LOVER

WE ARE COMING DOWN TO EARTH.

WE WILL NOT ARRIVE INTACT.

- Bayo Akomolafe

Public health and capitalism are incompatible

I'm the working poor. I have no sick days, no paid time off. No savings, no family, no material wealth, no job or home security. I have chronic diseases that compromise my immunity and I'm a trauma survivor living the embodied reality of C-PTSD. Ok, and? It is what it is, man. Who is at risk now isn't abstract if you know me. You know someone whose life can be endangered by flaunting your ability to ignore public health directives. My life, which I actually really deeply and wildly cherish. I'm not in self pity or crying out for attention - I'm just one of the many badasses out here who has relevant experience to share that can help us navigate this time as real allies.

Service work/grassroots advocacy is my medicine. Now that I'm on self quarantine, I'm leaning into my other medicines: cleaning, walking, crying, cooking, biking, prayer, writing, books, music, animals, nature, art, film. Humming energy into my heart and lungs - remembering who I am. Same as it ever was. The gifts and skills we have for our particular time amaze me. My actual life, with its traumas, loss, creativity and great adventures, has made me into somebody who can face this. We were made for this. Otherwise we wouldn't be here at all. Own it. And come to terms with the fact that if you're "not worried" about getting sick, nothing you do right now should be "about you".

And think of Iran, where they're dumping bodies in mass graves cuz of this virus and US sanctions have cruelly cut them off from help. Think of immigrants and prisoners and immigrant kids we've imprisoned, the most vulnerable. Think of the kids made vulnerable by no school and working parents - the anxiety of those parents, the predators just waiting. The domestic violence, addictions spiking. If you're out here shopping and eating out, getting your office cleaned and groceries bagged, think of the workers who have no choice but to be there for you. Think of the differently abled folks, the immune-compromised who can't grt basic stuff they need cuz suddenly people are scared of getting sick. Think of the trauma survivors who live with C-PTSD who have to endure this constant flood of threats. Who is made most vulnerable by this is who we should be CENTERING. I hope you're somebody who just gets this.

You can fill your house with toilet paper and sanitizer and snacks and still feel insecure and afraid, because material objects can't meet this challenge - this is what spirituality is for. I mean, no lie - my life would literally be easier by not having to manage abject poverty, yep. If I had any kind of safety net at all. It's true I can't buy stuff cuz I can't afford it, but also, what will help me most right now? What is the best medicine for where we are right now - a Costco shopping spree or tonglen meditation? One has always been free -

Remember the old ways

We are humans relearning to wash our hands. 

Washing our hands is an act of love

Washing our hands is an act of care

Washing our hands is an act that puts the hypervigilant body at ease 

Washing our hands helps us return to ourselves by washing away what does not serve.

 

Wash your hands 

like you are washing the only teacup left that your great grandmother carried across the ocean, like you are washing the hair of a beloved who is dying, like you are washing the feet of Grace Lee Boggs, Beyonce, Jesus, your auntie, Audre Lorde, Mary Oliver- you get the picture. 

Like this water is poured from a jug your best friend just carried for three miles from the spring they had to climb a mountain to reach.

Like water is a precious resource 

made from time and miracle

 

Wash your hands and cough into your elbow, they say.

Rest more, stay home, drink water, have some soup, they say.

To which I would add: burn some plants your ancestors burned when there was fear in the air,

Boil some aromatic leaves in a pot on your stove until your windows steam up.

Open your windows 

Eat a piece of garlic every day. Tie a clove around your neck. 

Breathe.

 

My friends, it is always true, these things.

It has already been time.

It is always true that we should move with care and intention, asking

Do you want to bump elbows instead? with everyone we meet.

It is always true that people are living with one lung, with immune systems that don’t work so well, or perhaps work too hard, fighting against themselves. It is already true that people are hoarding the things that the most vulnerable need. 

It is already time that we might want to fly on airplanes less and not go to work when we are sick.

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.

It is already time to stop using synthetic fragrances to not smell like bodies, to pretend like we’re all not dying. It is already time to remember that those scents make so many of us sick. 

It is already time to not take it personally when someone doesn’t want to hug you.

It is already time to slow down and feel how scared we are. 

 

We are already afraid, we are already living in the time of fires.

 

When fear arises, 

and it will,

let it wash over your whole body instead of staying curled up tight in your shoulders.

If your heart tightens,

contract

and expand.

science says: compassion strengthens the immune system

We already know that, but capitalism gives us amnesia

and tricks us into thinking it’s the thing that protect us

but it’s the way we hold the thing.

The way we do the thing.

 

Those of us who have forgotten amuletic traditions, 

we turn to hoarding hand sanitizer and masks. 

we find someone to blame. 

we think that will help. 

want to blame something? 

Blame capitalism. Blame patriarchy. Blame white supremacy. 

 

It is already time to remember to hang garlic on our doors

to dip our handkerchiefs in thyme tea

to rub salt on our feet

to pray the rosary, kiss the mezuzah, cleanse with an egg.

In the middle of the night,

when you wake up with terror in your belly, 

it is time to think about stardust and geological time

redwoods and dance parties and mushrooms remediating toxic soil.

it is time

to care for one another

to pray over water

to wash away fear

every time we wash our hands