Standing Still In Time

It's been a while, is an understatement.  Then again, those who know me remember last year.  2019 entered with double pneumonia and quarantine for a false TB scare, a month later I broke my foot and double tore the plantar fascia, the hits kept coming, and in December I had surgery to repair the foot and ended the year with influenza. Last year tried my soul, nearly killed me, and I was barely standing when it ended. Damn. I shut myself down, and I compartmentalized to survive, to find a laugh, to capture a sight, and to carry-on.  Then, by late February, I was finally coming out of the ashes, getting life back, moving again. I got back into shoes and some heels, made it back to pole dancing classes, but then the world stopped.

COVID-19 hit. Well, it came. Hard. First, the suburbs of Seattle--my first hometown--and then it grew. Now, as the world knows, NYC is the US epicenter, and Queens is the epicenter of the epicenter. I live here. I call this ten-story town home. I can't sleep at night, as I'm restless from the silence of the streets. I hear the ambulances, growing in number these days. I see the EMTs with protective gear and masks. I know where the patients are going. I wonder if any of them are part of the growing death toll. I compartmentalize and struggle to breathe. I avoid stopping long enough to let anything settle.

On the 11th, I taught my last in-person class. Campuses were shuttered, the NY Governor made the final (and late call) to make the last city and state colleges and universities close. I came home, slightly rattled and unnerved. I slept for nearly two days. How odd. How telling. I would wake up and read endless emails and fall asleep again. I would send a text, half-awake, and then go back to sleep. I remember drinking water, taking my daily gremlins, and eating some crackers at one point. The apartment was dark. Was it night out, or was it merely because the curtains and blinds were pulled?

And there you have it. I'm scared. To the bone. Lupus and RA. Gut issues. Asthma, chronic sinus infections, and bronchitis make COPD. Inhalers and pills. Being a high-risk candidate for a mysterious, fast, and forceful, invasive virus is not a medal you want to win.  The email from NYU Langone advising me to stay put and avoid public settings didn't exactly fall on silent nerves.

I last taught on the 11th, like I said. I slept. On that Saturday, I hit up the Union Square Greenmarket late in the day, and I finally caught up with my wine guy. It was lovely and beautiful. I bought a handful of bottles. Two table grape, two desert ones, and a blush. Patrice convinced me on the blush, as I'm not really a blush girl. It goes well with dinner, I will say. I didn't go dancing that Friday, as the Colorado bestie begged me to stay away for a month or so. On Saturday, things were quiet, and people were missing (by NYC standards). On Sunday, I did a grocery shop. I'm on delivery, as even the governor has ordered patients like me to stay inside and such.

All of that being said, the pressure of this pandemic and life is startling. I compartmentalize well, as that's probably why I'm either not sleeping or sleeping for hours while waking up non-stop these days. Never feeling rested is the key to my current situation. I live alone with my two orchids, books, memories, and me. The texts ring and a weekly Zoom session with a colleague to knit, gossip, and maybe discuss pedagogy and academic discourse settle the gypsy soul  never stationary and never quiet. I called Jen when NY when on its shelter at home order. We are 21st-century gals and find phone calls a fresh hell. Calling is a shocking reminder of reality and place. My whats app, my email, and my social media ring with messages and alerts.

I'm angry and shocked and stunned. China's population is four times ours, and we had a warning. However, we have now surpassed the number of cases in the world. But those are matters for another discussion.

The youngest girl calling me Auntie is eleven. She's having the hardest time, we think, as she's breaking down near nightly. Last weekend was the first time since Ingy was three, there wasn't a leotard to wash. Last week was the first time since she was three, her Mom hasn't sent me a picture of video of her athletic prowess. She doesn't have practice for near twenty hours a week, her network is upended. She, like us, is struggling to adapt and conform to the new world order. In a series of texts, I told her I was stir crazy and was headed out for solitary walking in the final hours New York still had non-essential shops open. I asked if she wanted pics of my 'hood, and she said, "sure." I haven't sent them yet, and I certainly will. Before I do, here are some moments of life standing still. Hearts on hold. Dreams undone, frozen, waiting in time, without a due date.

Scenes of the usually bustling intersection, filled with life, horns, and chatter.  Near dead silent, on a Sunday.  Standing there, I wondered how many people would have ever thought they'd see NYC streets like they are now.

A reflection of my self, in the window of my favorite coffee shop (in this 'hood).  It had just been renovated.  Bubble teas and lattes are on hold until the sun runs the other way, I presume.

Restaurants shuttered to take out only, shocking the NYC soul with empty tables and no bartenders.  And libraries with books no one can access.

Empty sidewalks, space to spread out, to walk alone in your own thoughts and solitude.  A onetime luxury and dream.  Now . . . now a daily reality.

