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Arneson River Theater on the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas. Image description: A scenic view of a narrow green river, flanked by a small, empty outdoor stage on one side, and a stone path on the other. A stone bridge crosses the river on the far left side of the photo.
I was supposed to attend a writers’ conference called AWP. I was one of more than 10,000 people scheduled to fly into San Antonio, Texas at the end of last week. But just a few days before the start of the conference, the COVID-19 virus showed up in the U.S.—including possibly a case in San Antonio. Hand sanitizer and wet wipes disappeared overnight off the shelves of CVS, Walgreens, even the Staples in a sad strip mall on Gallivan Boulevard.
Suddenly many people, presses, and literary organizations decided not to go to AWP. Panels started getting canceled. Readings and events were called off. One of the people on the panel I organized decided not to go because he works with an elderly person and didn’t want to potentially risk the person’s health.
What should I do, I wondered. I wasn’t too worried about myself, given my low risk factors. I didn’t want to catch it, though, and bring the virus back to Boston. On the other hand, two of the presenters on the panel were 100% committed to going, and as the one who convened the panel, I felt a responsibility to show up.
After much deliberation, the conference organizers decided to go ahead with the conference. Literary Twitter / AWP Twitter was aflame. Folks who are disabled and their allies exposed the ableist bias behind much of the behavior around this decision.
I wasn’t sure what to do.
I tried to get sound advice. I listened to Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer-prize winning science writer interviewed by On the Media. She talked about mobs looting pharmacies and empty store shelves. She said that the Obama administration had had a sound plan for how to deal with an outbreak like this and the Trump administration had destroyed it.
She said that in the past, religious leaders provided moral guidance in times of crisis. She said it used to be that smart, agile public leaders could up with flexible policies to address societal crises. But now, we had neither religious or governmental authorities to be the leaders we needed.
So we were basically screwed, she implied. And the best thing to do was to follow the work of journalists like her who knew what was up and were reporting the science as best they could.
That was it: I was staying home.
~~~
I perused the heavy silver rings inlaid with turquoise and moonstone gleaming on the counter in the late afternoon sun. The woman who owned the store must have been at least 80. She seemed to be wearing two different lipstick colors—an orange shade on her top lip and a glossy pink on the bottom.
As I thumbed through the flowing organic dresses on the rack, she told me how she met a handsome man from Texas when she was a young woman in California. She moved out to San Antonio to marry him. But he was too handsome, she said. They had seven kids, and he left her for someone else. It was a relief, she said. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where you’re so relieved when it’s over.” I nodded. “I was relieved. But I didn’t know what to do. Eventually, I opened this store, and sent all my kids to college. And also my grandkids—the last one just took the bar exam this week.”
“It’s a beautiful store,” I said. “You did well by your kids.”
“You do what you have to do,” she said.
She said, “You enjoy our beautiful city, darling” as I stepped into the warm Texas evening, glad I had made the decision to come, after all.
Most people I interacted with in San Antonio outside the conference were friendly like this. They offered genuine smiles and said hello. They chatted like we had all the time in the world.
And at the conference itself, I felt strangely more relaxed than I usually do at this annual event, which I’ve been attending off and on since about 2006. I heard that only about half the registered attendees came. We were all sprinkled out around the huge, labyrinthine convention center. I bumped elbows and took my time washing my hands. I attended panels and events from the slimmed-down schedule and chatted at length when I ran into friends at the half-deserted book fair echoing with empty tables.
I missed the people and organizations who did not come. And, I came to appreciate how, for the most part, the vibe was more low-key community get-together than overwhelming networking scene.
~~~
Where Garrett instilled panic, Dori Midnight brought calm and perspective with this beautiful poem on washing hands and caring for those in our community.
It is already time that we might want to know who in our neighborhood has cancer, who has a new baby, who is old, with children in another state, who has extra water, who has a root cellar, who is a nurse, who has a garden full of elecampane and nettles.
It is already time that temporarily non-disabled people think about people living with chronic illness and disabled folks, that young people think about old people.
Susan Raffo, in her blog post, asked what if our response to this virus changes the way we care for each other and our community? Could it help us do better by each other and the earth in the climate crisis?
