Life After Shelter At Home: So Many Questions

Art for my heart

Return to normal is starting, and I am fascinated. Fascinated being the word of choice but I really can't think of another, better one. How we will all navigate this: including those who believe we will return to our old normal, and those who believe we will never return to our old normal. Chicago is starting to open up, as is the entire state. I am grateful for state and local leaders who act like leaders, and who believe in science. Healthcare experts inform the decisions, and that matters tremendously. I am not downplaying the economic impact, and there are recovery models out there that posit that some people will choose to take health risks because of the economic implications of not doing so. It is not something to be scoffed at, the recession that is coming could be catastrophic. Since I can sit and do my work at home, I don't think I have too much of a right to judge folks who may not have options. I won't lie, I am frustrated by people who have options but still choose to risk the lives of others.


What do you do when someone in close contact with you won't wear a mask? When it's a family member or a loved one? When it's someone you encounter during the course of your daily work? It's hard to have that conversation. It's harder to have that conversation when wearing a mask is seen as an infringement of personal liberties. That is not a discussion happening in countries in Asia or other parts of the world, where individual liberties are not valued in the same way (not that that is without it's problems). I don't particularly enjoy wearing a mask, and nor do the people I know. But it's really not about that.

My newsfeed yesterday led me to an article about people who are part of m i l i t i a, preparing, nay looking forward to armed confrontation. If you are interested look up Hawaiian shirts and other keywords. I can't bring myself to link to any of it, it can't lead to anything good. On one hand, knowing feels like being prepared for...something. But knowledge of this kind is also paralyzing. Take a look at this article, which lays out in detail how the current administration is looking to stop and decimate visa and immigration pathways. After I read this, I felt like I couldn't breathe for a while, despite being aware of this risk for years at this point. I try and make peace with the uncertainty, nay the specific targeting of the programs regularly. There is not much I can do as individual, and to be anxious about something so beyond my control robs me of precious days and happiness. I can't decide whether knowing helps me in this case or not. Let's look at the worst case scenario: I (we) have to pack up and start all over again somewhere. Is there really a way to prepare for that stress and worry? In my mid-thirties I feel the loss of today to worry about tomorrow a lot more keenly. A sense of mortality, completely contrary to the sense of invincibility in twenties, has started to grip me more and more. Things end, people die, and somehow life keeps moving even as people's worlds collapse. I'm a beacon of cheerfulness, I know.

There is also the (inevitable?) feeling of confronting not only one's mortality, but also one's mediocrity. Is this it? Have I peaked? Is my future path predetermined at this point, and all the choices I make, while feeling freewill, are actually from a narrowed set of options. I value productivity and constantly challenging myself, and slowing down and acceptance of what is. They feel contradictory but I am not sure that they are, or rather that they have to be. I am also aware of not being as hungry and driven as I used to be in my twenties. Of course, a lot of that was driven by pure insecurity and anxiety, and hardly healthy. But I still want to regain some of that motivation, and to be fair to myself, I have been able to in the last two months. The time I have saved on commuting, I have been able to put towards exercising (the sole aim right now is consistency, the rest can come later); cooking for myself (I believe that pretty much anything I make at home is healthier than takeout or delivery options available to me); and finally learning/studying. I wanted to take the project management exam, which is an extraordinarily tedious process: both the preparation, and the actual exam -- think four hours, one ten minute break, no water in the exam space etc. It's a test of mental and physical endurance, and I am not sure who the physical endurance piece serves.

What's Your Pandemic Personality and Other Stupid Questions

When acrylics are not an option,
Static Nails to the rescue

One of the worst takes so far (far below the take that people who work for places like Instacart and Amazon are making a freewill choice) is that we must use the Pandemic to self-improve, and come out on the other end better and more accomplished people. This is a bad take. For many, many reasons. For starters, it's a pandemic and not a vacation. It's stressful. It's traumatic. We have to stay at home, it's not a choice we are making (of course there is give and take on this depending on where you live). Our "best selves", whatever that may be, isn't going to emerge just because we suddenly have free time. A lot of us actually don't have free time -- think of the people working + raising and schooling kids + being caregivers and more. Some folks are trapped in abusive, dangerous situations. Our support 
There are obviously some of us who can make choices, which make the situation less worse. One of the first choice or realization should be to ask yourself: are you able to work from home safely and stay employed? That in itself is more than most of the world; although it may seem like this is the dominant way of working, it is not. I think it's okay to whine occasionally as long as we don't lose that perspective. Sure, it sucks to be inside when it's a nice day outside. But it's absolutely nothing compared to having to go outside because you have zero choice. Unemployment is not a choice most people make willingly. Nobody should have to remind others of that but apparently we do.



