Spacious Solidarity Blog: Day 27
We’ve been talking about going for a bike ride through central London for a days and today we finally have the time.
We debate whether to pack a picnic lunch. We’re planning to be out for long enough that we know we’ll need a break at some point and something to eat. We decide to take some food with us and see how it goes. If we can stop within a safe distance from others just long enough to eat something, we’ll do it. It’s not so much a picnic, as a pit stop.
We head out just before noon. We’ve got four hours before I need to be back home for a FaceTime date with a friend in the US.
It’s a warm, sunny day, the springiest so far. We make our way southwest through the neighborhood, keeping to the backroads. We’re headed towards Hyde Park. Just down the road from our house we pass people in line for the local farmer’s market, Growing Communities.
We stop to take photos of a wisteria vine in full bloom covering almost the entire façade of a neighbor’s house. Then my partner notices a front garden covered in purple iris’s where an elderly couple is sitting, chatting with their neighbors. I ask them if I can take a photo of their flowers and they happily agree.
They ask me where I’m from and I notice the excitement of having a real, live, face to face conversation, from a safe distance of course. The energy overtakes me and, before I know it, I’m telling them all about how family cocktail hour has become a weekly occurrence and how strange it is to be in more contact with my family than ever before.
Suddenly I feel self-conscious and decide to take my leave of them. They are smiling and saying nice to meet you as we get back on our bikes. Just before we ride away a man wearing a face mask with a smile on it wizzes by on his bike. He is blasting the song Betty Davis Eyes and riding with both hands off the handlebars. The elderly couple says, “Here he comes again!”
We weave our way through Dalston, on to Angel and then take the slow decent into central London. It’s a quick ride, with hardly any traffic on the road, save a handful of buses and taxis. Before we know it, we’re in Hyde Park. My partner’s tired and hungry, so we scope out a place to stop.
Off to the left of the bike path we spot a cherry tree in full bloom. There’s no one around so we decide to stop and sit under the tree, even though I’m not quite ready for lunch. As my partner is tucking into their salad two adults and a little girl walk by, kicking a ball ahead of them. I notice the kids wearing a blue cast on her arm.
When I was seven I broke my right arm doing handstands in a neighbors garden. Summer had only just begun. It was a clean break through both the radius and the ulna, just above the wrist.
The cast stayed on all summer. There was no hope of swimming, but if I wanted to cool off I could wrap my cast in a plastic bag and run through the sprinkler in our front yard, which I did almost daily.
I remember back in school in September telling my teacher I couldn’t possibly do any schoolwork, given my arm was still healing. Little did she know I was left-handed.
After our pitstop we’re back on our bikes heading towards Kensington Palace. Without bothering to stop and look, we continue on, taking the long way around the park and eventually ending up at Buckingham Palace. I snap a panoramic before heading on to St. James’s Park to look at the pelicans. There are four of them sunning themselves on the large rocks in the middle of the lake on the edge of the park.
They are taking turns flapping their enormous wings, while going nowhere. I notice one is missing a wing. My partner is reading to me from their phone all about how they got here, a gift from the Russian Ambassador to Charles II in the 17th century. They get fed fresh fish every day between 2:30-3:00pm.
Now we’re off towards the Southbank, crossing the Thames at Westminster Bridge. At St. Thomas’ Hospital my partner reminds me this is where Boris is being treated for COVID-19.
We pass a small crowd of camera crews and anchor folk set up on the pavement across the road from the hospital. They are waiting for something, anything to happen. Either he’ll be discharged soon or take a turn for the worst.
Before crossing back over the river at London Bridge, we pull over into Waterloo Memorial Park for another pitstop. We sit amongst a garden of tulips and wild garlic while I finally eat my lunch.
On the way home I pull over in Shoreditch to snap a few more pics of graffiti. I notice a man walk by wearing an NHS badge and say thank you. He seems really pleased and flashes me a big smile.
When we get back to the flat our upstairs neighbors are sitting out in the sun on the front doorstep. I tell them they are the basking beauties to which they light up like fireflies. One of them, Grace from Australia, turns 30 today and they’re celebrating.
For the rest of the afternoon and evening we hear her greeting her “guests” stopping by to wish her a happy day. They stay at a safe distance on the pavement while she talks loudly at them from the steps.
Back at home I’m on the phone with a friend in California. We’re talking about how coronavirus is disproportionately affecting Black people. She’s got a colleague whose husband works at a pharmacy and needs to keep working to make rent.
Every evening when he gets home he has to put everything he’s worn in the laundry. But the trouble is, they don’t have enough washing machines in their 60-unit tower block for everyone. Not only that, but the space in the laundry room is so small it’s impossible to stay 6 feet away. So she’s spending close to $50 a week at the local laundry mat.
Staying healthy is expensive when you’re poor.
Others have already lost not one, two, or three people, but whole groups of friends and family. In some parts of the US, up to 70% of COVID deaths are Black people. As we’re speaking I become aware of my breath.
My chest is tight and heavy and I’m breathing it all in, breathing out relief and a deep heart wish that we come out of this thing more awake then we went into it. That we use this as an opportunity to address the clear inequities of our economic and political systems. My fear is that the powers that be will do everything they can to keep that from happening.
We have some dinner, watch another episode of Unorthodox and head to bed. We’re both knackered from our bike ride. My partner is complaining of sore legs.
I’m not aware of my legs, or my arms, or my back. I’m still breathing deeply into my heart, the sorest part of all.