BLM and the GOAT

I was out of town when Seattle exploded with protests of the George Floyd murder. I was talking to a friend at work about the protests and the question came up, "Why now?"

Why weren't there protests like this when Charleena Lyles, a mother of three with a history of mental health issues, called the police to report a break in and was then shot dead by police officers? Why wasn't the nation outraged then?

I told my friend the same reasons that kept me busy for the past two weeks were the same reasons that allowed the protests. I was worried about my mom who had COVID. I was taking care of my son whose surgery was rescheduled because of COVID.

"I am working, you are working. I am taking care of my son," she said. "When can we protest?"

She and I might not have time to protest, but forty million unemployed people and millions of out-of-school students have time. 

What else?

I give credit to Michael Jordan and ESPN. In April and May (or sometime during COVID season), ESPN aired a ten-part documentary on the Chicago Bulls. There were no live sports on television or in stadiums, so anyone who likes sports was probably watching the ESPN special.

• MJ was the hero. 
• Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman were supporting actors.

• The primary villain: Jerry Krause, a short, square shaped white guy who managed the Bulls who thought he made the team great, not the players.
• The ghost villains: The young thugs who murdered Michael Jordan's father.

Aside from Detroit Piston fans, who doesn't love Michael Jordan? Across the globe, people love MJ. When I was in Thailand in 1998, a random guy came and asked where I was from.

"Chicago," I said.

"Michael Jordan!" he replied. The GOAT put my hometown on the global map.

I believe this ESPN documentary was another reason people took to the streets. If the greatest living athlete isn't immune to violent hate crimes in his life, who is?

Sent Away and Country Roads

I dropped the Boy off at his boarding school tonight after spending two weeks with him in Kalispell after his surgery. Overall, it was good but I am exhausted. So exhausted.

A new phrase entered the Boy's vocabulary: Sent away.

Time for him is marked as before he was sent away and after he was sent away. This strikes a little pain in my heart, as if I chose to ship him off because he was a pain or an inconvenience. Not true.

"The phrase isn't good or bad," he told. "It isn't judgmental. It is what it is. I was sent away, even if it was for my own good."

The Boy's school is about thirty miles outside of Kalispell in the middle of nowhere. We were listening to Spotify when the song Country Roads by John Denver came on about ten miles from the school. Jack said the song reminded him of the movie Logan Lucky.

I said the song reminded me of the Boy. He knew why.

Last year on the Boy's sixteenth birthday, I drove him and two friends skiing. When this song came on, the three kids sang along. It was one of those rare moments when I saw the Boy happy, carefree, having fun.

"After you were 'sent away'," I told the Boy, "I was driving to work and this song came on. I started to sob. When the song was over, I played it again, and continued to cry."

He looked at me and smiled.

"You are weird."

I am not weird. I am a mom.

Rollercoaster, or "May you live in interesting times"

One of my ethnically Chinese friends told me a Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.

When I was a little kid, maybe ten or so, I thought it would be cool to live through a disaster like an earthquake or tornado, have my tonsils out or break my leg. My elementary school life in suburban Chicago was predictable and unadventurous. I wanted an experience where I could say "I lived through that!"

Decades later, I'm living the dream.

My mom, who has late stage Alzheimer's, has had our modern day plague. This has been a nightmare. I thought about making a chart to describe this struggle, but alas I am in Montana and I don't have my art supplies.

I might not have all of the correct dates for my three week rollercoaster, they are close enough.
_______________________________________________________

Saturday, May 16 or so -- There are two cases of Corona virus at my mom's nursing home, but we don't know which unit.

Sunday, May 17 -- The two cases are in the Memory Care Unit, where my mom resides.

Monday, May 18 -- My mom is tested for Corona virus. We wait.

Wednesday, May 20 -- Her test comes back negative, but she has a low fever so they test her again.