I have found that after reminding myself of both my luck and privilege, it becomes easier to switch to seeing minor irritations for what they are -- minor, insignificant irritations. If you have made it this far, perhaps you are interested in seeing my list of little pleasures (and just to absolutely clear, I would happily trade all of these to not be in a pandemic world):

1. The ability to sleep and wake up at my natural wake up time. I am not a morning person. In fact, I am a better person when I wake up at 8 am. That is not an option on a regular workday. I am enjoying it for now.

2. Actually utilizing my whole wardrobe of workout clothes. And, and, and actually using them to workout! Not every single day but a lot of the days. Not always cardio but often. 

3. Doing laundry regularly (okay, okay, once a day). Apparently there are no 'coin collectors', whoever those people are. So the quarters keep showing up and laundry is basically free. I launder everything, I dislike the idea of soiled clothes or linen. Anything that can be washed must be washed.

4. Starting to reduce my grasping/hoarding mind. I definitely had a period of this in March, and I finally seem to be moving away from it. I have enough. There are a lot of reasons for having scarcity mindset but I think it's time to start letting go of it a little.

4. Talking to people I haven't spoken to in a decade, half a decade, or even few years. Zoom/videos can be exhausting of course, but it has been nice to catch up with folks. We may not be as close as we once were but our lives intersected and may still intersect in the future and it's just a nice feeling.

One overall theme (not unexpected at all) is that people's lives have taken expected trajectories, and mine has not -- depending on which decade you use as a baseline. At 25 I did not imagine that, at 33 it's a choice I've made. But I still find myself trying to explain my life as a series of choices versus things that happened to me (partnered but housed separately, child/less/free etc, my work which is.. not a traditional path but really not that unusual either). I am not sure why I offer the explanations without anyone asking: guilt? certainty that people have those questions running in their minds? Who knows. What I do know is that I have not really encountered (visible to me ha) judgment, rather kindness. I think this is a result of two things: my wise choice of friends (:)), and the overall maturity that comes in your thirties -- people see both the ups and downs of their choices and realize there are more choices out there.

On that note, back to puttering around the house before it's wine-o-clock ha.

May you live in interesting times...

Some generous soul left laundry
 quarters at all the machines

is fabled to be a curse and one can see how. Times right now are certainly...interesting, although I think that's a poor choice of adjective, given that calamitous and destructive are more applicable to the majority of the world. It's an odd helplessness, when inaction is supposed to help. I've reduced my consumption of news even more; what do I do with the endlessly rising numbers? Instead I finish the entire season 4 of Kim's Convenience in 2 nights, and I recommend it highly to you. But of course you won't watch it -- we all have these shows friends and colleagues recommend to us as must-watch. We file them in some neglected corner, sticking to what we know and enjoy. Occasionally our preference and the recommendation overlap, and it's a happy Venn diagram for a while.

Results of my accident stockpiling

On Friday I video-chatted with dear friends from grad school. I don't think anyone has vocabulary for what is going on, and so we also use humor to cope. Of course Saturday morning I woke up at the early hour of 7:30 am (it's all subjective) and could not fall asleep again. During the day I did face masks, hair masks, nail masks. I took the trash out, did laundry, cooked chicken, organized the spice racks, finished a (lighthearted) book, ironed clothes and more. All of it felt futile and the name for the feeling fell into place then: it's futility coupled with lack of an adequate purpose. As someone in the best possible situation currently, the inaction feels inadequate and irresponsible. It isn't as far as social distancing and staying at home is concerned. My grocery trips, while a piece in staying sane during this, will be reduced. What is a helpful distraction for me is likely certain illness for someone else, and wildly impossible. I am also deeply influenced by the Lori memes and am here for them! You gotta love the folder! Also the city and state level leadership is very heartening to watch, especially in a time where folks are doubling down to demonstrate federal incompetence.

