Quar (What is it Good For?)

Today I did nothing. It was a good day.

Before all this nothing, I used to love donating blood. Not just because my insides were exposed and headed off to unknown parts. Not only because some part of me would become part of someone else, either. The sweetest detail was that I could be at most 100 feet away from children with leukemia or another annihilating disease I’ve never seriously considered. I’d be that close to a child who has only ever lived my nightmare and get called a hero for sitting still for twenty minutes. Then, juice and snacks. Then I make another appointment to be so close to death remaining completely self-involved.

Same for airport security, assuming I show up with enough time. All I have to do is not have plotted the deaths of others in advance and I’ll be fine. Of course, I’m blonde and cherubic so that comfort is absolutely a privilege. It’s the naivety to believe the truth is more than enough to protect me.

My point is that when a situation comes along where you can excel by doing absolutely nothing, grab onto that gold star motherfuckin’ tight.

It’s okay, then, if my opinions are cock eyed and incorrect. Fine by me.

This horror we’re living, it’s devastating, seismic - sure- but my world is moving at a pace I understand, finally. Nothing I want matters. I’m not even near the top of the list. Stooped in humility, I stretch out.

Everything that’s left to occupy our hours is lived in the most minute detail. The umbrella broke right before a walk. I threw it out in a trashcan down the trail from our house, not our own dumpster. A careless gesture became an outing.

Returning, I walked through a part of the yard I haven’t seen in a while to come in through a gate who hasn’t been touched in years. I wanted to remind the gate it is a part of our home.

It’s a gentle life I was given. I found a cache of old records. The cat’s litter needs more cleaning than it receives. My parent’s home is cluttered but never uncomfortable and beckons me with projects. I was always certain the world was off somewhere having all the fun without me, especially when I last lived here. I have proof that’s not the case anymore.

I’ve given in to my personal frothing conspiracy theorists. All the paranoia “The Da Vinci Code” inspired in my pre-pubescent brain blooms. Did you realize the Illuminati only allowed in ecoterrorists with depression? I had no clue. This whole time, the most powerful secret society was being managed by powerful, well medicated and exhausted schemers. I wonder how they vet newcomers. Maybe they set a timer, plop hopefuls down at a pep rally or someone else’s family reunion and see how long before they’re fully fetal. I always knew the horrible people running the world were evil billionaires, sure. I didn’t know those horrible evil billionaires had something in common with me, let alone brain chemistry or that our habitual negligence can kill a cactus.

Now I know they’re on my side. They don’t care that I exist, but they are helping me. Before quarantine, there wasn’t time built in to the work day for laying on the ground. Now there’s plenty.

I never thought we could do it. People with depression aren’t great at committing to plans. When we do go through with it, it’s not usually a net gain for the world. Never thought we’d have the stick-to-itiveness when laying on the rug for a few more hours looked so damn good. We said we wanted a world without underwire and waited for a black hole to roll ourselves into. And oh boy, did we not get the black hole.

Then I peek outside. Lives dissolve into numbers of the dead. There’s always more.

The truth of our combined present only truly greets me in foghorn or skywriting (depending on weather) when I leave my comfy cave. She walks in, dumps her bag on the choked kitchen table and I see those colorless blue scrubs. My mother in scrubs is like my mother in glasses- as I know her. Sure, the scrubs are blue and blue is a color. I would put money that I certainly don’t have that this shade of blue is a color never seen in nature. Identical scrubs line her closet. It’s hilarious and terrifying, like she’s living under some fascist rule. My mother’s scrubs don’t mean lazy Halloween costumes right now.

I remember my mother is out in the world, vulnerable to everything I’ve only watched. I wonder if the mask-less old woman in line at the liquor store exhaled a germ onto me only to pass on to a new mother whose baby my mother delivers.

Perhaps my carelessness will lead to a woman being unable to hold her newborn for two weeks. Perhaps not.

And then I worry about my father- my delightful, exhausting dad who I rejected those party invitations six and a half weeks ago for. Y’know, like a hero. He has the patience to wipe the what if’s off our groceries. I wonder if the hot water I rinsed our apples under was hot enough. Maybe that Fuji is a murder weapon and my unthinking lapse pulls the trigger.

Apparently the cat could be at risk too, although I’m not sure how those First two feline COVID patients contracted it. Then again, cats have barbed penises. They’re adorable aliens but I’m not going to understand them.

And then I worry again about my mom. She has a lifelong asphyxiating allergy to most spicy food. I didn’t know that extended to black pepper. A few bites into tacos and my mother Flees the table, choking. She’s hacking like she’ll fall apart. She’s so small in the door frame, wearing that unfortunate blue uniform of a soldier. What’s the alternate to “Mulan” where a young, healthy woman does, in fact, allow her stooped aged parents to take her place in battle? My mother would kill me for calling her “stooped”.

I cry, “I hope you’re choking!”. It sounds so wrong but I can’t stand the other option- that the news seeped in past her mask and bunny suit, past her car I now avoid and into our home.

Those thoughts only flicker past in rare moments. Mostly, I’m greeted by myself.

Sometimes I welcome myself like a bored dog and my child has come home from school. My tail’s wagging. I’m totally over the moon.

Or I wake up at noon and Flop over to glance at myself with pity and understanding. Why muster up shame for ideas of what I should be doing that I never even believed in?

Any time of day and I relax into my own arms, head resting on the shoulder of my friendship. I remember not to be needlessly cruel and never to use that tone with myself. I inch forward, unconcerned if I’m headed anywhere at all.

I’m on a 25th anniversary honeymoon with myself after renewing vows. The sex is comfortable and filling- Figuratively, literally, all of it. I’ve missed myself. I never kept secrets from myself until I did. Ignoring myself ate up all of me. Now all I have to do is live well with myself.

As a little girl, I terrified myself considering how the world might be once I was an unimaginable adult. My generation has always been told that now is most likely the end. At the very least, I sleep sure that I can not know what comes next.

As a little girl, I also thought I might grow up to be some American Jane Goodall. I read that the secret to seeing wildlife is to stop looking for them. In silence, animals gather. In silence, the strange miracles of ourselves creep out.

I also learned that athlete’s foot wiped out ancient Rome. I won’t cite my sources just like you shouldn’t double check that. I’m as certain it’s untrue as I am sure of the memory. Let’s pretend. We’re already living in a sick hypothetical- why not? A great civilization upended by stinky feet. Sounds preventable. Now we watch people march off the edge for a party. Distractions costing lives.

Humanity doesn’t like to be conquered by Nature. It’s embarrassing. We're left stung, and juvenile. We pretend it’s been so long since we answered to a force more powerful and present than a god. We certainly don’t appreciate being ambushed by our own mortality because of a whim.

I drink at noon and somewhere else, people die. Beyond a life so small I can finally comprehend it, the actions of the living ensure their loved ones cease.

There are enormous problems outside some front doors, problems that require sacrifice and know-how. My only problem then, and I hope the same is true for many, is myself. I’ve had a lifetime to avoid myself. We all have.