Love from the Heart of Coronaland

I live in Seattle and things are weird. And getting weirder.

My favorite restaurants are changing their hours or shutting their doors. Schools are closed. There’s no traffic. I’m afraid of standing close to people. I’m afraid to cough in public. Touching an elevator button feels like an act of bravery.

It’s weird.

There are no community events in my apartment building and they removed the bowl of free dog treats.

A sense of unease descended upon the city. Every day, I get a newsletter from a business about how they’re sanitizing everything, closing their doors, or how a person may have exposed others to the virus.

It’s as if the virus is sweeping through King County, sucking up all the things we love with its stupid crown of spikes.

Oh My How Times Have Changed

I used to volunteer as a family mentor for refugees, as they transitioned to life in the United States. I would help them do things like grocery shop or go to the doctor or learn public transportation and complete job applications.

Abukar from the first family I mentored told me something that I have never forgotten.

“I had a house, I had a computer, and then the war came.” And then the war came. Since he said that, I have been wondering what ‘and then the’ would come to disrupt my sense of safety and comfort. In my personal life, but sans 9–11, which seemed “far away” in New York and the Recession, I have never faced community upheaval on this scale with this level of panic.

Now I know.

Abukar lived in a refugee camp for years with his four daughters and then had to figure out how to transition to the U.S. He could never return to his comfortable life because it wasn’t there anymore. His country was in ruins and he lost family members.

Despite everything, he pointed out what was good. His family was a typical family who watched TV, cooked big meals, grocery shopped, and played soccer together.

“I am strong and I am healthy. That is most important.”

The Waltz

Times like these make me think of my Grandma June. If I had to pick a survival team and she was still alive, she would be the captain. She grew up in Chicago, was born in 1929, a few months before Black Tuesday.

She made us stand on her porch during storms and laugh into sheets of rain and pounding thunder. She was mugged once (or twice) and during the mugging, thew her purse to her sister then got in the car and locked the door.

When the war ended, she danced the waltz down the street on her father’s footsteps. I can picture that moment so clearly, even though I never experienced it. I am moving towards that moment, whatever it means, whatever it is — the moment where this shifts and we get back stability, or at least, the illusion of it.

I know it might not come for a long time. But it’s there.

I am sad that there will most likely not be an Easter egg hunt for my daughter. I am sad that we don’t get to go to a baseball game. I am sad there will be no more Saturdays at the aquarium for awhile. I know it’s necessary, but it’s painful and depressing.

I am scared that they will quarantine Seattle, which means I won’t be able to leave the city to see my family. I am stressed about childcare and finding work and what to do if we get it, as we don’t have family in town. I am stressed knowing that if I need to go to the hospital, I could overwhelm an already overwhelmed staff. I am stressed about the panic and the economy and all of the businesses I love going under.

My favorite coffee shop. The bookstore that just opened. My favorite thai restaurant.

But today, I don’t have the virus, my daughter doesn’t have it, my husband doesn’t have it, none of my siblings or parents or nieces and nephews or friends have it.

That is today.

Today I rose to my own humanity. I gave blood. It made me feel less helpless and more connected. I thought about the blood and the person it would go to, a person who is having a much worse day than me.

The old saying, ‘someone out there is begging for your problems’ applies, but we’re all that person now. Sometimes, I wish for the problems I had two months ago — the frustrations of parenting in the ‘terrible twos’, the traffic, the gripes about losing my job.

Isn’t it weird how everything changes in an instant?

Photo: Pexels, Amanda Grove