Friday, May 22 -- My mom's test is positive, but she is asymptomatic. If she gets sick, should they send her to the hospital? I vote no, but my dad votes yes. I fear a hospital visit will freak out my mother and prolong her suffering. Why should she die in fear surrounded by strangers dressed in biohazard outfits? That sounds like an X-Files death. Nevertheless, this is not a democracy. My dad has been spoon-feeding my mom for the past four years. He is the most devoted and dedicated man I've ever met. My dad's vote is the only one that counts.

Monday, May 24 -- My mom has low oxygen. She is sent to Riverside Hospital.

Tuesday, May 25 -- George Floyd was killed by cops in Minneapolis and it was caught on video. I missed the news because I am traumatized about my mom.

Wednesday, May 27 -- My mom is sent to the ICU.

Thursday, May 28 -- I have a meltdown at work during a conference call. My manager is kind enough to stop the conference call, call me back, and talk me off the ledge. I am so glad to work where I do. "Lauren, I am clearing your schedule for the next two days. You need to worry about your family." I have a great boss.

Friday, May 29 -- My mom is started on an experimental treatment for COVID where they inject her with the plasma of a person previously infected with COVID. My mom is given an experimental drug. I cannot recall the name. I have mixed feelings about this: what if she gets better? Then what? Shouldn't they test these things on people who have a normal life to return to? Or, maybe my mom should be a guinea pig. She has nothing to lose. Maybe they could harvest her blood for plasma to save other people? I find that simultaneously fascinating and ghoulish, but mostly ghoulish.

On a Zoom call with a group of friends, one mentions she is proud to call herself a "Social Justice Warrior," a derogatory terms used by the right-wing for left-wing people championing social justice. "I'm going out tomorrow. This isn't my first rodeo," she says. "I am bringing milk." I have no idea what she is talking about. What is tomorrow? Why does she need milk?

These friends think it is awesome that my mom might be used to help find a cure for COVID. "Wouldn't it be great if she could give back to society in her condition?" My friends are nicer than I am. Way nicer. I am glad I have nice friends.

Saturday, May 30 -- Peaceful protests by thousands turn into a riot by a few dozen in Seattle blocks from my condo. Forty million unemployed people plus millions of out-of-school college and high school students have plenty of time on their hands. At 5:00 p.m., the mayor calls a curfew.  A half dozen of my friends text or call to see if I am okay. Some say "Get the fuck out of there." I frantically pack the car to head north, but when I look outside of my parking garage, I wonder how I am going to get out of downtown. The police chief says stay off the streets so emergency vehicles can get through. My dad recommends hunkering down instead of venturing out. I talk continuously to friends, one after the other until I fall asleep. I get four hours of sleep, which is more than I thought I'd get.

Sunday, May 31 -- Drive to Montana. I am looking forward to the peace, quiet and change of scenery. The drive from St. Regis to Kalispell is one of the most beautiful drives I've even taken, and I've been to New Zealand and British Columbia. We pick up the Boy from school. When we get to Montana, we learn that a storm has blown through and power has been down at the school since the night before. Tree limbs are scattered on the road.

Monday, June 1 -- My mom is out of the ICU and in a regular COVID room. She is getting better. Wow. It is a miracle.

Tuesday, June 2 -- The Boy has his ACL replaced. All is well.

Thursday, June 4 -- My mom hasn't eaten in two days. My dad sees my mom for the first time via Facetime. My dad, the eternal optimist, thinks my mom isn't going to make it through the night. For my dad to think she is going to die means she is going to die. The Boy is freaked out about my mother's impending death. "Why isn't anyone else traumatized?" Grandpa and I have already been down that road, back and forth, for the past two weeks.

Friday, June 5 -- My mom is better, smiling and eating. Twice she has tested negative for COVID. She is moved back to her nursing home. When my dad called, I was preparing to hear the news of her death. Instead, she lives. When he told me she was doing better, I think I said "What? Are you kidding me?"

It is Claire-Adele's birthday. I am glad my mother chose not to die today. That would be bad. Claire-Adele spends the day protesting in Washington, D.C.. I text her to bring milk to protect her eyes in case she gets shot with tear gas. She replies: "That is not recommended. Saline solution or water is better. Like milk has bacteria." My bad.

