Pandemic postcard #32: In search of a clean slate

Last week, I promised a story about what I was doing on November 9, 2016. I'm pretty sure that whatever happens next week, it won't be any weirder than what I lived through four years ago, both because this year's election may take a long time beyond Tuesday night to resolve and because Tom had his stem cell transplant the morning after the last election.

 

The 2012 election was one of only a few in my adult life that I wasn't working in either a newsroom or for a campaign on election night. I felt at loose ends and nervous about the results, so I went to a movie. I was one of a handful of people who attended a showing of Argo at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland. I stopped in the restroom afterward and heard two women sharing the news that President Obama had won re-election.  

 

When someone gets a stem cell transplant, their immune system is wiped clean and they are home-bound for many months afterward, so Tom and I thought a movie date night sounded like the best way to spend election night 2016, too. We were staying at a hotel near the hospital, and we walked a few blocks to see Moonlight. The night held lots of promise: We’d had a Black president for eight years and we’d soon have a woman in that role. Love and demographic destiny seemed ascendant in America, and Tom would have a new lease on life the next morning.   

 

I knew something was amiss when we left the theater and walked toward a bar on the next corner. Several people were crying on the sidewalk outside, big-screen TVs flickering in the windows behind them, swaths of red slashing across the maps. Despite being far behind in the polls, Donald Trump had won several key states where balloting had already closed. Yet the night was still relatively young for those of us on the West Coast. Things could change. 

 

When we got back to the hotel, I tucked Tom into bed so he could get a good night’s sleep. I stayed awake a few more hours and saw more states—and ultimately the election—called for Trump. Dazed, I climbed into bed and slept badly before waking Tom for our pre-dawn appointment with the transplantation team.  It was a strange morning for everyone, but it was also a relief to have something to take our minds off the news, at least for a few hours. And for Tom, this was the first day of the rest of his life, however long that might be. We still had that fact to celebrate.

 

Six months post transplant

Tom's stem cells gave him about 15 months of remission before the cancer came back in early 2018. Running out of options, we began a clinical drug trial that didn’t go well, one that saw Tom in and out of the hospital for blood transfusions and other interventions. In June of that year, we got married on Tom’s 62nd birthday, our family crowding into the hospital room to wish us well. It was another day of possibility and within days, Tom’s doctor sent us home for a brief honeymoon.

 

It was a risky gift, with Tom’s white blood cell counts still low, yet it was one we embraced. On the fourth night at home, after Tom collapsed twice while trying to get to the bathroom, I knew the honeymoon was over. He died in the hospital two days later, but not before his children and their mother had a chance to visit with him on what would be his last night on Earth. We'd hoped to go home with hospice care the next day, but that was not to be.  


 

I miss Tom every day.  I have no idea what he would have made of what we’ve endured as a nation in 2020, and I am especially grateful that his final months did not come amid COVID-19. But I understand that his brother, who lives in a swing state and usually votes Republican, will vote for the Democrat this time. “This one is for Tom,” he has been saying, and this gives me hope. All of us alive in 2020 have seen our ability to bear the unthinkable bend to the breaking point—and when it comes to discarding old opinions and habits that no longer serve us, breaking free is an act of courage. 

 

There will be no election night movie for me this year; I'll be working for my county elections office as a drop-box attendant. Your vote is your voice, so if you haven't yet made your voice heard, please do that by Tuesday. 

 

Visualize what it will be like to have a clean slate for our nation. I'll see you on the other side.    

Pandemic postcard #31: Waiting to exhale

My phone ring tone has been the same for a very long time, "Right Here, Right Now," the upbeat 1990 song celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall and authoritarian regimes in Europe. I've lately thought about changing it since there definitely are other places I'd rather be than in the middle--is this the middle?!--of a pandemic and a bonkers election season. But then there's the line that keeps giving me hope, the one about "watching the world wake up from history ..." 

 

We are on a cusp of a new dawning. You can feel it, right? (You've already voted, by mail or in person with early voting, yes?) America has occasionally flirted with a meaningful reckoning over the kind of country we want to be, but we've never quite made the commitment. But this year, amid the manifold crises of 2020, it feels like Decision Day is finally here.  