I keep being struck by how the things we should be doing in response to the coronavirus are really the things we should be doing as a way of being alive. They are about caring for ourselves and for each other, about building and supporting ongoing collective strategies of safety and wellness rather than staying isolated until and if the shit hits the fan when we then have to rely on infrastructures that don’t know our names (and too often, carry retraumatization alongside supported care).
This delightful cross stitch crossed my Instagram feed: “Wash your hands and don’t be racist,” while I learned that organizers were developing trainings to counter the racism and xenophobia against Asians and Asian Americans. And to support struggling Chinatown businesses, my favorite food writer in the Boston Globe gave us the scoop on where to eat in Chinatown.
A wise friend and colleague who had immersed himself in information about COVID-19 patiently answered all my questions about how the disease was transmitted, what the risks were for me in traveling, and how likely it was that I might bring it back to my community.
Not very likely, he said, if you take the right precautions. Do all the things to minimize exposure. And if you do get sick, he said, stay home. Stay home and rest. Stay home and get better. Take care of the collective by taking care of yourself, because you can. Because you have the privilege to do so.
~~~
On my last night in San Antonio, I sat at a restaurant on the River Walk as the sun set. A river barge filled with tourists gawking at the up-lit colonial architecture sailed by, the fast-talking, joke-cracking captain in a blue shirt and cowboy hat spinning the silver steering wheel with the palm of his hand.
I ate an enchilada and read an article (via Ann Friedman’s newsletter) about how this is the time not to turn inward, but to turn outward. How this time calls for us to not hunker down alone with our hoarded supplies, but to check on our neighbor and to make a plan with our community. To understand better how we are connected and dependent on each other, and to act in alignment with those connections.
~~
Our panel, Spelling: Poetry as Spellcasting, was packed full, even in its 9 am slot. In the end, we all stood in a giant circle around the room and read a line we had written in response to Joy Harjo’s poem “The Creation Story”:
If these words can do anything, I say—
Maybe 50 of us standing or sitting, linked through intention, poetry, and magic. Everyone spoke a line of hope, or anger, or determination, or vulnerability. We invoked trees and blue bonnets and walls and water. If these words can do anything, I say—
A panoramic view of the AWP group poem, taken by poet Su Hwang. Image description: Many people standing along the edges of a conference room, many holding open notebooks, while a man in a white hoodie reads off of his phone.
I realized that Garrett wasn’t correct. Not about the science—I’m sure she’s right about the science. But I don’t think she’s right about the social context. That we don’t have guidance on how to behave because we don’t have spiritual leaders and smart governments.
What I experienced over the last few days is that we do have spiritual guides and smart community leaders. They are not the bishops and the presidents of yore with top-down authority to calm the masses.
They are poets and writers, witches and healers, organizers and operations experts who have their own way of reaching people via the Internet or through community networks, disseminating wisdom. They help us see how we can and must take good care not just of ourselves and our family, but our neighbors and community.
And we know how to do that—even if our individualistic, capitalistic society has tried to drum it out from us. We know how to take care of each other. In times of crisis, people come together. They show up and care for each other. That’s how we’ve always survived. And right now, at this moment, that’s how we’ll survive: doing right by ourselves and each other.
Prompting / Engaging
This month’s prompts are more practical than usual:
As I was finishing up this newsletter, this episode from the Healing Justice Podcast came out: Coronavirus: Wisdom from a Social Justice Lens. It’s an edited version of a webinar that centers the wisdom of folks with chronic illness. I highly recommend listening and checking out the resources provided.
If you haven’t already adopted hand washing best practices, learn how to do it right now. This amazing site will generate the hand-washing infographic based on your favorite song lyrics.
Image description: A graphic representation of the 13 steps of proper hand washing, with each step accompanied by the lyrics of first stanza and the chorus of Indigo Girl’s song, “Closer to Fine.”
Reach out to your neighbors. If you don’t already know them, take the time to learn their names and a little bit about them. Maybe trade phone numbers. If you know them, consider making a community plan with them. Who might need extra checking in on? Do you need a child care plan? Are there kids who get free lunch at school that will need help if schools are closed?
Community/Announcements
Split this Rock: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2020. This could change, but as of now, I’ll be reading (in person? virtually?) at this poetry gathering as part of: “Sorrow’s Not Enough: Queering Climate Crisis” on Saturday at 11 am.
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