Saturday, June 6 -- My dad sees my mom through the window at her nursing home. She is slumping. Of the twenty-six people in her Memory Care Unit who had coronavirus, eighteen have died. My mom might have won the battle, but she could still lose the war.
_________________________________________________________

The good news is I am riding my bike in Montana. If nothing else, it is beautiful here.

Birds

Sunday morning, the birds were singing.

Apparently, they didn't know there was a riot Saturday afternoon in downtown Seattle.

The birds didn't know anarchists took over an otherwise peaceful protest.

The birds don't know that George Floyd was killed by a cop who thought he was judge, jury and executioner.

The birds don't know there is a pandemic.

I wish I were a bird.

Pray, Meditate, Connect. Repeat.

My mom tested positive for corona virus.

As most of you know, my mom is in a nursing home with Alzheimer's where she has been declining for the past four and a half years. She is like an infant: she needs someone to feed her, bathe her, brush her teeth.

Last week, there were two cases of corona in her nursing home wing, and one of her healthcare providers tested positive. My mom had tested negative earlier in the week, but she probably didn't have enough of the active virus in her system at the time. I was relieved when she tested negative earlier in the week, but as one of my friends said "That can just got kicked down the road." Meaning, if corona doesn't kill her now, something else will later. Which is true. We all have to die of something.

Today in my recovery group, the conversation was around "What are you doing to keep you head above water during this time?"

This morning I woke up and I was back to my old pattern: obsessing and distraction. Instead of wondering if my mom was going to die, I started to stress that everyone in my company was going to get a 20% pay cut. They are forcing us to take a vacation day every Friday until further notice. I am not sure what is going to happen when we all run out of vacation days, especially since most of us don't accrue one vacation day a week. The company that owns my division is highly leveraged and I am guessing that when employees run out of vacation days, the parent company might just cut pay by twenty percent instead of laying people off. We are an essential service and we run very lean. It might be easier to cut everyone's pay instead of laying 20% of the people off. If they did that, who would do the work? I was going to look up the company's financial statement and write a "Fuck you" letter to the CEO and the Board of Directors for their irresponsibility, if in fact any of this is true. Maybe I should ask my dad or my friend Carla to look at their financial statements with me...

Which is when I realized I was spinning.

My old pattern was distract and obsess, or obsess and distract, and then connect with a friend to complain how awful my life is. Instead of pondering the mortality of my mother, I worried about my paycheck.

My mom isn't ill yet, but we have to make plans for what happens if she does. My mom has a living will and is DNR -- do not resuscitate. A nurse called my dad and asked him what he wants to do if my mom becomes ill: should they send her to the hospital?

My dad said yes, please send my mother to the hospital if needed should she become ill.

My first thought was "Noooooo! Do not send her to the hospital!" There was no real reason--it was just a gut reaction. I didn't say anything to my dad. I paused, and then called my Aunt Pat.

"Your father is going to do what he is going to do," she said. She wasn't being sarcastic or mean. She was wise.

Back to the question posed at my recovery group: How have I been keeping my head above water?

Pray

Meditate

Connect

------------

Repeat

I heard that prayer is asking God for help. Meditating is listening for the answer. Connecting is a way of tapping into someone else's higher power. Or maybe they are tapping into mine...

I thought about my mom as I was going to sleep. In the morning, I woke up and figured out why I didn't want my mom to go to the hospital. When she first moved to the nursing home, she was very agitated and afraid. She didn't know where she was or why she was the there. The unfamiliar scared her, and with her short-term memory loss, she didn't remember why she there. Would my mom be better off declining in a familiar place with people she knows?

I would tell my dad my fears, and let the rest belong to him. I need to honor that they have been married for more than fifty years. I can't imagine my mom dying alone, nor can I imagine what my father is feeling not being with her as she dies.