 

Of course, Decision Day will take a while. Folks have been voting for a few weeks, and we may not know the results until well into November. Meanwhile, I want to know: What do you plan to do on November 4 and beyond, regardless of the election results? I asked this question on Facebook the other day. A few folks answered with notions of day drinking, shopping for flights out of the U.S., and watching riots on TV. I sympathize with the long-simmering stress that those replies belie.

A little escape, for a day or a week or more, was a common theme. Meg and Joan, who've been especially active this campaign season, say they plan to finally take a day off. Frances says she'll either be glued to the TV, "or I might be in the mountains for the day breathing deeply knowing politics and the virus are not there." Eileen reports that she'll be on her first vacation in several years, newly retired Joanne is on a personal retreat exploring a possible relocation, and Elaine mentions the possibility of "a COVID-cautious trip to see friends and family."  

 

Some folks admit they may be adrift, uncertain what they will do, which is such an understandable response given the vast emotional energy we've put into surviving four exhausting seasons of The Trump Show. Others mention the importance of routine. Carol, a doctor, will continue to heal the sick. Felicia will keep up pro bono legal aid work to help small businesses navigate the pandemic "and a recession that is likely to get worse before it gets better regardless of election outcomes." As he has every day since 2013, Joe will get up early and take a music-fueled walk (and knowing Joe, with every step, he'll be thinking about what he can do next to help his friends and his community).

 

Everyone knows that no matter what happens, there will still be plenty of work to do, as activists and humans. Nonprofit executive Rene has a staff meeting planned for 9:30 a.m. November 4 "to help us remember EITHER WAY that much, if not all, of the work we do will carry on." Dennis says he'll continue to advocate for the world he wants to see for his children and brand-new grandchild. "First though I will hug and play with that little boy and be comforted and inspired by his smiles," he adds. That answer made me smile, as did Nathan's, who notes he'll be celebrating his daughter's first birthday the day after the election and working to protect the election results. 

 

Fellow longtime blogger Tom says he'll continue to metaphorically chop wood and carry water. Kristen has been volunteering to monitor election irregularities and misinformation, and Katherine will start a new discussion group the week after the election, pairing chapters from the book Becoming Better Grownups: Rediscovering What Matters and Remembering How to Fly with episodes of On Being With Krista Tippett. (Of course I am signing up for that.)  

Theresa and Diana and David plan to continue to cultivate joy through cooking and music. Rebecca will seek balance through caring for family, "doing what is in front of me to do," and "finding energy in intentional interactions and the random encounters I experience with people ... I have to hold on to my belief that what weaves us together is stronger than what would pull us apart."

I say amen to all of this.

 

As for me, here's how I envision how my November 4 will look: I'll wake up and spend no more than a half-hour getting the latest news. (I'll set a timer.) I'll write in my journal. I'll take a long walk and spend some time near Puget Sound. I plan to avoid the news for most of the day, but I'll check in for an update by late afternoon, and I'll attend a webinar on advancing the National Popular Vote. Night will come early, and I'll end the day at an online vespers service with my faith community. Beyond November 4, I'll continue working to write the change I want to see in the world, here at Surely Joy and also through a revival of my circa 2010 project, Write the Change. 

 

It won't be long now. In a few weeks, we will know whether a majority of Americans have collectively decided to reject division and build beloved community. We are waiting to exhale and yearning to breathe free, yet the reality is things are going to be messy for a while. 

 

The biggest task ahead of us may be making sure that no one gets left behind: definitely not the people of color who have been waiting far too patiently for this time, and also not the white people who may be hurting because they've lost a false idol. Few people are irredeemable, and almost everyone deserves a lifeline. It is time for us all to thrive, time for us all to joyfully wake up from history.

 

Next week, I'll share a story about what I was doing the day after the last election. No matter what happens in 2020, it won't be any weirder than what I experienced in 2016. Until then, be well and remember: rest is fuel.   

 

Pandemic postcard #30: Repair > despair

The name I chose for this blog in 2014 has given me pause many times over the past few years. Henry David Thoreau insisted that "surely joy is the condition of life," and I still believe that to be true. Yet in 2020, another perspective on joy has been far more resonant for me: Brother David Steindl-Rast's affirmation that joy is "the happiness that doesn't depend on what happens." 

 

I will be digging deep into this latter idea over the next few weeks. Next week, I want to explore--with your help--what you plan to do to pursue joy (or at least equilibrium) in the days and weeks after the election, especially since it may take a while to see a definitive resolution. This week, I want to lift up the idea of repair. 

