Love in the Time of Corona

For on our return from a place, perhaps the first thing to disappear from memory is just how much of the past we spent dwelling on what was to come - how much of it, that is, we spent somewhere other than where we were.

Alain De Bottom

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I suppose there is a certain something about people who have called New York City home. And yes, I am mindful to skirt carefully around the term New Yorkers – I am not sure what qualifies one; perhaps its paying taxes. Or is it five years, six years, ten years living in the city? Does one become a novice New Yorker when they are able to expertly navigate the sprawling subway without directions?

Perhaps one is a New Yorker when they leave, and they feel the wholly consuming need to return. Like something pulled out from under them. I remember the ground disappearing when that flight left JFK all those hundreds of days ago. And so, through hell or high water, we return. For god’s sake, I’m on an empty plane returning to the city – yes, we called it “the city,” as if it is, in fact, the only one in the world – despite global pandemic. And my main concern as I boarded this flight you might ask? That I only have one of the favorite types of pens, and I’m worried I won’t be able to get any in before it runs out of ink.

I have stopped counting how many days it has been since I left Tanzania. I never started counting how many days I’ve been on American soil. But I have been counting down the days until I return to the city. Like so many moments, I have envisioned it in my mind for far too long. Flying first class as an early gift to myself. A weekend spent connecting with old friends, walking my favorite streets, eating and drinking at my favorite locales, my dearest Anna coming next week to celebrate my birthday with me. Well, this first-class seat feels a little less special with only nine other people on the flight, and there’s certainly no champagne involved like I so ridiculously imagined. Though I do have a nice cup of coffee and lots of leg room, so I suppose it’s not all for null.

Galivanting around town doesn’t seem like it will happen, or at least not in the way I imagined. Anna has canceled, which makes total sense to me, after all the same ridiculous faux-New Yorker blood doesn’t run in her veins. My birthday, which I imagined being spent in a bustling well-lit restaurant and draping myself across beautiful bars and drinking whiskey or champagne, will most likely be spent at a quiet dinner and then snuggled on the couch in Joanna’s plant-filled living room. But that’s the thing, I will be there, with her. I will be in New York. I will be in the only place I have known as a home in the last decade.

I vividly remember watching the island disappear below as I flew towards South Africa. I spent so long wondering what it would be like to set foot here again. What might have changed? Oddly, I find comfort in returning, despite the moment we are all living through. When the skyline came into sight, my breath got caught in my throat. My eyes welled with tears. And as I walked quickly through the terminal, ready for the biting March morning air, I remember, “New York is always hopeful; always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it.”

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Relationships are not what I expected them to be. Perhaps the most stupidly obviously and profound statement. It just isn’t what I imagined. And let me be clear, I am deserving of the Olympic gold medal in daydreaming. I have daydreamed every single person and moment down to the molecular level.

So, imagine my surprise, when I arrive in South Carolina, and I just cannot figure out how to connect. I feel like I have nothing to say. And then, I want to talk nonstop and feel like no one wants to listen. People ask me questions that make me want to scream. How was Africa? I don’t know, how was North America? What was your house like? A hut, right? No, it was not a hut. It was a house made of bricks and concrete with floors and walls and a roof.

And then others ask substantive questions, questions that make me think. What vegetables do they grow? And what about fruits? And do they fish? The climate is hot right? Oh, there are mountains and cold regions? So, they must grow lots of bananas? And who colonized the country? When did they gain independence?

I want people to ask me real questions. I want to ask other people real questions. How is your heart? What has been the highlight of the last year? This week, during an astrology reading, the woman looked at me deadpan, and asked, “So, are you lonely?” And it felt like my ribcage shattered. I pretended for a moment and then figured, what’s the use?

“I wouldn’t say I am lonely, but I feel like I am moving through something that no one I knew before will understand. And so yes, I guess I am lonely. I am sitting with all of this alone, and I just don’t think people will understand, and I am exhausted by it. So, I’d rather just be quiet.”

“You’re right. They likely won’t understand.”

My mother’s feelings were hurt after I called Anna to talk with her. “I learn more about you listening to you on the phone than from our conversations,” she says to me, tears in her eyes. How many days I spent craving to be near my mom, and now I don’t know how to be near to anyone.

“I don’t know how to be anywhere right now,” I feel detached and calm as I say this. I’ve felt this way for a long time now. I think I felt this way before evening leaving New York over fourteen months ago.

