave your head, everyone will think you’re twelve.”
October 23, 2021
In my old, pre-pandemic days, I had a desk but I never sat at it. I was always wandering around the classroom, looking over kids’ shoulders, getting “all up in their business” as they used to say. Asking them to show me stuff they were working on. Answering questions, listening to them talk about school dances or lacrosse games, or basketball recruiters or quinceaneras. Now, I sit so much I might get bedsores.
I woke up early and turned on the news. We are two weeks away from Election Day. Four years ago, at this time, Hilary Clinton was ahead in the polls. Now Biden is. All signs point to a democratic landslide, but we have been here before and I refuse to drum up an ounce of hope. The last debate was last night, but I missed it.
I had to take yesterday off, after “the episode,” as Dr. Gonzales likes to call them. I don’t remember much after leaving class on Monday. I had crawled into my bed, and took the “rescue cocktail.” Unfortunately, a rescue cocktail for epileptics does not remotely resemble a gin and tonic with a lime, which I really appreciate on a hot summer day, or a good Old Fashion, which gives me that happy tummy feeling after a long afternoon ski in the dark days of winter. For me, a rescue cocktail is 4 really strong pills: Depakote, Lorazapam, Ambian, and Gabapentin. Different epileptics get different cocktails, which I suppose is supposed to make us feel special. At its best, my rescue cocktail slows my abnormal brain waves (called spikes and waves on the EEG) which can ideally prevent a full blown seizure, and at worst, make me so sleepy that if I do have a seizure, it will occur while I am safely asleep and tucked under my covers.
After yesterday’s not-so-fun cocktail, I slept for 18 hours. I woke up thirsty as a racehorse and craving protein. I wondered how many seizures I had. One? Two? Seven? Not none. I was too weak. But I had my words back. “I have my words back,” I said out loud, just to be sure, to the fruit basket on my counter. “Good morning, lemons,” I said. They did not respond, so I figured I had most of my brain back too. I made an egg. I could see that my boyfriend had been there, but I didn’t remember. He had filled my fridge with cottage cheese, half-n-half, and some hard salami. He must have woken me up and fed me. I have a vague memory of him crawling into bed with me, holding me in his arms, and stroking my hair. But that could have been a month ago. Or last spring. Who knows?
At some point, I had mustered the fortitude to post an emergency lesson plan for my students. This is not my first rodeo, as the cowboys say, so I had some pre-recorded lessons ready to go. In my altered state, I had uploaded them to Google classroom. There are no subs in distance learning, so it wasn’t as it I could just call in sick and be done with it.
Because I missed yesterday, I am super behind today. I am meeting with students, one on one, via Google meets, discussing presentations they are giving next week. I am scheduled from 6:30am until 5:30 pm, with a few breaks in between. Usually, during breaks I walk, to get my brain away from the screens. The fresh air helps. But when I try to walk during my first scheduled break, I can only make it a half a block before I turn around. I feel like my bones have all been shattered, and magically, they are reforming, coming back together as if I’m the protagonist in a sci-fi film. The rest of the day I just lay flat on my stomach on my yoga mat during breaks. I close my eyes, and just breathe for a solid 5 minutes. Then I do I little cobra stretch, lay back down for a few minutes and then return to work.
My 10:30 is with Juan. “You feeling better. Ms. M?” his voice asks kindly. His dot is green, with a J in the middle.
“I feel wonderful,” I say. My smile is genuine though. I am always happy to be with my students. “Thanks for asking, Juan. I was wondering, while you talk about your presentation, would you be willing to show your camera? It’s just easier for me to gauge your understanding when I can see your face. Totally your choice.”
“Uh, sure,” he says. As Juan’s face comes into focus, he smiles too. “Sorry about this,” he says. He gestures to his background. He is surrounded by clothing on hangers. He is obviously sitting in his closet again. He has four younger siblings, and all of them are doing distance learning, so Juan attends all of his classes in the small closet that has a light. Even with the door closed, I can hear other teachers on other Google meets, teaching his siblings. I don’t know how Juan does it. But he does it beautifully. The kid is brilliant. He’s planning to do his presentation on the Muslim concentration camps in China.