Day...Whatever

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life? 
~Mary Oliver, Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches

It's been a minute (or maybe fifty, who knows). I haven't been too stir crazy on the weekdays, there is still work, enough to be done to keep the day busy. There are phone calls and video calls and all sorts of things that give the day a purpose. But the weekend felt a bit claustrophobic, especially because the weather was gloomy with gale-like winds. But even as I whine, I still know and count all my agnostic blessings regularly. There are a lot of them.

One interesting thing I am learning about myself is that the structures which are harder for me to put in place during regular days are easier now. Not because any of it is fun but because I know that it's a slippery slope when you let that first sink-full of dishes pile up. So I've been diligent about trash and wiping things down and running the vacuum cleaner. It's not productive per se, but it's movement and action. 

In the Great Hoard of 2020, the one thing I did not stock up on are quarter rolls. This is no small thing. If the only way you can do laundry is by painstakingly inserting quarters into an unpredictable machine, you do not want to find yourself without quarters. Or close to having none. Of course, as with all things that went scarce in the Great Hoard of 2020, so did quarters. They are now being rationed. I have general anxiety about a bunch of things but I have not stopped talking about quarters for a while now. I finally have three rolls now, yay local Mariano's, but I don't think I will ever be able to stop hoarding them. Or worrying about them. I do A LOT of laundry, and I think it's partly because it's the thing that feels most in control. Things are falling apart but I have clean linen. The world has been acting a fool about toilet paper and I would just like a realistic prediction about when they will be back on the shelves. And no, September of this year is not an acceptable answer. There will be books upon books upon case studies upon interview questions about the Great American TP Shortage of 2020. History is being written, and the villains are revealing themselves (people who bought 17000 sanitizer bottles, video game companies that tried to declare themselves essential services, organizations preparing to absorb the stimulus checks their employees receive). We see you.

Weird Times

I mean, I continue to make occasional jokes but they feel more subdued for now. This isn't ending anytime soon, and the global governmental incompetence, while hardly surprising is rather sobering. I feel like there is an analogy in this piece. The intensity of work varies, which I expect. Everyone's calibrating to this new reality. It's dissonant, how a pandemic is raging outside her homes while inside maintains a steady illusion of normalcy. To be honest, I've drastically reduced my consumption of COVID news. Every article is an escalation, another (necessary and inevitable) boundary being drawn. I may not know the specifics of which borders are shut down, but I know most of them are. I do not want to see videos of people who believe their faith will protect them from the virus. 

The beginnings of stir crazy are here, and it makes sense. I haven't worked from home in five years, and while my working muscle hasn't deteriorated, structuring my day outside of it to use energy has (if it was ever present). I'm not the only one. 

It does feel a little bit like there isn't much to say. What can one say, there is a pandemic raging out there, and we are not prepared for it. It's pretty leveling, no country, rich or poor, is spared. Nor are people. Some of how I feel is pretty fatalistic and I think that is culturally ingrained and resurfaces at a time like this  - it doesn't mean I don't follow all the things I must. My writing muscle has definitely withered, I haven't written formally or informally for so long. I've read some thought-provoking pieces about how to stay tethered and to an extent, not waste these days (in ways you don't want, if your wasting is intentional and serves you, go for it).

Oh October!

I don't know where October went. I do know that it snowed in October, the scariest thing about this Halloween. My mom left in the middle of October, the teacher's strike started the next day, and the subsequent eleven work days were..something else. We returned to regular work on a Friday, and it was disorienting to say the least. I think the weekend helped in resetting. It's been busy, good busy, but still busy. I still haven't figured out the complete trick to getting my mind to quiet down completely so I have a million thoughts flitting at any given moment. That's a stressful mind space, it does make me feel that in addition to whatever I am worrying about, there are things I am forgetting to worry about.  

Stacey Abrams: Leading from the Outside

On Saturday, I attended a talk organized as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival. The talk was with Stacey Abrams, whose nomination and work for the post of governor in Georgia, as she rightly said, was stolen from her through gerrymandering, voter suppression and suchlike. I found about the event through a whimsical google search for things to do in Chicago and I am so glad I did. It was a mess of a day, with a freak winterstorm breaking the streak of good weather we had. That is not surprising to be honest; it's one of those things I have to come to expect from the midwest, don't pack away your snow gear until it's June.  The auditorium filled up and the demographic was largely older. What was unexpected was that Stacey's introduction would be done by Lori Lightfoot, mayor-elect. 

