There are now an increasing number of stances you can take about being forced to stay home. The stances may be infinite for all I know, but let’s review the ones getting the most play.
There’s the Gratitude stance, which I personally find horrifying. This one is popular on Instagram, often with a stupid Buddhist-style image of a sunset and a silhouette of someone doing a yoga pose. It’s a sanctimonious sermon on how this pandemic can teach us to use the planet more gently, how we now have the opportunity to rethink our selfish ways, blah blah blah. It’s an awful slap in the face to anyone who is actually suffering. I refuse to be grateful for a pandemic. Fuck that idea and the horse it rode in on.
Then there’s the Scolding stance, another dreadful position that tries to make you feel bad for spending hours watching Netflix or staring at your phone. This one blames you for losing touch with your Inner Life and your creativity. What’s wrong with you! it gripes, You brainwashed consumer! Have you lost the ability to sit in a room and just be present? Please. As if.
Then there’s the Silver Lining stance. This is the one where you finally have the time to learn a new language, to read War and Peace, to finish that screenplay, to rearrange your living room, try out new recipes and to host zany get-togethers with your girlfriends on Zoom. It’s fun being home with free time! Let’s get busy!
There is also the Existential stance, and that’s the one I’ve chose for now, although it’s more accurate to say it’s chosen me. This is the one where you face down your dread, the continual dread of being alive but close to death. It’s the one where you realize your existence can be reduced to almost nothing, just eating and sleeping with some time-wasting stuff in between. You wonder why you bought all those clothes, all those stupid eye pencils and shoes and trinkets. Life is only about having someone to talk to, to hold you, and a decent bed to crawl into. Life is about waiting for something to happen but hoping it won’t be something awful or unbearable.
However, the last couple of weeks have brought some unexpectedly wonderful moments. I watched Jeopardy for the first time in probably twenty years, and one of the categories was “Otters.” I forgot the question, but it led to the revelation that otters hold hands while they sleep. This is the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard, and sure enough when I googled it, I found loads of pictures. I’m so glad to have discovered this, I can’t overstate the joy it has given me.
Also, in the same episode of Jeopardy, I was able to shout out a few questions before anyone hit the buzzer, a momentous burst of feeling intelligent that I haven’t experienced in ages. It reminded me of my mother, dying of cancer and watching Jeopardy in bed, crying out the word “Loyola!” in a weak but authoritative voice, and being correct.
As time passes, my stance may change. I wonder if I’m the only one who is mentally writing a will? In California, a handwritten will with your signature is legal and binding. I’ve already promised my tiger claw jewelry to my friend Marya and my footwear will go to Simone. Anyone want anything else? Now’s the time to speak up!
Interested to see who gets the lesbian stick.
Unfortunately, everything I love about you is non-transferable. You can’t leave me your insight, great writing and intelligence…hmmm, or maybe you already have, right here.
Hate me all you want, I hope you live forever.
On Covid, I’m leaning towards ‘silver lining’. I love watching the human spirit prevail. I also love watching the absolute best and worst of humanity. This is no longer about a battle with a virus. This is about a war, and who will win this war, the hoarders or non-hoarders?
Suspended – YES, the lesbian stick is a real collectable, I forgot that! You have given me much more, I have to say, and many times you have given me a reason to continue writing here, or a reason to forgive myself for being me. I think you know how I feel about you.
And yes, it’s a war, with doctors and nurses leading the way for humanity. Also a war that has no regard for the impoverished, who don’t have a home to shelter in, or the luxury of staying 6 feet apart. In India, they are sleeping in trees.
You have already given me a beautiful hand-painted miniature figurine of San Martín de Porres, in person. The look on our 2 faces as you finished the handoff to me in 2011 was priceless when, spontaneously, his head fell off in an act of sudden self-martyrdom mixed with pure pique. For a brief second, I felt like Linda Blair in ‘The Exorcist’ when the priest touches her with a rosary and she gets huge rosary-shaped welts. You and I laughed and laughed as we looked for his minuscule head. I still have him, and some well-applied ‘Gorilla Glue’ has prevented any further décolletage hi-jinks from little Martín ! Never before has my devout atheism resulted in such hagio-carnage !
Love always !!!
??????Yes! I want all those trinkets and clothes and jewelry you shouldn’t have bought! I still LOVE your old gold eye shadow from the 60’s that you gave me in the 90’s And your handbags! But I don’t mean to sound greedy – I just mean that your stuff is loved and wanted by me too. ?Also I want to write a trust but we can’t do trusts now since the government has shut down all non essential offices ?
I believe you need one or two signatures from people who don’t benefit from your will.
Just keep those rants, thoughts, musing and humor coming. I have enough stuff. I’m at the existential level. I don’t want to hear the ridiculous “it’s happening for a reason,” or it’s Gods punishment. Fuck that. If covid wants me make it worth my time. I’m looking forward to a spectacular battle…bring it on
Who will get…
THE LESBIAN STICK?!?!?!
Please tell me there will be Thunderdome style combat in order to determine who gets the lesbian stick. Please. I need this.
I had to google the otters. Oh my god! Best thing ever.
Look, I’m a be honest: I don’t care who winds up with the Lesbian Stick. I’m really just all about bringing back gladiatorial combat. All about it.
Thanks for your posts,you make me feel alive. Here in Australia,it is all about be kind to each another.Sometimes I feel stubing somebody with fork,sick of kindness
I forgot, I found very entertaining to wear my bikini or swimming suit in the house with plenty mirrors, I am 5 kg overweight middle aged woman.
Existential- the only obvious choice as if we had one and didn’t live this way anyway! I’m looking forward to simple hatred of the grocery store again as opposed to the present paralyzing fear.
Have you seen the mom otter holding her baby?! I can’t. It makes me think how if my kids have to go to the hospital they won’t let me come. Or how they’ll be orphans if I die. Fear overtakes boredom overtakes fear ad nauseum
Your perpetual total rightness is appreciated!
There’s a growing body of evidence that the rise of various diseases (such as Covid, Ebola, Zika, West Nile, SARS, Lyme disease etc) in recent decades is due to ecological factors brought about by the extreme destruction and disruption of natural ecosystems across the planet. The good news is that taking the Existential stance should fix at least the existentialists. Facing and accepting one’s own mortality and fragility in the wider scheme of things is a necessary step in anyone’s life. How to bring that to non-existentialists is a good question. Perhaps it will happen by itself with the next anthropogenic calamity 🙂
Thank you for those lovely words, Sis. I’m touched that anything I’ve said, ever, could have eased someone’s burden, especially yours.
I’m better known for my snark than my kindness.
xoxo