I was asked today how I am, "really" is what the text said.  How am I, I wonder? The solitude of solitude wears down on you at times. You find yourself wondering what to do next. I don't slow down, and I'm afraid of stopping. If I do, I'm not sure what will happen. Will I collapse? Will I let it all sink in and breakdown?

I've lost most, if not all, of my summer income already. I'm gasping, but I'm refusing to stop and think. I have a flight to Athens for mid-June and a ticket from Athens to Thessaloniki for the next day. I'm set to be a speaker for two days. I'm set to return to Athens for two months. I've been looking at apartments. I have notes, plans, and agendas. For my birthday Tanfer was set to fly into Athens, and then she and I were going to head to Rhodes for me to do some more of my research and for us to have a drink in the Aegean Sea as I turn 44 and celebrate her turning it a couple months before me. First World problems concerning grant awards and stalled research are the least of my worries right now. I haven't admitted that Greece is most likely on hold, as I still believe in miracles and magic sometimes. Now, it is undoubtedly a time to believe.

Tanfer and I might have to wait to drink in the sea, and Elisabetta and I may have to wait a year to ride a few ferries and island-hop for a long weekend. Naxos was the plan, as years ago, a friend told me about it. He called it his dreamland. That was long before I began this project, began drafting and pitching articles and agreeing to write scripts for a webcast. Now, all of those are on hold, as the tides are frozen . . . unlike the sea that continually moves without hesitation for care. All the viruses in the world have yet to freeze the sea, kinda like dreams. They might be on hold, yet they don't stop. Now, we dream of things so common yesterday they would have been a fool's laugh.

I may joke that I survived the satan's bowels of hell of 2019, and a virus named after a beer isn't going to take me down, especially after surviving all the Everclear I drank in the '90s, but that is all it is. I'm not riding the subway, deepthroating subway poles as I told students in what became our final class, and I'm staying in. I walk alone, at times when fewer than few are out. I see in open curtains, endless streams of Netflix, and streaming. My personal favorite is the porn flowing these days. People forget, I guess, that we can see in those windows in a lockdown. I'm told Pornhub gave New Yorkers a month free, and I can tell you I believe it is being used from the looks of these bedroom and living room windows. I guess everyone has to find a way to cope. There's going to be a lot of pandemic babies and divorces when this is over.

I sew. I've fixed pincushions I made seven to eight years ago, extended pillow shams I made a decade ago, finished a blazer I got disgusted with and left hanging, made some intricate faces for a class proposal I'm working on, mended a handful of things for a friend, did more sewing for the business than I can possibly fathom, deep cleaned my bookshelves, dusted all the wall art, deep cleaned my toaster oven (it looks new), scrubbed my bathroom fixtures and floor a new level of white, made a baseball tee, organized a closet, swapped out seasonal clothes, organized the main room, almost cleared my desk off and out (holy shit, I know), caught up on emails, paid some bills, left some others overdue to wait a bit more, started to write again, graded, made some bras (which the irony is I don't wear them while working from home, so they sit in the drawer dreaming of a day they'll see light or a man again), made a messenger bag with leather and alterations, and the list goes on. That was all in a week and a half. I need to pace myself.

I've made a contingency plan, as frightening as it is. I have to, as I live alone. I have me. When the odds are that 70 to 80 percent of us are going to get this virus, and then you add the death toll in there, the numbers make your stomach fall. Think of your ten closest friends . . . hell, not even that. Think of your people, tribe, person per se. Tanfer, Betta, Jen, and me. Three of gets it. Which one dies? Did you feel some vomit in your throat? Did your stomach lurch? Did your eyes get watery?

I live in a First-World nation, the richest. Yet, I sew masks for friends as they've asked for them. They have no gear to protect them as the treat patients, and the rest of us are left to wonder what will happen if we end up on one of those ambulances we hear in the night. When we get to the hospital, already overcrowded and overrun, will we walk out or be rolled out to a final resting place?

And that's where I am at. Dreaming of Greece, of when this ends, of fresh flowers again (as it now the first time since I left Richard, I don't have a dose of them). Praying my health stays stable and solid, that my inflammations don't increase. Praying that by some magic of fate, no one connected to my heart falls prey, even more, that none of them meet their maker in the run of this beast. Maybe I'll date again, perhaps I won't. I'm solo, as usual, as there was someone, and then he vanished in the night. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one, as months and plans and chasing the girl when she said no . . . I'm living alone, during a pandemic. I'm carrying on with my usual voice and sense of obnoxious space. Yet, I'm not okay. I'm not okay at all, but I don't have a choice. If I don't make the coffee, cook the eggs, and do the dishes, no one will. If I don't take out the trash, the roaches will come. If I don't put one foot in front of the other, I will have nothing but unfinished projects, perhaps a failed legacy, and dreams left undone in the wake.