Today after my meeting, I took a four hour nap. I crashed. After that, I sat on my balcony with my dog and did nothing. I talked to Claire-Adele for a few minutes to tell her the news. I talked to my dad for a few minutes. It was so quiet. No noise from cars or planes or people or birds. I sunbathed and watched the smallest ants I've ever seen crawl up and down my bamboo. What is it going to mean when my mother dies?

May 2019 v May 2020

I wonder if there are other people out there who, like me, feel like May 2020 is actually better than May 2019.

This is not because I feel like May 2020 is awesome. Hardly. If I had to pick a year with the best May, I'd say 1998. That was the year I was pregnant with Ada and everything was right with the world. I was a golden girl, where nothing epically bad had ever happened in my life.

May 2019 was the month before the Boy left for Wilderness. I moved into the condo. Jack and I were at a point where we couldn't have a conversation for two hours that didn't end up with us screaming at each other.

I was lost.

This spring, even with the horrors of COVID and staying home, is so much better. I am so much more emotionally healthy, sane and stable. I was taking it all one day at a time, trying to keep serene.

And then.

My dad called to tell me my mom's nursing home has two cases of corona. One of my mom's caretakers who has been with her for years--has tested positive for corona.

My dad hasn't seen my mom in eleven weeks. We don't know what is going to happen. My mom has been in this nursing home since 2016 with Alzheimer's. She has almost no cognitive function left. She can smile and look at things, but that is about it. She has a DNR--do not resuscitate--order. She has a living will that says she does not want to be on a ventilator.

I see three possible outcomes:

1. Maybe she won't get corona
2. Maybe she will get corona and live
3. Maybe she will get corona and die

We don't know. Now we are just waiting. Whatever happens is not in my hands. I can just hope that my mom doesn't suffer regardless of what happens. I hope my mom's caretaker--a kind woman who has loved my mother during her last years--doesn't become to ill, either.

I feel bad for my dad during this time. He can't see my mom and if she does get sick, he won't be able to see her.

Current State

I had a dream about Expedia.

Expedia just built a beautiful new building along the waterfront in Seattle. I would see it as I would ride my bike along Elliott Bay, taking the detour as the main path was closed during construction. I am not sure if the new campus even opened before COVID.

Will it even open after the stay-at-home order is over? Who is booking travel? At least Expedia doesn't have the overhead of airlines, but man, there is one casualty of corona that I hadn't thought about before.

Speaking of the neighborhood, some of the shops downtown have gotten creative with their boarded up buildings. I saw an Associated Press photographer taking a pictures of some of the plywood art. I had to stop walking because he was shooting. I could have been a jerk and kept going, but then

1. He might have kept me in the picture. I wasn't wearing a mask at the time and I didn't want to get shamed all over the internet.
2. There was no one else on the sidewalk for blocks so I couldn't claim I didn't see him.

 Someone at my condo decided to get creative, too. Here is a design I saw this morning in the courtyard.

In other news, Dr. Fauci has more books than shelves. A man after my own heart!

His stack probably does not include The DaVinci Code and a bunch of therapy books, but hey! Fauci is busy literally trying to save the world whereas I am working from home, avoiding people and trying to escape reality. I should do a better job of stacking my books.

Last weekend, I cleaned up the balcony. It is looks amazing, which is great except I can't have anyone over for coffee or wine or whatever.

Finally, here is a picture of Elliott Bay.

"Bitch, Please!"

I was talking to the Boy about COVID. He told me he had seen something on the internet about people bemoaning that they hadn't seen their friends for two and a half months.

"Bitch, please!" he said. "I haven't seen my friends for eleven and a half months and I can't contact them by text or phone or anything."

Yeah.

COVID is my Wilderness

Last summer, the Boy spent three months in the wilderness. He and a group of ten boys had to cook all of their meals over a fire they started. There were no haircuts. No showers except maybe a dip in a pond, stream or river. They lost track of time as they had no clocks and no calendars. No porcelain. A vast majority of them abruptly left home and did not get a chance to say goodbye to their friends.

In the wilderness, the Boy learned to build a fire from sticks. He learned to make a backpack out of a tarp and nylon rope. He learned to cook.

