Stories that Matter in the Time of Covid

 I haven't been writing much during Covid, because I don't feel like writing about trivial things. And these days, everything that isn't a matter of life and death--or survival--are trivial things. 

The stories that bear telling are not my own. 

My friend Rita (not her real name), her experience of Covid is worth telling. 

Rita, recently divorced, is the single parent of a six-year-old boy. 

In December of Jan 2019, Rita received her degree in Marketing, which she completed while working as the manager of a new, high-end fast-food restaurant. 

She had overseen its opening--she hired the staff, worked with Chef on the menu, lined up suppliers...the whole thing, soup to nuts. It was the second opening in a planned chain; there were plans to open a third restaurant, and plenty of room for Rita to grow her career. 

And then Covid. 

For months, Rita's restaurant struggled to adapt, but the setup involved six or eight people coordinating the preferences of a moving line of customers: Quinoa or tabouli?  Brown, basmati, or jasmine rice?  What type of protein? What ethnic spin? Customers could choose from a menu, or customize their own layered meal. 

The restaurant adapted to social distancing by offering pick-up and drive-thru options. There was socially distant seating, at first; and then there was no seating. 

Rita experienced the stress and fear of potentially contracting Covid and losing a job that was more than a job: It was her career. It was her bright future.

The usually brisk foot traffic of a popular upscale shopping center gradually ground to a halt. 

When the father of one of the kids in her son's daycare came down with Covid, all of the daycare kids were considered exposed and were supposed to go into quarantine. 

Rita explained this to her boss. He told her to come into work, regardless. 

Rita explained, this meant she didn't have childcare. Her son had been exposed to Covid. He was supposed to be in quarantine.  He was far too young to be left alone. 

Rita's boss told her to bring her son to work with her, and try to keep him socially separated. Which was impossible.

Soon after that, Rita quit her job at the restaurant. 

Soon after that, the restaurant closed. 

Rita felt the stress and fear of having to find enough shift work or gig work to pay the bills. 

After her son returned to daycare, Rita picked up shifts at a local restaurant.

In the fall, Rita's son started school. It was just a few in-person hours a week, but it gave Rita enough time to work gig jobs.

But then cases of Covid surged, and her son's school went entirely online.  

Now Rita had to figure out how to look after her son full-time and find work that she could do entirely from home. 

Someone suggested that Rita file for unemployment. Someone else told Rita that they had filed for unemployment many weeks earlier, and still hadn't received their first check. 

What is Rita supposed to do?  

What are single parents with young kids supposed to do?  What are parents of young kids supposed to do if they are essential workers?  What are parents of young kids supposed to do if they are medical care providers? 

How are parents supposed to keep themselves and their children safe, educated, housed, and fed? 

Before Covid, I worked from home. During Covid, I work from home. I have dogs, a teenage son who doesn't need babysitting, and a husband who can work from home.

I will not insult people who are struggling like Rita by writing about my ennui. 

The Terrible Nothing Between Somethings

On  Tuesday, Nov. 3, I paid as little attention to the election as possible, knowing that more Republicans than Democrats would vote in person, that there would be a "red mirage," and it would feel like 2016 all over again. If I watched, I would go to bed with a heavy sense of dread and foreboding. 

So, I refused to pay attention and ignored it all, until the next morning, when I peeked at the results as reported in the Times.  

And for the next four days, until Pennsylvania called it for Biden, I was hooked. I kept a steady vigil of watching the incremental changes in fractions of percentages of votes in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. 

When Biden won, those for whom it signified a renewal of hope for the soul of the nation and the survival of the planet were elated. 

I felt enormous relief, and a joy that seemed to bubble up from out of some dusty old bin where it had been safely stored. My threadbare joy, smelling faintly like mothballs.

Of course, I didn't literally expect Covid to lift like a fog, just because Biden won the election.

Or maybe I did. 

For a few glorious days, everything seemed brand-spanking new.

Until it gradually sank into consciousness  that I would have to wait until January 20 for Biden and Harris to be sworn in before they could actually take office. 

And though I wasn't among those fretting that Trump would succeed in his bid to overturn the election results, I have never suffered gladly at any time in my life what I refer to as the nothing between somethings. 

In 10 weeks, there will be something, but for now: nothing. And that nothing has come at the worst possible time. 

I have never been patient with the nothing, but this is the worst one yet. 

In Wisconsin, as elsewhere, the number of hospitalizations and deaths due to Covid are so alarmingly high, there is talk of hospitals having to triage healthcare for everyone. People who feel sick enough to go to the hospital may have no choice but to stay home. 

The nothing gives space to denial, and to the yawning gaps in understanding and consideration. It gives space to misplaced anger. Space for disinformation and lies, in place of anything substantive and real.  

A negative response, unresponsiveness, absence of responsibility. 

The know-nothing, knuckle-headed, nonsensical nothingness of nothing. 

Watching Covid numbers is the opposite of election results slowly reversing course over a few days. 

Nothing opens up to a microscopic thing that steals our breath and sets people against each other, like a parasite of the brain. 

There is no number too great to fill the vast open space of nothing. 

Hospitals fill up, morgues fill up, days get shorter, nights grow longer; as we wait for something to begin.