#2020timecapsule

[lettersfromthepandemic]

Letter One - Of Pandemic Times; May 25th 2020

Dear Future Generations,

Chances are you are searching through our Digital archive to learn about the Pandemic of 2020 for a history report. I’ll bet your text books paint a perfectly hind-sighted picture of what truly happened on earth when Covid 19 swept across it. 

From where I sit now, things are not so clear. It’s been two months since we’ve entered lockdown and the best we know is that a vaccine will bring this to and end. Realistically, it will be years before the world is safe to visit human beings again and the reality is that for many of us, it will never be the same.

My first letter is a long one. I thought of this while I was dancing in the rain after a thunderstorm. You see, no one walks outside when it rains. I found my freedom in the dripping of water from the clouds. My neighbors think I am nuts. But I laugh it off. The warm summer rain forces everyone inside and I can walk the streets in peace, barefoot and wet without coming across a soul.

I live in America, in a large city. This pandemic has been terrifying. For all the reasons I loved living here before this started; they are now the reasons it is scary. I’ve lost everything I love about being here. I’ve never questioned my choices of city living. Without all the culture, education and entertainment options open. With my industry completely shut down and without work - there is no reason for me to be here. Take that all away and Covid times have got me thinking of buying a house in a small town in the middle of nowhere and starting over.

There is no escape from people. We are packed in too tightly. The sidewalks are too small for walks without bumping into someone. There is no way to control your neighbor and everyone deals with the fear and preparations of keeping safe differently. There is no space to breathe without someone walking through it. A large part of the population won’t wear masks.

You’ll learn as you read different perspectives, how different the experience is for each person living through this time in history.

That’s exactly why I am writing to you today. I want you to know what the journalists, governments and history books won’t tell you. What the social media feeds will fail to demonstrate. I want you to know how it feels to be here. Now, in this time. In hopes that this message in a bottle finds you in a better world.

In America, it’s a politically divisive time. While it’s worth mentioning that I am a feminist that believes in social justice and equality. I can tell you that the fall out from our politics has divided us sharply. The last big fight for equal rights is happening as we evolve and the disenfranchised voice is becoming louder. Still, it is not fast enough. In my lifetime I went from reading and watching mostly cis, white, heterosexual male stories to seeing America begin to more fully represent its peoples. There are more women in Congress now than there ever was. We have a shot at seeing a female president in my life time.

This is no where near the representation we’d like to see, but it's a start. This movement has unearthed the underbelly of racist, sexist, privileged people who are rising up in opposition. They require sharp education, myself included, at reconciling and acknowledging privilege to undo the hurt of our beginnings. These peoples think they are starting to be “oppressed,’ as they become the minority. But they use that word and don’t understand what it means. It’s a time of reckoning for our countries beginnings. Progress has been too slow for the mistakes we made directly keeping down slaves, indigenous peoples and immigrants that didn’t come from a white European country. Colonization and the effects thereof are everlasting. Even hundreds of years later.

That tension feeds our media. They, the media, stoke the fires into great sweeping rage and dissension for the price of advertising dollars. Social media has allowed one to curate information that suits a point of view. There is no longer debate. Academics are pitted against “common sense.” Pick a side and draw a line in the sand. Choose your battle ground.

This backdrop, is the stage to which this pandemic is played out in America. The division is not helpful when in crisis we need unity. Our Covid numbers continue to rise sharply. American capitalism fails when the lower class can’t or won’t work. So they are putting us back to work, knowing that we will be sacrificing lives.

This truth is sharply debated by many but I believe history will show it to be true. We know this virus will spread easily until we have a vaccine and yet we are sending people back to work with bandaids on gaping wounds. We are scared. We are fighting over why a person should wear a mask. We are uncertain of our futures and we are watching our structures crumble underneath us.

That said, it’s been a hundred years since the last pandemic swept the earth. Our advances have allowed us to work from home and digitally connect. Technology, I have no doubt saves many lives.

I wonder what will save your life in the next hundred years. Studying history, it seems we have a new virus or plague that rotates through the populations within that time. You’d think we would have been better prepared. It will come to light that our government knew this risk was imminent. Perhaps you are writing your report on that very thing. We knew. We did nothing. I wish I could report to you that we prepared all we could but it is not the truth. We chose to ignore that risk and carry on. Our experts have been warning us for years. I live in a time where we question our experts and don’t believe them. All that enlightenment and learning and still, our people fight science.  