So, relationships are not what I daydreamed. Shocking. Friends are no longer as close as they were when I left. People have moved onto new romantic relationships. And I am thankful. I, too, have experienced new forms of love and intimacy this year. In Tanzania, I loved a man in a way I never thought possible, a type of love I am sure to never experience again. In my mind and heart, I loved many others. I loved my fellow volunteers with an intensity and support that is akin to some sort of battlefield. And no, Peace Corps was no battlefield, but in the separation from everything familiar, the people around you become your home, your brothers and sisters, your constant. And then there was the love of Mama Doris and her embrace and her warm savory bananas and the smile that reached from ear to ear. And little Annie’s arms around my neck and sitting in the grass overlooking the valley together, giggling.

I am thankful that the flux of human connection continues to rip me wide open. Life would be so very uninteresting without this ebb and flow; without the tumultuous building of a relationship and it never being quite what you thought it would be.

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Yesterday, I awoke with a wild rush in my stomach. It is a familiar sensation. It is the preparation and the packing the readying for departure. This is my zone. I thrive in the days to do list. I move quickly, efficiently, perhaps mildly manic? No, this is my stage, my temple. I dance around my room, packing toiletries and underwear, and repacking and resorting. My mom says, “I’ve never heard anyone pack so loudly.” There’s a first time for everything. This is my practice. This is my grand waltz; the days soundtrack is Justin Bieber and then Stephan Colbert. I am laughing, which feels like a sweet relief.

I have had rising anxiety, as I am sure we all have. And I have a tiny voice in my mind telling me I should reconsider packing this bag, going on this “trip.” But none of this is a trip, it’s just my life right now. Perhaps it may always be. I only began to feel this anxiety settle when I began to pack my bag again. I am reminded of Kim Gordon’s quote, “I am equally mistrustful of the energy bursts of New York gives you, which fragment and exhaust you. If you’re at all anxious though, the city acts out your anxiety for you, leaving you strangely peaceful.” And with that the tiny voice quiets just a bit.

I spent a month living out of a backpack traveling through Southeast Asia, while fantasizing about lux luggage and checked bags and fancy clothes and hangers. Then, last night I overpacked two suitcases, trying to contend with the reality of packing for, “a trip to NYC,” and also the unknown of this current situation. I finish and, with a heavy hand, pour myself a glass of pinot noir. And then I take everything out of the suitcases, rid myself of all the hangers, I ditched the nice clothes, the heels, consolidated my belongings once again into my constant companion, my Cotopaxi – otherwise known as the most phenomenal backpack one might ever need to travel.

As I lay on the floor in my underwear, staring at my perfectly planned “airplane outfit,” my perfectly packed backpack and carry on, I am reminded of when I was in high school. Every night, I packed my backpack and hung my uniform. Honestly, from an outsider’s perspective, it may seem like an anal, type-A, control thing. But, it’s my yoga, my practice. I, now after a very long journey, know I how to live with the necessities. I know how to maximize space, both literal and spiritual. I have an eye for this process, of packing and unpacking, of being in movement. The dance of the day before travel is my magnum opus.

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As the plane began to sink lower towards the ground, I drank coffee and peered out the window; I was waiting to see the city unfold below me. There is some sort of clarity that comes over me in the sky, some sort of perspective. And like so many flights before this one, I felt something release. My preconceived ideas of how my relationships will be and what they will look like. Hell, what the rest of my life, or even my year, will look like. This has not been a journey back to any one person or place, but rather, deeper into myself. Painful at times, yes; but stunning in its expansiveness.

We are living through a moment of unknown. This is a feeling which I have grown quite close to over the last year. My suggestion? Sit down, sit deeper into it, breathe into that space you so often neglect. The unknown of politics and pandemic are scary; and they prove absolutely fruitless to panic over. The unknown of what it means to sit with yourself, alone, for possibly days on end though? To really get to know yourself; to finally have the time you’ve been saying you needed to start that project, write that story, build that app, email that friend, paint that portrait. The unknown of finding out what is really holding you back and hold you in your comfort zone. There’s work to be done there. This is actionable. So be prudent and use this time wisely. Make the unknown your close confidante and comfort.

Before I took off, I was texting a friend back in Tanzania, and the word, “unknown,” translated to, “I’ve known.” And so there it is, I have known, for what feels like thousands of years now, that this process, this sitting in the muck and mire of fear and joy and jealousy and gratitude, all at once; that’s love.