Up next is Emily. Emily was actually scheduled for last week, but she was a no-show. “Thanks for rescheduling,” she says. “I really appreciate it.” She is in her room, and her background is neat and clean. She has a brightly colored, lime green bookshelf full of books and skiing trophies. “The maid was so loud when we were supposed to meet,” she says. “That vacuum! I couldn’t concentrate at all,” she said.
“That must have been very frustrating,” I say.
“Distance learning is so hard,” Emily says. “You have no idea. Sometimes it’s like I can’t concentrate at all.”
“I can only imagine,” I say. “I can only imagine.”
October 25, 2021
One day, a few months after George Floyd was killed, I was on my daily walk through my war-fatigued neighborhood. Uptown was hit hard in the riots. Almost all of the buildings are still boarded up. Artists have painted over the boards with uplifting messages that range from “Black Lives Matter Every Day” to “Imagine Peace” to “Minneapolis Strong.” On nearly every block, someone has painted a beautiful portrait of not only Floyd, but also of Brionna Taylor, Philando Castille, Jamar Clark, Eric Garner, and many others who had been victims of race-related police brutality. Many of the business that had survived the early stages of the pandemic shut down after the riots, never to open again.
But even then, as I do now, I walk every day that I am able. Although I miss the bustle and coolness of pre-pandemic hipster Uptown, I like seeing the pop-up graffiti art. Some good; some awful. I like knowing that the revolution is alive and ever changing, even though the inconstancy and instability of my everyday existence is terrifying.
That day, in August, I was walking to mail a letter, but when I got to the intersection where my familiar little blue box always stood to greet me, I saw, parked in front of it, a big, flatbed truck. Two workers were loading the mailbox onto a truck. I was mortified. “Stop!” I yelled. “What are you doing?”
I needed that little blue box. Three days after the murder of George Floyd, the only post office in walking distance from my house was burned to the ground. I remember thinking about all the graduation cards undelivered, the social security checks that never arrived, the cute little RBG stamps that burned and fizzled into nothingness. The smoke and smell lingered for weeks. As an epileptic who sometimes has no driving privileges, I consciously live in a neighborhood that is in walking distance to everything. In the riots, I lost my post office.
There were two men in charge of removing the mailbox. They were wearing orange vests and no masks. One of the men was older, perhaps sixty-five. He shook his head sadly. “I don’t know what we’re doing,” he said sadly. “Makes no sense to me.” I guess it wasn’t his fault. This whole year, so many people were doing horrible things because they are told to do horrible things. Reminds you of, well, history. As Mark Twain once said, History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.” I sometimes think back to the civil rights movement of the 60’s. Every white person likes to think they would be on the “right” side of history. That they would support Ruby Bridges, the Little Rock 9. That they would stand up for the Freedom Riders, for those brave young people sitting at segregated lunch counters. But truth be told, most of us would just walk on by. Some of us would engage unenthusiastically, like the man removing my mailbox. Pretend he has no choice. Others, like the followers of the little man, perpetuate the lies and use violence and fear to keep the powerful in power, even if they themselves are powerless.
That month, hundreds of blue mailboxes were removed from street corners across the United States and loaded into trucks. Why? Reports vary. Some said it was to prevent the peaceful protestors from harming them. Others said that because of the coronavirus, millions of people were expected to vote by mail instead of in person. Millions of people who believed in the corona virus, that is. The little man and his supporters thought it was a hoax. Getting rid of the mailboxes was their way of getting rid of votes for Biden.
