I spent two years living on the island of Eleuthera, a tiny, string bean shaped island nestled in the Bahamas. It was on Eleuthera that I held my first teaching job, met and fell in love with my future husband, and joined forces with the force of a woman who would become my son’s godmother. It was also on Eleuthera that I experienced what it is to live in hurricane country. My first month on Eleuthera included packing up my classroom the day after I had finished setting it up, actually battening down hatches in our home and schoolhouse, and once even evacuating, with a part of my heart in my throat as the plane lifted me farther and farther from my new home and the other part still there on the island, with my students and neighbors and friends who chose or had no choice but to ride out the storm. One thing I came to know about hurricanes is that you see them coming. They form out over the ocean, gain strength, follow a path. You watch, anticipate, prepare, dread, hope, batten down, hold on, let go, ride it out. You survey the damage, check on your neighbors, roll up your sleeves, set your classroom up again, take your belongings out of the plastic and down from a high shelf. You mop. You open the windows. You accept that being able to see it coming doesn’t spare you.
I've now spent more of my life in California than in any other place I’ve called home. Earthquake country. I’ve experienced a few of them, none of the big ones. Once, we sat in our small Santa Cruz studio, and I was certain a large animal had run across the roof. A sinking in our stomachs as the ground beneath us shifted. Another time, in San Francisco, scrambled out of deep sleep and startled into action, we raced into our infant son’s room, grabbed him from his crib, held him to my chest and took cover, his face one of innocent, oblivious, sleepy surprise. You can prepare. Make hypothetical plans. Check the dates on your canned food and water, make sure the go bags are still where you put them, where they’ve always been. You retrofit. And it’s not so much that it actually feels like a large animal running on your roof, which wouldn't make much sense. It’s in that space and time in between, when your heart and instincts know something is off, but your head hasn’t caught up. Shock. Sleepy, surreal surprise. Sinking stomachs. Not having to see it coming doesn’t spare you either.
I think back to February of this year. Sitting in the pediatrician’s office with a feverish child. I mention the new virus. She dismisses it in its theoretical unlikelihood and geographical distance. She rattles off statistics about the flu, reassures me about my son. The new virus was somewhere else. Off in the distance. Approaching. Gathering strength and following a path.
I think back to March of this year. In the span of one week. One Saturday, we are celebrating a kindergarten classmate’s birthday, postulating and projecting and predicting with other parents, “I wonder if they will close schools”, while the kids run maskless in a pack through the tall grass. The very next Saturday, we are cancelling plans, waiting in a line of cars at the grocery store, listening to our mayor on the radio. In the space and time between, trying to make sense of things. Caught off guard. Shock. Sinking stomachs.
I still can’t decide whether 2020 has been a hurricane or an earthquake. I think both. A hurricane. We watched it approach, found all of ourselves in its inevitable path, wrapped our plans and put them on a high shelf. Paralyzed yet mobilized. Mounting dread. Accepting what was within our control and acknowledging just how much was not. A part of our hearts with our loved ones off at a distance, the other part in our throats as we realize that seeing it coming will not spare us. An earthquake. In what felt almost like an instant, life went upside down. A year that started in person, in community, in kindergarten, in normalcy, in naivety. Three weeks out of school become forty one. Our minds catching up with what our hearts already know. Oblivious, surreal surprise.
We are not out of it yet. We are here. We are rolling up our sleeves. We are surveying the damage. We are ready to open our windows, let the wind sweep through, let the sun shine in.
We have work to do.
There are truths to honor, gulfs to narrow, doors to open.
This is an inside job.
Notice what costs us more than it gives.
Examine the valleys between intention and impact.
Get out of the hero business.
Find dignity in simplicity, beauty in decay, meaning in loss.
Know that our children will express what we repress.
Show up.
Assume good will.
Smile with our eyes.
Bathe in the light of the full moon.
Stay strong.
We have work to do.
2020.
The year we battened down the hatches of our lives.
The year we retrofitted our souls.
With love and solidarity,
Abby