Granted, planning for every scenario of apocalyptic doom would be impossible. But I believe us to be smart intelligent creatures capable of evolving ourselves and therefore think the greater of us. Most of us were busy building our lives distracted. We elected leaders to prepare and protect society. They did not. While blame is not useful to move forward. I hope that from where you sit, society feels more responsibility for each other. At this time in humanity, our populations are booming. Our “media,” only reports the bad stuff but the truth is we were, up until this point, living in the most peaceful time in human history. You wouldn’t know it by reading one of our newspapers. We haven’t evolved past our fascination with the darker parts of life on this rock. Blood, discord, disaster and fear sell advertising and products.

Even for all our faults, we are making progress as a species. Its a lovely optimism to adopt. But alas, I am also a realist. Our dark sides are ever present at work too.

The pandemic of 2020 has heightened our inequalities. They existed before this, but today they are even more present. In America, we are calling our essential workers “heroes.” In reality, they are only called that because we are sacrificing them to the virus for the “good of society.” Our food producers, housing and healthcare professions are under a great deal of strain.

Our meat production plants are currently struggling to operate as many factories and plants that have been in operation since this began are now having large parts of the population become sick. In America, our poverty stricken populations are often the ones on the front lines serving others and at the highest risk.

I can tell you that I feel powerless to stop this machine but I want to. I’d like to find ways to fight this injustice and demand better for our people. Before all this, I was lobbying for universal healthcare in our country and free college education for everyone. This pandemic has only confirmed the need to work together and provide for one another. Though we fight over what that looks like. I know in our hearts, we want to do better.

I’ve only spoken to three humans in person from a distance, once in 78 days. Everything else is digital. Currently, I have enough budget to have all my essentials delivered. That privilege affords me other luxuries too. I can control who I see and who I don’t. This control is something that I do not take for granted. Though quarantine is hard, I’m not forced to interact with others at the moment. I’ve adapted my work to this new reality and am working at every angle to keep dollars coming in the door.

Even so. Emotionally, we are a mess. It’s a wild ride of feelings from one moment to the next. The quiet safety of our homes lulls us into a dull reality. We limit our news. We limit reading about the virus. It has forced us to live more in the moment and focus on the tasks in front of us rather than too far ahead. With so much uncertainty, that has helped with the stress.

I recite these things to myself to soothe my weary soul: We are smart. We are capable. We have survived this before. We can solve our own issues. We can do better. We will do better. I am smart. I am capable. I have survived hard times. I can solve my own issues. I can do better. I will do better. It is my daily prayer. It doesn’t always help.

I wonder what life is like for others as I stare out my window every day. I miss the outside and bird watch more than I ever have. Digital life is helpful for survival but often feels empty. As excited as I get for interaction, I often close the laptop after a meeting and feel sad. This reality has me questioning everything.

I hope from your position in the future, we figured this out. That my faith is humans has merit. For now, it all feels so uncertain. The numbers are still climbing. While we have people recovering there are many that are suffering terribly.

I don’t understand why our country isn’t in mourning. Perhaps the numbers are too big to fathom. I cry almost every day reading the death tolls. The news hurts. I mourn each addition without knowing them but only for the few seconds I can allow before dusting myself off and getting back to my own work. I worry about the stacking of issues we’ve ignored as climate change heats us up. In a pandemic the natural disasters make life even harder and we are seeing that play out already. Floods, tornados, fires, storms and drought all adding up to challenge our lives. We too chose to ignore them.

I vote for reform on climate change at every chance I get. I’d like you to know that many of us are trying. We also know it’s a problem and that if we don’t invest in the future of our planet, that it will become your problem too. This issue hasn’t hit its match point. Too many people are still worried about day to day living. That keeps us from being able to plan ahead. A theme of our demise. 

It’s the privileged who have the time and resources to work on prevention. These are the hearts and minds we need to work on changing. They are the hardest to change. Once a person has more than they need, I think the fear of loosing it forces them to ignore others. At least, that is how I summarize the issue.

Myself, I came from humble roots and spent many of my formative years in poverty. I understand what it means to have nothing. I also have the peace of knowing that even in my poverty, I had happiness. Perhaps this has kept me sane during the pandemic. Knowing I can survive.

As the summer heats us up in America, I worry what lies ahead. We are itching for a release and I fear Covid will spread faster come fall. I write to you in hope. That you are reading this from a place that is safe. Where we survived and we did it with less loss than the previous pandemic.