 

These are not easy times for people who believe in justice, fairness, and equity. Just this week, we've seen confirmation that the Supreme Court has become wholly politicized, both in the speedy nomination and anticipated party-line vote to seat a new justice and in the current court's ruling that allows a premature halt to the 2020 Census. These are decisions that will erase people, endanger health, and enrich corporate America. 

 

There is abundant cause for despair, which is exactly why we need to believe instead in repair as the greater good--the higher power--that will pull us through these next few months. Hope is a muscle. Here are a few examples of repair as hope in action: 

Voting is a mighty act of repair. While the agents of despair would like to keep poor people and folks of color from exercising this basic right, the angels of repair are doing whatever they can to encourage everyone to vote--and to safeguard those votes. The Solutions Journalism Network is tracking good-news stories about the election, such as how the nonpartisan Poll Hero Project has recruited tens of thousands of young Americans to be poll workers amid the pandemic that has kept many older poll-working veterans home. 

 

Tomorrow, volunteers with the Vote Forward project will mail 15 million hand-written letters to fellow Americans who vote infrequently, urging them to make the effort this year. We are seeing indications of a truly massive turnout.   

 

Last Monday, we marked Indigenous Peoples Day. Just as 2020 has been a year of heightened awareness of systemic racism dating back 400 years, it's also been a year of more fully recognizing how our founders displaced the people who were here first. We can't remake the past, but we can acknowledge the full history of where we live--and we can also consider paying rent to recognize and honor this connection. I made a donation to Real Rent Duwamish this week, and I will make it a goal to begin small, symbolic monthly rent payments by next October. 

 

Earlier this year, as the pandemic began to unfold, the federal government basically told the states and local governments that "you're on your own." It's one thing for progressive coastal states to step up and act in such times, but I was inspired by this program from The Harwood Institute highlighting how two red-state communities--Clark County, Kentucky, and Jackson, Mississippi--took that edict to heart and worked to be sure their citizens were safe, fed, and housed. "Now is not the time to go to the corner and hoard resources," said Von Gordon of the William Winter Institute in Jackson. "Hope has really emerged in people continuing to show up" and "be authentic about their fears and the challenges," added Beth Willett Jones of the Greater Clark Foundation. 

 

Finally, as a society, we must continue to recognize the reality that America was built and is still being sustained with the physical labor of people who were literally enslaved (in centuries past) or who are working essential jobs for insufficient pay to this day. We can do many things to help repair this, from supporting microbusinesses owned by marginalized people and ethical small businesses that do right by their employees to electing people who will fight for livable wages, robust benefits, student loan debt relief, and strong safety nets. 

 

Many of us have been working very hard this year to raise our own awareness and advocate for changes we want to see. I said earlier in this post that I want to hear what you plan to do on Nov. 4 and beyond to give voice to your values (and also, frankly, to take care of yourself and your loved ones as winter descends). Please share in the comments or send me an email; the best address for that is sidewalk206 at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing from you, and I'll share some of your thoughts in next week's post.

 

Pandemic postcard #29: Turning into my dad

Today is my father's birthday, and if all goes well, my brother and his husband and I will be toasting Dad's memory on a San Francisco beach, not far from where we scattered his ashes. Dad has been gone almost a decade, but--as I wrote a few weeks ago--my parents' memories have been strong with me this fall. I miss them both as much as I ever have, and I think I may be turning into my dad.

I know that many women worry they'll turn into their mother, but that was never going to happen for me. Like many mothers and daughters do, we clashed during my adolescence, and I was just starting to know and appreciate Mom as a fellow adult when she died at age 62. By then, I'd been away from home for eight years.   

Dad was also 62 when Mom died. That's the same age my husband, Tom, was when he died in 2018, and the same age my stepchildrens' maternal grandfather was when he passed on. I'm just a few years shy of that mark, and as 62 looms ever closer, it hurts to be "losing" a year the way we are in 2020. 

Yet it's likely I'll live far beyond 62, as my dad did; he was 87 when he passed away in 2012. He lived long enough to see my ill-advised first marriage end, and to see me meet a good man and marry again, and to see my brother find a loving partner, and to spend lots of time with his only grandchild when she was young. At the end of his life, he gave me the sacred experience of helping a loved one have a good death. Today, on his birthday, let me tell you a little more about my dad. 

