Spacious Solidarity Blog: Day 15
In the middle of the night we wake to sounds of screaming. It’s a high-pitched, chaotic scream that I quickly realize, with great relief, is not human. My partner’s not so sure so I have to do some reassuring.
Once that’s clear, we argue briefly about whether it’s a cat or a fox. I win the argument. It’s definitely a fox. I immediately fall back to sleep and start to dream.
I’m swimming in a public pool in a Welsh village (I don’t know how I know I’m in a Welsh village). There are no lane-dividers so I have to work hard to avoid other people who are not only swimming in the opposite direction, but also perpendicular to me.
The old people treat me with cautious kindness. I don’t know where I am or how I got here but get to swim so I don’t care.
Over morning coffee I give in to the temptation to check my phone. A few days ago a friend sent me a news article about the Emergency Coronavirus Act passed by the UK government last week. She’s worried about the impact on our civil liberties.
I’ve been avoiding reading the article. Now I take a deep breath and click on the link.
I learn that the police can now detain people in public who show symptoms of coronavirus. The government can restrict large gatherings and public events. They’ve loosened checks on their surveillance powers. They’ve suspended local authorities’ legal duty to care for the elderly and disabled. Now only one doctor needs to sign off whether a person is sectioned.
The bill will be reviewed every six months.
I try and imagine what the world will look like in six months. Just the idea of it makes me feel nauseous. I’d like to think things will be better, we’ll have “flattened the curve” and life will feel normal again. But I know deep down that there is no going back to normal.
Normal wasn’t that great, after all.
In our highly polarized world, forces are gathering on both ends of the spectrum to use this moment to their advantage. On the right, conservatives see a unique opportunity to swoop in with new draconian measures that they’ll make hard to reverse.
On the left, progressives are dreaming of a utopian future.
Now’s the chance to take a good long look at the impact of decades of late stage capitalism, centuries of colonialism and industrialization, millennia of patriarchy and countless years of the domination and oppression of Black and indigenous people.
This could be a moment of deep reflection, full of the potential for paradigm-shifting and reimagining how we share this planet together. All 7.8 billion of us.
And although I am 100% behind that I also feel woefully inadequate to play my part. I fear the forces of greed and hatred, so strong in our world. I want to believe that love is stronger, but I also know that this world and all that inhabit it are ultimately beyond salvation.
I sit with the complexity. The world is beyond saving and yet I’ve dedicated my life towards personal and collective liberation. Since coronavirus, I’m not sure I know what that means anymore.
The next article I read is about food shortages. Soon things like asparagus and strawberries will need picking but there’s no one to do it. Those unskilled workers the government wanted to get rid of last month are looking pretty essential now, but they aren’t here. And in order to get them here they’d need to be flown in from Europe.
Some are calling for the government to ask for local volunteers, like they’ve done for the NHS. The government’s response is that the industry can handle it. It’s being taken care of. I have little confidence in this.
I start fantasizing about stock-piling canned fruit and veg.
I decide that’s enough news for today and that I need a shower. As I reach for my bathrobe I notice the new carry-on bag I’d bought specifically for our Easter trip to Gran Canaria, now collecting dust in the corner of our bedroom.
I realize I’ve done nothing about getting our flight refunded. I’m all of a sudden ashamed of the past version of me who wanted to get on a plane to go sit on a warm beach for five days. It’s ludicrous and obscene and I can’t help but feel guilty about it. When this is all over I need to do a serious re-evaluation of how much flying I do.
In meditation I remember my step-mother reading a nursery rhyme to my four year old niece last Christmas.
This is the house that Jack built.
I remember thinking then that the story was a perfect description of interconnectivity. And that now our dependency on one another has been laid bare. I come up with a rewrite (inspired by the chilling last scene in the film Contagion):
This is world that capitalists built
This is the virus that got unleashed on the world that capitalists built
This is the animal that carried the virus
That got unleashed on the world that capitalists built
This is the tree that housed the animal
That carried the virus
That got unleashed on the world that capitalists built
This is the forest that grew the tree
That housed the animal
That carried the virus
That got unleashed on the world that capitalists built
This is the tractor that demolished the forest
That grew the tree
That housed the animal
That carried the virus
That got unleashed on the world that capitalists built
This is the man
Who operated the tractor
That demolished the forest
That grew the tree
That housed the animal
That carried the virus
That got unleashed on the world that capitalists built
This is the company
That paid the man
Who operated the tractor
That demolished the forest
That grew the tree
That housed the animal
that carried the virus
That got unleashed on the world that capitalists built
This is the woman
Who managed the company
That paid the man
Who operated the tractor
That demolished the forest
That grew the tree
That housed the animal
that carried the virus
That got unleashed on the world that capitalists built
This is the disease
That killed the woman
Who managed the company
That paid the man
Who operated the tractor
That demolished the forest
That grew the tree
That housed the animal
That carried the virus
That got unleashed on the world that capitalists built
Later I’m on a group Zoom call with friends. One of us is in her 80s and can’t get her sound to work so we suggest she phones in but keep her video on so she can still see us. Amazingly, she manages to do just that, but then also magically her computer’s sound starts working and now all we can hear is spinetingling feedback.
We then spend about half of what’s left of the meeting convincing her that she needs to hang up her phone, which eventually resolves the problem. But somehow, as soon as she’s done that, she’s forgotten that she’s done it. She continues to hold her phone to her ear for the rest of the meeting.
I think to myself how much material late show comedians are going to have after this.
She tells us that she’s got people doing her shopping for her. They often come back with only half of what she needs. She isn’t worried though, she knows she’ll manage.
I worry for her. She is old and frail and has dementia.
On our daily walk we end up back at Hackney Downs. The sky’s doing amazing things so I take lots of pictures as we walk and talk. People are doing a better job at social distancing, except the dogs.
We weigh the pros and cons of adopting one and I make the point that we’ll have to feed it. My partner doesn’t seem to mind about that. It’s the picking up their shit that they don’t want to have to deal with. We decide now is not the time. This is a conversation we’ve had a hundred times.
Its leftovers for dinner and then a movie. We watch Luce, a complex American psychological thriller about race, power and privilege. It’s intense in the right sort of way. In a pivotal scene the main character, a young Black man, and his white adoptive mother are having an all-out, no holds barred brawl.
She finally admits that she’s simply trying to protect him. At that he responds:
What if you’re part of what you’re trying to protect me from?