He learned to feel his feelings and speak up and meditate and listen.

COVID is my wilderness.

I haven't seen my friends in months. I have had to cook all of my meals. My hair is long. I've lost track of time.

I have learned to feel my feelings and speak up and meditate and listen.

I have learned to be comfortable with my own thoughts. I have learned to pause, to be a better listener. I've learned to stop spinning and getting worked up. I have learned when I get frustrated to let go instead of squeezing tight. I have learned to let go instead of giving up, instead of staying "Screw it" or "I don't care."

I am feeling a quietness inside that I haven't felt in a very long time, perhaps ever. I asked a friend "What is the difference between peaceful and numb?" I couldn't tell where I was at because I have never felt this way before. Was it peace or was I numb?

"Numb is when you avoid or ignore your feelings. Peace is when you have feelings but they don't control you."

The Boy called me on Mother's Day.

He was calm and quiet. "I really don't have much to say," he said.

For my family, not needing to talk is a miracle. His mind wasn't racing, he wasn't on edge. He just was. He seemed peaceful, not numb.

It was good.

Intuition, Fellowship, or Both?

I have recently been reading Untamed by Glennon Doyle.

Wow. It is good.

(Which is the least useful book review ever.)

I am reading it on the Boy's Kindle, which I "borrowed" while he is in treatment. Doyle was an addict, then a perfect wife and mom when she realized she was in love with a woman.

I find reading about LGBTQ lives interesting. While I don't believe sexual or gender orientation is a choice, I believe deciding to live an authentic life is. Doyle's story of how she came to live an authentic life is fascinating. She is a rabid feminist, which is great. I consider myself a reasonably well informed feminist and I am learning a lot. Rather, I am seeing things I previously knew from a new perspective, particularly about toxic feminine expectations. (See: "Nice girls don't make people upset" and "You should smile more," BS created by the patriarchy to bring women down.)

As many of you know, the Boy was sent to Wilderness therapy almost a year ago where he spent eleven weeks in the high desert of southern Colorado. I feel like this COVID-season is my Wildie, a time for self-awareness and self-reflection.

(Or, I might take a break from reading books like Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and re-read Harry Potter or The DaVinci Code.)

I've been working on not needing to take every issue big and small and run it past my committee of friends. In an interview, Doyle said that boys look inward to see what they need, and girls look outward.

I have been looking outward my whole life, asking everyone for advice. Now, I love my friends. I have a kickass, awesome committee that has never failed me. And yet, do I need to bring everyone into my every crisis? That sounds like a huge drag to be my friend. (Thank you friends for supporting me in crisis after crisis!)

COVID season, like Wilderness therapy for the Boy, is forcing me to look inside. Doyle suggests that our intuition, our higher Knowing, often the knows decision we are going to make anyway. If that is the case, do we really need to ask a dozen others?

We all need friends, that is obvious. We need companionship. We need shared experiences. Outside opinions are valuable. But what happens when our inner voice in incapable of hearing itself, or knowing what it already knows? Friends can't replace that.

This may sounds so plain and obvious to some, but it wasn't obvious to me.

Gasoline and Hummingbirds

I have a friend who is a germaphobe, which I kind of got and I kind of didn't.

Until I went to pump gas today.

Holy cow. That was scary.

Seriously.

In this COVID-season, I've been to the grocery store twice and I go to Pike Place Market to once or twice a week to buy vegetables, bread, butter and meat.* Pike Place Market is not crowded (I've heard horror stories about Costco) and it is open air so it doesn't feel like it is teeming with germs. I walk the dog regularly and every few days I go out to get coffee. And there are a significant number of days where I only leave my apartment to go to the lobby of the building. I cut through the courtyard and down the exterior steps and enter the front lobby from the street, not the elevator. I don't touch the hand rails.

I haven't gotten gasoline since February. I had a full tank coming into COVID, so I had enough gas to make short trips. Today, the "low fuel" light went on so I went to get gas.