Sparrow, #14

Byron Fanselow started out a little guy, and his nickname was "Sparrow," but he still played baseball and basketball. His high school yearbook reports that he was usually laughing. After graduation, he grew several inches, so his nickname went away--until the 1970s, when Dad (and my brother and sometimes I) became "Fonz." Thank you, Happy Days, for helping America finally learn how to say our last name.

Dad went to Illinois Tech for mechanical engineering, then he joined the Navy near the end of World War II. After that, he became a salesman--the natural job for someone with his personality. He started out selling windows and went on to rep several metal building companies in the Midwest. He was offered a transfer to San Francisco but wound up taking one to Pittsburgh instead so he and my mom would remain reasonably close to their families in Chicago, where most of my extended kin still live.

For a short time when I was in elementary school, Dad had an office in a downtown Pittsburgh high-rise, which was fun. But usually, he worked from home and on the road, calling on clients across the Mid-Atlantic states, eating lots of dinners at Howard Johnson's and racking up plenty of points at Holiday Inns. He loved to travel and he loved meeting people, and my brother and I both found careers that incorporated those things.  

Dad worked on commission, money was sometimes tight, and Mom loved to shop. She meant well; she loved to give people gifts, but she'd lose track of what she'd already bought, so we always had lots of stuff but never much extra money. Mom went to work at a fast-food place to help send me to college. That's where she had her first fall, on a slick floor at Wendy's. I took the call on the hallway phone in the dorm my freshman year at Ohio University. Mom had broken her hip, and soon after that, she got cancer, too. I doubled down at school, maxing out my course loads so I could graduate in three years.

Thankfully, Mom beat lymphoma and she and Dad were able to travel a bit. They went to Tokyo and Hawaii mostly for free with all those points from Holiday Inn. But her hip replacement hadn't healed especially well, and one day, her cane caught on the top step of the basement stairs. She fell and hit her head, and we had to let her go. Dad was heartbroken at the loss of his wife of 37 years, and I cannot imagine his grief, even after losing the love of my life. But he'd go on to live another two-and-a-half decades, most of them in a healthy, happy retirement.

You're probably wondering by now: How am I turning into my dad?

I find myself cracking really bad jokes. For example: On my camping trip to Olympic National Park this summer, I arrived at Rialto Beach first thing one morning and found three bored teenagers sitting at a picnic table, ignoring the Pacific Ocean. I tried to get them excited. "It's going to be a great sunrise!" I said. "Too bad we're on the wrong side!"

I find myself wanting to talk to everybody. I'm sure the pandemic and living alone are driving this, but when I see other humans, especially in person but even on Zoom, it's sometimes hard to contain myself. I genuinely miss people at this point. Dad was the same way. I think he was happy living alone--he never had a serious romantic relationship after Mom, that I know of, and he knew how to entertain himself. But the longer he was alone, the more he missed seeing people, and that manifested in wanting to talk a lot when he saw them.

Dad in 1993

What I most admired about my dad was his curiosity about everything. We always had plenty of books around, of course, plus stacks of newspapers and magazines. Dad had no serious lifelong hobbies other than photography, but he'd get interested in something--astronomy, astrology, CB radios, ice cream making, magic tricks, meditation, computers, physics--and he'd learn all he could (or all he cared to), then he'd move on to something else.      

Dad did get downright cranky for a while in the early 2000s, when he started watching too much Lou Dobbs on CNN and briefly, alarmingly, became rabidly anti-immigrant. Fortunately, this xenophobia didn't last long, since it clashed with his moderate politics and his liberal Christianity.

Dad ultimately developed dementia and had a rough last few years, though the course of his disease was fairly swift. The cognitive reserve theory suggests that people who spend a lifetime keeping their brain active may die faster once in the later stages of dementia, and that mercifully seemed to be true for Dad. Unfortunately, his sharp decline came at the very same time I had soul-taxing political work and a teen daughter and a marriage that was showing some strain. I'm adopted, so it's anyone's guess what my fate might be in the brain health department, but the heartache of Dad's final few years is gradually fading for me, and I am not afraid.

I am not afraid. I think that's something else I got from my parents, and something I've tried to pass on to my daughter. Love was our family's default position, and Mom and Dad showed it in their volunteer work, in their friendships and family ties, and at the ballot box. And they showed it to each other; they had a rule that they'd never go to bed holding a grudge. 