Rest, Rinse, Repeat

One of the attributes I aspired to most in my twenties was the need for less rest. To be completely honest, I still envy people who need less sleep to function during the day. It just gives them more time to do more -- now doing more was an absolute ideal in my twenties but now.. now I question what makes the 'more' better. I thought of myself as an insomniac during undergraduate years but I now realize that it was more likely a combination of being a natural night owl and living in a household where the only guaranteed peace was between the hours of 11 pm and 6 am.

Unfortunately, the regular world as I know it favors the early birds over night owls even though those hours are not the most productive for everyone. While the only research I look for around sleep is how to become a morning person (and believe me I have trawled the internet far and wide for this), I did come across a podcast conversation about sleep and chronotypes and honestly all I could think was how long would it take for this to intersect with the world of work (longer than I would like let's be real). This is just one of the many pieces about the different sleep chronotypes and understanding how they work best.

In my twenties, I could and would power through days that followed nights of poor and inadequate sleep. In my thirties, that is harder and it impacts my ability to spend my day in a meaningful and engaged manner. I often think about how much happened in the last decade and how little I can remember if I did not make a point to note it somewhere. Of course, a lot has shifted since then, mostly for the better. One of those shifts is a deep need to be present in the here and now. One of the lines that resonate most with me (unattributed because I have no idea who to attribute it to): If not now, then when; if not here, then where. Part of being present for me is having the energy to engage in the moment and with the person in front of me. Apparently, no amount of caffeine can substitute for sleep. Still, there is always the lingering thought in my head about what else should I be doing. I occasionally have deep anxiety about what am I forgetting to be anxious about.

Theater Week: Fulfillment Center and The Realistic Joneses

Chicago Theater Week is coming up and it is probably one of the most interesting weeks of the year for me. Of course, it's never just a week and plays start before the week and continue on afterwards.


In my first year I went to four plays in a week. That was an overkill and in years since, I have used a different approach.What I value most from TW is that it introduces me to theaters that I absolutely did not know about. The Goodman, Steppenwolf, Chicago Theater etc are good but the theater there isn't always what I enjoy. In recent months, the plays that I see on there are also not plays I want to watch -- either the description feels too vague or the plot is just not for me. I know that I like my plays to be at least somewhat solid -- I need a beginning, a story and some sort of an end. Metaphors and all are fine in small doses, but if everything is a metaphor for something or a tangent, then the play is not for me.  Note, I am not calling them bad plays. They have their place and they have their people. I am just not one of them.

In the last two weeks, we went for two plays and honestly I was pleasantly surprised (we've seen some that felt real shitty and a few months ago, walked out of one at Steppenwolf). I must say they were both at small theaters, one with a very bare bones set. Both have fairly tight seating, no coat checks and both these plays had no intermissions. If you are like me and have to pee pretty regularly, that is not a great thing. Also, if like me you have at least two bags post the work day, plus a giant coat, it is cramped. But I recognize that this is the price of watching quality theater put on by people/groups that do not have access to large amounts of donations and grants in the same way I imagine the Goodmans and Steppenwolfs do.

And suddenly its August

Chicago evenings

It has been a while hasn't it? To be fair, between April and now, things have been very uncertain (more so than in general) and so I was mostly focused on existing, ping ponging between stress and coping, stress and coping, mostly unhealthy ways of the latter. I honestly don't remember much until early July for what it is worth, although I know a lot happened. I was out at a park with a friend today and this was around 8:30 pm -- the days are getting shorter and summers are coming to an end. My fourth summer in Chicago, if you can believe it. I can hardly believe it.

On Languages

This a piece I wrote a long time ago and I think it never got published anywhere (not as far as I can remember) so here it is:

Learn English! Learn Spanish! Learn French!
Brightly colored billboards dot highways, city streets, town alleys all over the world. They promise you a job, a better life, the entire world in an unreasonable span of time. Their lurid colors and bold fonts mask the dismalness of your life and firmly position language as your exit path to the promised land. Language, not for love, not for life, but to escape.

I’ve always loved languages, because they allow me to lament. To lament the loss that was given to me in my childhood and has carried me all the way to my adulthood. This is the companion of a lifetime, more constant than any loves and hatreds. At this point in my life I have lost an entire country and several cities and the counting hasn’t stopped. Of course, I must not be unfair. If I look at the scorecard, there are countless additions as well. Researchers claim that women have a richer vocabulary than men; feel free to blame my voraciousness on that. All I ask is that you allow me to put you in the category of people who need gender binaries to navigate the world. A stereotype for a stereotype is only fair.