What follows will be a collection of letters. Stories. Tales from the times. It is all the more important to make sure that the voice of our past is human. In my time, the text books didn’t teach that. We send you this time capsule. Please learn what we didn’t. I trust you will.

[lettersfromthepandemic]

Letter Four, Peaceful Protest; June 7th

Dear future generations,

The riots quelled, the peaceful protests began. The movement between the two didn’t take long. In every neighborhood and street corner, protests were peaceful. The police still treated them aggressively dear reader and you’ll find plenty of images of abuse of power. We watched them protect rich neighborhoods and let the poor ones run wild.

While people started using their bodies as shields. They were less likely to hurt people with white skin. It worked.

Protests growing in numbers as the week went on. The largest world wide movement in history happened amid a pandemic before it was all said and done. 

I want you to remember that people gathered at great personal risk to their health. When you see the images of large crowds, let that wash over you and move you. The virus is still strong and in a few weeks, I’m so scared of what it means for the numbers. I hope I am wrong and love magically wins here. It will be an interesting test. Most protestors wore masks. The mass gatherings could tell us if they worked or not. 

This time the protests feel different. People are listening and interested in learning about their privilege and bias. Even so, many have unfollowed me for supporting black lives. Personally, having grown up in CPS and having many black friends myself - I’m happy to take on friends and family who I’ve struggled with before. I’ve had such a hard time advocating in the system I grew up in that my new education has given me the tools I need to go for it. Being a little girl, I was always shut down by the men in my family making racists jokes around my black friends. I’m white, but this movement of healing some old hurts for me too. Standing up to my family has often been a lifelong journey, it’s been nice ot see others joining and validating experiences. 

In my work, I’ve valued minority voices. Long before this movement and continued after. It’s not new to me. I’d been learning about my privilege for years. I grew up of humble means but in my school, I was the “rich girl.” I later learned that was my white privilege. People wanted to help me, I was never left out of anything I wanted to do and was welcomed at all tables. Financially, I’ve had a rough go. I experienced poverty first hand but my skin wasn’t a barrier. This wasn’t the case for everyone I was friends with. It took me a college education and then some to arrive at that conclusion. 

I hope from where you sit, things have changed significantly. That we used this moment to create equity. That people no longer support racist oligarchy. That the symbols of oppression have all been torn down. That we reimagined policing. That we took a hard look at wealth distribution. That communities of color are no longer disproportionately discriminated against. That there are as many black billionaires ever. That our words weren’t empty. I think the pandemic helped this movement reach a match point. All our distractions had been canceled. There was nothing in the way to keep people from joining.

Being out of work, out of school. Everything to look forward to in the summer, had been canceled. We’d spent months inside. If we were to break that quarantine - people did it with purpose.

As they did, I noticed a huge lapse in virus protocols. Less masks. More large gatherings over 10. The protests felt “normal.” 

I hope we never forget how much we missed each other. How much we need each other. I think being stuck inside has given us all a respect for humanity in the face of our loneliness and it wasn’t the virus that brought us together, it was black people.

That is fucking beautiful. 

It was the oppressed giving us all the lessons. Teaching us resilience. Lifting us out of our virus created comas with their cries for help.

At home, we protest on our block. I’m too scared to join the crowds. I don’t want to get sick. So I paint my entire block in support. I scream from my social media channels, I call my black friends, I send them tokens of support to lift sprits. I offer my home as a refuge if the riots become too much. I share the work of organizations I know and love. I share art. I sign petitions, write letters and make phone calls to lobby for change. I write. I cry. I listen to music. I feel alive.

If you’d like a visual illustration of white privilege, take a look at the signs from the protest to open states and the ones from BLM. It’s maddening and hilarious. White people stormed the capital  because they couldn’t get haircuts. The rest of us fighting for human rights for black people. All this is far from over. The pandemic, this movement, progress, economic fall out from the shut down.

The numbers are coming back from the states that opened up earlier. It’s not looking good. In Florida, 4,000 cases in three days. They have consistently been the most fluid with restrictions. With so much unknown, I feel this clock of dread on the horizon. As the numbers tick higher, my chances of being personally impacted by health or loss increase. With almost half a million now dead world wide and over 2 million cases in the US alone. 7 million world wide. I fear what’s ahead and am hopeful that from where you sit the triumphant end of this story is a good one.