Spacious Solidarity Blog: Day 95

CW: this post includes graphic descriptions of COVID symptoms

It’s the second day of my period and I’m aware I’ve been in a lot of pain from cramps and ridiculously grumpy. I’m also struggling to remember when specific things happened. This is partly because I’ve veered off my usual habit of documenting my daily activities.

What I do know is that at some point in the last few days my sister called. She’s back in the COVID unit and it’s grim. We’ve started referring to her various patients by their ages.

“How is the 49-year-old doing?”

He was getting better but then took a turn for the worse and she spent all day simply trying to keep him alive.

“What’s happening with the 27-year-old?”

He’s been taken off the ventilator and moved to the recovery unit.

But the worst story is about the 43-year-old with three kids whose blood started clotting. Eventually the clotting started to affect the flow of blood to the skin and now his skin is falling off. He’s also been put on dialysis because his kidneys shut down.

I can’t help but think about how much I do not want to get coronavirus.

My sister looks tired and is rubbing her face and chin as she tells me about him. I can tell it’s taking a toll. I breathe out a prayer for her and her patients. If I’m finding it difficult not knowing how much longer this is going to go on for, I can’t imagine how she must be feeling.

There is still so much that is unknown. And the government keeps flailing around as time passes and more people get sick and die.

Just today they decided to scrap the track and trace app they were going to use. You know, the one they wasted three months and millions of dollars developing but had been warned was never going to work. Instead they’re going with a system designed by Apple and Google.

I can see the temptation to conspiracy therorising. I have a lot of sympathy for the role conspiracy theories play for those of us who don’t want to believe how incompetent our leaders are. There must be some kind of highly strategic diabolical plot behind all this because the alternative is far scarier.

No one fucking knows what’s going on or what’s going to happen next.

Meanwhile my sister keeps harassing me about getting out of London. And I keep telling her there is no way to leave and nowhere to go. Not to mention the fact that we’re still not supposed to make any overnight trips anywhere.

They are saying the rules might change on July 4th. American Independence Day (for white people).

Today is full of phone calls. First, I’m talking to my good friend who I’m writing my book with. We get on the phone and are straight into relevance and how we’ll need to go back through what we’ve already written to weave in coronavirus and Black Lives Matter.

Then we’re talking somatics and the layers of experiencing the body and how these relate to the depth to which we commit to waking up. We make some notes.

Then I’m on the phone to another friend. We were meant to be doing some technical work around transferring a domain name from me to her but instead we spend the hour catching up and talking about the tough work of dismantling white supremacy.

Next I’m talking to a friend who’s been asked to write the anti-racism statement at work. She’s looking for guidance and inspiration. We work to unpack what it is she really wants to say and how she can say it in a way she feels good about. It’s a great bit of work and I feel deeply heartened afterwards.

We eat leftovers for dinner and then it’s time for our walk. We head to Hackney Downs, stopping to take pics along the way.

In the park we stop to smell the lavender which is full bloom, a ring of plants around a bunch of white rose bushes which are now on the turn.

As I take in the sweet, soft purply scent I feel the urge to want to pick a sprig. I say to my partner that I wish I could cut a bunch of them to take them home. Before I know it, I’ve snapped a sprig and am holding it up to my nose.

I stand up and immediately feel guilty. A park gardener has stepped out the door of a nearby building and is looking in our direction.

He’s around our age, maybe a bit younger, Black, with a big silver cross around his neck.

I flash him a big smile and apologise. I immediately also say that I hope it’s ok, I’ve just picked one sprig.

He flashes me a big smile back and says it’s not a problem. I ask him how they manage to get the lavender to be so big and fat and he says its mostly down to the rain we’ve been having lately.

Then he tells us to make sure we take in the wildflower meadow on the other side of the park. We thank him and walk away.

I say to my partner that I am relieved he wasn’t angry with us and they comment that I’m a charmer.

I can’t help but wonder if it really was ok or if he just said that because I’m a light-skinned woman. I remember what happen to Chris Cooper in Central Park.

I vow to be more transparent in my communication. Turning on the charm when I feel guilty or ashamed is an old, entrenched habit. It gets in the way of a more authentic humility and radical honesty with myself and others.

We reach the wildflower meadow and it is indeed spellbinding not just in its beauty but the smell, sweet and summery.

I breathe out a thank you to the gardener, remembering his smile as he encouraged us to appreciate the beauty of the meadow, the sparkle of pride in his eyes.