I had to touch the pin pad to enter my QFC card to use my points to get a fuel discount. I didn't have any disinfectant wipes with me, so I tried to use one of their paper towels to put between my had and whatever I touched. The scanner didn't work so I had to punch in my number. Then I had to select my fuel grade. Then oh my god I had to touch the fuel line handle to put the nozzle in the tank. I tried the paper towel between my hand and the handle, but the paper didn't behave so my hand touched the metal, where COVID can live for three days.

I will probably be dead in two weeks. Maybe not. Most people haven't been driving so there are fewer people getting gas so therefore fewer people touching the nozzle handle.

On a happier note: birds. I saw three hummingbirds together n the courtyard today. I saw a yellow bird and a red bird, too. The red bird I think lives in my rosemary, which will make him quite delicious when I need to start scavenging for food.

Just kidding. 

This bird is way too small to eat.

The New York Times Puzzle Mania came to distract us from the inequities of death caused by Covid-19.
Yes, I am writing about things I see in the NYT because I don't get out ever.

Yeah.

Cute picture of Fox. Because we all could use a little cute, right?

* Mussels. I am really missing mussels. (And pho.) I would love a big bowl of mussels with broth, garlic, tomatoes, butter and wine with a side of toasted sourdough bread.

Puzzles and Hibernation

My Aunt Pat posted a meme on Facebook of Will Farrell saying "Isaac Newton invented calculus during a plague. You have to be really bored to invent calculus."

Yeah.

While I have not invented anything as cool as calculus (yet) during this stay-at-home order, I have crushed a bunch of puzzles--jigsaw and crosswords.

This is a new one wooden jigsaw puzzle I bought for my birthday.

After finishing that one in a few days, I went to the hardest jigsaw puzzle I've ever done: The Apple Tree by Gustav Klimt.

On the surface, it doesn't look like it would be that hard, but when all of the pieces are dumped on the table, they all look to be the same color, more or less. I now no longer look at the the picture when I do a jigsaw puzzle (unless I get really desperate.) In this puzzle, it really doesn't matter because the picture doesn't help much. The first time I did this puzzle, it took me about three months. In COVID season, I've worked on it for about three days and I am about halfway done.

The New York Times has expanded their daily puzzle section in the print edition. The online version has more puzzles, as well. I've even taken to doing the Cryptogram:

Somewhere along the way, I picked up this book, which explained some of the strategies for solving Cryptograms. I think I bought this at Bletchley Park when Claire-Adele and I went to London in 2018. Or maybe I got it at the University Bookstore.

Heck, it isn't just jigsaw puzzles, cryptograms and crosswords that have kept me busy. I've scored 77 points on Google Doodle Cricket. My friend Anderson played cricket in his youth and his goal was to score 100 runs in a game. I am close. (The game crashed on my phone when I got to 77. I am probably the only person who played it that much ever.)

I was reading the newspaper today (against my better judgment and for the sake of my mental health) and I saw that tomorrow the New York Times is going to publish a Puzzle Mania section, "Emergency Edition" just for COVID season with a giant crossword puzzle.

I am convinced that during this pandemic someone will complete the last section of Kryptos, the sculpture outside of the CIA just out of the power of boredom.

Why puzzles? From the Puzzle Mania link:

“People feel stressed — we all feel stressed — and puzzles are a great way to relieve that,” said Will Shortz, the crossword editor at The Times since 1993. “They make you feel better. You feel in control of life when you’ve finished a good puzzle.”

Control. That is what we all have been missing. But how do puzzles give us control? We apply our brain power to it and it can be solved and completed with an answer or conclusion, unlike the situation with corona where there is no answer on how to cure it, prevent it, or stop it. How do we restart the economy? Can we ever see our friends or co-workers again? The puzzles give us a sense of accomplishment, of completing something, even though that sense is short lived.

Better yet, it gives us a way to pass time. Solving a puzzle is like being in hibernation. They allow us to quietly pass time alone without going nuts. I am starting to think of COVID season as a flight to Mars: slow, long, and alone. I don't what it is going to be like when I get there, and I don't know if I will ever return back to what I used to know as home.