Popping In, Hey Hey You

My wonderfully apt shower curtain

It's been a while hasn't it? I'd count the days except they would turn into months and I'd tell you all the things that changed except it would become a book. The best parts? I moved into my own apartment, I have my own room AND a spare room, I have grown up furniture. My recliner now has a companion love seat and I have a dresser. The dresser is gorgeous, it has a mirror that brings the room together. I enjoy having a room of my own in an apartment of my own and it has felt both natural and decadent, a little whisper of how marvelously selfish of you? The feeling of waking up and wandering into the living room and using the coffee maker to make myself a cup of average coffee (my skills are still sub par), of eating a meal at the table, so simple and yet so significant.

Portable

Moving kicks butt. I’ve done many kinds of moving. I started grand and gradually narrowed the imprudence of my ambitions. For my first move, I left my city, country and continent for a new set. All armed with two suitcases and a recklessness that in retrospect gives me the shivers. I half-knew a few people, I did not trust anyone. I was alone, more so in my head than in reality. Two years later, I decided (or rather was compelled to) to switch cities, leaving the calmer streets of Twin Cities for the bustle of Chicago. This time two suitcases would not be enough. Instead I had Amtrak ship six boxes for me, which arrived in the heart of downtown, in an underground city that I didn’t know existed. I cursed myself for those six boxes, as I tried to find someone who could drive me and the boxes for a price I could afford to what was to be a temporary home.

Shouldering

So today I woke up and something had happened to my shoulder/back. I couldn't stand or sit up and was hobbling most of the day. I absolutely had to do laundry today and I have promised myself that I will not eat lunch every single work day. The aim is to take lunch with me thrice a week and eat out the other two days. I never land up cooking during the week and so I use my Sundays to pack snacks, fruits and lunches. Given my shoulder today, I chopped then lay down, stirred then lay down, roasted and then lay down, packed some boxes then lay down. You get the drift. Everything took a lot of time but I am glad it was on a Sunday and not in the work week -- there isn't as much option for pause.

Daylight savings did something and I am not sure if I gained an hour or lost an hour but it was pitch black at 5 pm and that was not fun. I would have loved to take a walk but it felt like midnight. As I write this, I am huddled in front of a heater, eating ice cream, watching parks and recreation and in complete denial about some personal sadness. The show must go on, life waits for no one and grief is best worn alone (things I both believe and don't believe in).

Pause

I paused the other day and realized I was living the life I had seen other people live but somehow thought I would avoid - a messy, complex life, full of joy and grief at the same time, with no easy answers or resolutions. I was living in the gray, my black and white filter being rendered useless at the first hint of adult life. I am learning that compassion and compromise are not negotiable. What a messy, messy life. Who knew it would be like this. I find and lose things, I find and lose friends, I find and lose myself. I am not the constant I imagined growing up into.I try and live in the occasional kind moments. I remind myself goodenough, goodenough, goodenough. Live in the goodenough, stay, be kind, be here.

Taming the Chaos

I was born disorganized. At the end of my undergraduate degree, my mom did a massive clean-up in which she found hundreds of to-so lists that I had developed. I had lists to track other lists. I had lists on small chits of paper, on giant pages, on everything possible.

Rinse and Repeat, Rinse and Repeat

'At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss’

P Coelho

(not a fan of the author, but this line stands out for me)

I have learned that if I experience a specific feeling, a certain emotion, enough number of times (there is a magic number here but I have forgotten to keep count), that I start seeing a pattern, an ebb and flow.

Dancing with hope

Hope and I, we've had an interesting life together. We don't always get along, we are friendly but not friends. sometimes I think hope takes some grim pleasure in playing hide and seek with me. At others, I am sure hope is astonished by how blind I am to it being in front of me.

In today's bucket lists and pipe dreams

(I am trying this thing where I cut down on my caffeine-intake. It is hard. Very, very hard.) 

I am nothing if not ambitious in my dreams (and carrying grocery bags and starting new projects and cleaning the house and trying to lift things like furniture and moving from places). It does not always last. It does not last most of the times. But it lends itself to an entertaining life with a high probability of (mis)adventure.

After A Long Pause

This has been one of my longer pauses. The days and weeks have been full.