We've Been Here Before
We’ve Been Here Before
Everyone is saying we are in uncharted waters right now. Like we don’t know these currents and this water doesn’t call us by name. Maybe the waves break anew and the water prefers to be known differently, but we’ve been here before.
When I drive to work I replay voices from across the globe saying don’t be selfish. Stay inside. Stay home. Each meter driven seems a betrayal to my community. But from behind my ribs I can hear my heart whisper now is not the time to be selfless. I keep my foot on the gas and keep moving farther away from my front door.
I do not want to be selfless ever again.
I find no pride in losing me in the pursuit of fulfilling the wishes and needs of others.
I hold onto the steering wheel tightly. My heart is not one to be reckless. Each beat is calculated. Each beat carries life. It knows how close it is to death and it walks the tightrope every second. My heart knows its responsibility. It takes life seriously. It is not selfless. Ever. It beats for me and me alone. But it does not forget it is the only beast alive in this universe. It was brought into this world to move alongside its kin. Each one selfish. Each one keenly aware of its own fragility.
My heart whispers I know what I am. I know I am not the only one of my kind. When you see my kin, be careful. When you see someone who is like us, alive, be compassionate. Be so full of self, so full of humanity, that you do not forget how easy it is to die. We do not have time to forget how precious life is. We do not have time to forget that we are not the only ones in existence at this moment.
I belong to you. I belong to you. I belong to you. We are, like our kin, alive.
When I was younger I used to be afraid of working a menial job. I thought of it as a badge of shame worn by those who could not and would not be successful. But here I am, working a menial job and considering myself successful. You see, those of us who spend our days in unrecognized servitude to our communities know we are the backbone that holds the head on the body.
It is privilege or misfortune to be able to sit at home and demand others also do the same.
To be in a line of work where you can work from home is a blessing. To be in a job that gives paid time off is a blessing. To be in a job that provides health insurance is a blessing. To be able to stay in a safe home and afford to live is a blessing. To be at home and able to provide for your family is a blessing.
To be at home, unemployed, is a misfortune.
The dishwasher at my job broke. I was elbow deep in soap suds with water all over my apron when I started contemplating reality.
My mother is a teacher and my father, a renaissance man. One afternoon my mother said goodbye to her school class the next, she finds out she is not going back until further notice. My father asks her what the kids will do while their parents work. My father wonders if their parents are still employed. My mother does not know the answer. My mother asks my father if he will still have a job after all of this. My mother wonders what life will look like after all of this. My father does not know. My sister came home from college. She is in the room beside mine sending emails about the accessibility and equity of online higher education. My dog is the happiest of the group. Everyone he loves returned. My entire family stays home except for me.
I wonder where people go when they do not have a home to return to. I wonder how they can shelter in place when they do not have a shelter or place to call theirs.
In the USA people are sitting in their homes in quarantine, self-isolation, and social distancing. They are hungry for connection and lonely in segregation. They cannot imagine a life lived like this forever. They call this their prison. I would hate to see how they fared in actual prison. I hate to think of how people do.
And yet I still do think of the inmates in prisons across the country. And those locked up in detention facilities. Maybe this virus is the key to their cages. Maybe it is the final death sentence. The threat of death and the promise of freedom are forever intertwined.
I hope the bars bend and the doors swing open. Humans were not meant for cages. Nothing alive is.
The word ‘pandemic’ used to roll of my tongue sticky and new. But with each passing day my throat throws it up smoother. How did we get here? What god did we upset to deserve this? Was this god’s doing? Or was it ours? I scroll through my Instagram and I see numerous posts speculating that this is the world’s way of resetting back to a sustainable place. I scroll through Facebook and I see proclamations of God’s intentions to deliver us, in good health, to a future of deep connections and abundant love.
Me, I prefer to not speak on the mind of God, Mother Earth, or of whatever higher power is watching this unfold.
God, ever omniscient, has a track record of letting us die. Also, of granting life- but life does not come without death. Mother Earth only takes care of herself and the animals that travel through her body carefully. She takes care of us only when we take care of her- no sooner. And even then, she does not always do as we wish.
I guess what I am trying to say is this: believe what you need to, but don’t forget that we have to save ourselves. God gives us each other and Mother Earth opens her belly and and lets us share her womb with everything else alive- save for the stars and the galaxy; they know what it is to truly live.
What we do with each other and how we grow in the womb is up to us.
Nowadays I often question the fabric of reality. Every time I wonder too far into the abyss of unravel my heart tugs me back. It asks me not to leave me in search of a lifetime that is not and will never be ours. It asks me not to leave us. So I travel back to here.
Here is a place I have been to before.
You see, life is cyclical. We can go to dry land, bask in the sun or under clouds that colour gray, but the rain always comes. Or we fall down a well. Or dip a toe into the pond or swim in the ocean. This water has us returning like we are of it- and we are, partly. This water goes by many titles, but today we can call it life.
So when people say we are in uncharted waters, believe them. Water is fluid and expansive and ever-changing. Do not ask it to be anything it isn’t. But know we are not strangers to hard times and heartbreaking situations. We have been here before.
My heart speaks up again.
Perhaps this is a practice in resilience or a lesson in humanity. Maybe it is both. All I know is this is sacred- this water. The returning is necessary. A baptism of sorts. This is life, undenied of fullness. Soak it in. You are not alone in your ocean. And it is not yours alone. Only I am completely yours. This ocean you are swimming in is shared with all my kin- the beasts with no eyes or bodies, bound behind ribs, beating because our lives depend on it. This ocean is vast. We are all in this now. That’s why they called it pandemic.
Some of us are swimming or floating. Some of us are sinking. Some of us have already drowned. Life will do that to you. It will force us to face our mortality in one way or another. We do not have time to forget how precious life is. We do not have time to forget that we are not the only ones in existence at this moment.
I belong to you. I belong to you. I belong to you. We are, like our kin, alive.
We have been alive before. In fact, we never stopped.
-K
I belong to you. I belong to you. I belong to you. We are, like our kin, alive.