Although things are unsettled in our country right now, I believe that love and reason and liberty and justice will prevail, though perhaps not without a fight. I miss my parents, but I'm not sorry they're missing this--and I am grateful for their legacy of valuing love over fear. 

Thank you, Dad. You too, Mom. Keep sending those good vibes, for we surely need them.

My parents on their Havana honeymoon.

 

 

Pandemic postcard #28: Will write for tips

Update: I have taken down my Patreon page as of April 2021. If you'd like to support my work, you can check out more recent posts at Surely Joy's current site, where you'll find a tip jar. Thank you for valuing creativity and the written word.

It's Friday morning, and word has arrived that our First Couple have confirmed cases of coronavirus. Could this year possibly get any weirder? 

It seems like a month ago already, before this latest news and before the raucous debate, but I actually turned down a job this week. After a summer coming up short in my search for work, I was glad to finally have a job offer, especially with the CARES Act federal unemployment assistance long gone and my state unemployment pay ending soon. But something didn't feel right. 

I would have had work for about five weeks this winter, monitoring tests in school classrooms--a job I did a few years ago, too, but that was before COVID. Would the work even happen, with most schools still closed? Then there were the logistical hoops I'd be jumping through to take and keep the job: fingerprinting at a time when it's nearly impossible, weekly COVID tests, heavy-duty PPE requirements. All for a short-term, minimum wage gig with no benefits. 

I finally realized that I'd applied for the job out of fear--of making my rent, of ever working for a wage again. I wound up turning it down out of hope for something better.

Of course, it's a marker of privilege that I can do this. Plenty of people are taking whatever work they can to make ends meet from week to week, despite the threat of a disease that's disproportionately affecting working-class Americans. Many people don't have savings to use in an emergency, never mind during a few lean months. I have savings I can dip into if I need to (and I’ll need to).

Most of all, though, I realized that I want to focus on doing what I do best (and what I'd done my entire adult life until most of my work vanished in March): make a living with words. For seven months, I've been writing these pandemic postcards--essentially a weekly column--to try and make sense of these times, but I have been writing them for free. Not so long ago, before Craigslist and social media decimated local journalism, someone with my background could land a job writing a column or human-interest stories. Those opportunities are rare these days, yet I know I ought to be paid for at least some of my writing. 

That's why--although Surely Joy will remain free (and ad-free)--I've decided to set up a page on Patreon where, for $3 a month, you can let me know my work has value to you. I know this may be a big ask at a time when we are all being asked to contribute to the usual member-supported media outlets plus maintain subscriptions to major journalism organizations that are doing critical work--but if you have $3 a month to spare to support my experiment in crowd-funded punditry, I'll be grateful.

The $3-a-month tier is my "You like me" level. Pledges of this amount can really add up in my small-footprint micro-economy, and I will write at least one patrons-only post each month at Patreon for folks who pledge that amount. (Here's a sample.)

People who pledge $9 a month ("You really like me") will also get access to some behind-the-scenes peeks at my notebooks and work in progress (like this). And because I sense that some of my readers would love to pursue a more joyful, intentional life, I offer the "You want to be like me" tier, which is $27 a month. For that level of support, I will be your personal creativity coach. We'll talk at least once a quarter about how you'd like to live more fearlessly and creatively. I'll encourage and question and inspire you (and you will do the same for me). 

Surely Joy will never be all I do, and that’s OK. I love to interview people and write feature stories; I just finished my first one since March, an article for 3rd Act magazine about how musicians are weathering the pandemic. I like to edit and I have some possibilities in that area. I fervently hope to be working back at the ballpark next year. It’s a seasonal, minimum wage job, too, but I enjoy the fans and the people I work with.

But the writing I do here feels important--to me and, I know, to some of you. We are in historic times, and I am trying my best to make some sense of them while also lifting up my original reason for this blog: the practice of living a simple, beautiful life and of pursuing joy, described by Brother David Steindl-Rast as "the happiness that doesn't depend on what happens." Joy is more essential than ever as we work hard to make real the world we imagine. And today, we might even permit ourselves a bit of schadenfreude while wishing the Trumps a speedy recovery. Or not.    

Thanks for reading this far, and for considering a pledge. It is an honor to write for you. Let's continue to navigate these strange times together.

Mural at Olympic View Elementary School, Seattle