There was no longer a blue box in walking distance from my house, and I was not driving these days due to, well you know. When I moved to this apartment in Uptown, I was psyched that absolutely everything I would ever need was in walking distance, including my place of employment and my beautiful post office. But the post office was lit on fire three days after the murder of George Floyd. I mourned for it then, as I do now. I kept thinking about all those love letters, graduation cards, prescription drugs, social security checks and packages that would never be delivered. And now, my drop box was gone.
Oct 27, 2020
Amy Coney Barrett was sworn into the Supreme Court last night. The little man hosted a party on the south lawn. No social distancing. Almost no one was wearing a mask. The anxiety leading to the election is almost crippling. I feel like my hands and feet have been cut off and blood is gushing from the severed parts.
When my teaching day is done, I find some stationary and write a letter to an old friend. I write by hand, because the last thing I need is more screens. This is what I write:
Dear Friend,
On Sunday, my sisters informed me that your mother passed. I am writing to say how very sorry I am for your loss. It is strange how something so communal as losing a parent can feel so singularly painful and crushingly lonely. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to lose your mother during a pandemic.
My sisters told me that your entire family contracted the virus. Of course I know people who have tested positive, but for some reason, hearing about your family really hit me like a gut punch. This pandemic has been so strange. We see the numbers—of survivors and of those who did not—and they are just that, numbers. I read that our country has lost more people to Covid than we did in Vietnam. But your mother’s passing and your struggles have made it feel real.
So, I wanted to tell you that you are not a number to me, and although this is, in the most simplistic sense, a heartfelt condolence letter, it also a thank you. When I was a little kid, I looked up to you. I admired you because you were a writer. I told you that I wanted to become a writer one day. Granted, I told everyone that. But when I told you, you didn’t laugh and you did not look at me with condescending amusement. You just believed me. Thank you. So much has been taken away from us in these past months, but one thing this pandemic has taught us is to express our gratitude now, as none of us know what tomorrow will bring.
What we were, what we are, what we become: on the grand scheme, none of that seems to matter too much. But when we lose someone wonderful, like you did in losing your mother, we are reminded that it is precisely the little things that matter most. It hurts my heart to imagine your mother dying alone, in that hospital room surrounded by caring nurses wearing masks and shields and gloves. I hear that you were just down the hall from her in your own quarantined hospital bed, when she took her last breath. I am sorry that there was no funeral. How odd that must have been, because I know that the church would have been filled to the brim with people who loved her, and who loved you and your family.
I am wishing you and your wife a rapid recovery, and please know that I am holding you in my heart as you say goodbye to your mom on this most unkindly of years.
With Love and Gratitude,
M.
November 1, 2020
Another seizure. It’s coming. Luckily, I finished all my live meets. I Took the rescue cocktail a few minutes ago. No messing around. Please, let it be a small one. Please let
it
be small
oneoneoneoneoneeeee.
Pl
E
e
eeese.
November 3, 2020
I had filled out my ballot weeks earlier. Filled it out at home, here, on the very table I am working on now. Two weeks before today, I called my son, and he drove me to NE Minneapolis where the city had set up a depository for ballets. You could hand your completed ballot to a volunteer who checked your identity, or you could vote in person. Although my ballot was filled out, I decided that I wanted to cast it in person, like old times. Quincy and I got in line behind hundreds of other mask-wearing voters. The atmosphere was jovial. After about an hour, we made it inside, where I grabbed the familiar black sharpie and cast my ballot for Joe Biden. Biden was actually my least favorite democratic candidate, but I had no regrets about voting for him. We had to stop the madness. We had to get that narcissist out of office before he destroyed something else. Before he destroyed everything else.
Today is November 3rd. It is Election Day, and I am a ball of anxiety. When my classes are over, I walk to the Liquor store two blocks away, and purchase a bottle of Prosecco. Please let me open it tonight. Let me pour the bubbly liquid into a fancy glass and drink to new world. Let Nina Simone sing in the background:
It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life for me
And I’m feeling good.
END OF CHAPTER ONE