I should be working on my novel right now. There are a lot of things I could be doing, during this time of social distancing, but I just keep going back to my phone, checking on my friends, checking the headlines, checking on the numbers. I don't want to think about the coronavirus, but I can't seem to think about anything else.
So I figured I'd just write about what it's like. My kids will remember it as a time of fun, lots of screen time, playing in the yard, and no school. But when they're older, I want to be able to tell them what it was like for me.
This certainly is going to go down in the history books; we'll be feeling the cultural and economic effects of it long after it's stopped going around. Maybe, reading the death tolls, people will think, "Well, obviously it was going to be big." But of course, we don't have those death tolls now! We have hints and signs and fears, we have countries beginning to be hit hard and countries with a few cases and people saying it's a huge overreaction.
I first thought it might be a big deal when a friend of mine shared an article to that effect, maybe a month ago. I thought, yeah, okay, that's a little concerning. I picked up an extra package of rice and one of beans, got serious about handwashing, and hoped it would be handled well.
Of course it was not. This country is not being run by adults at the moment. I have ideas for how things could be managed better, but nobody is asking me. If my kids ask if people realized it was being so badly mismanaged--well, I did. But some people even now think that we're lucky to have the leadership we do.
I watched the cases get closer and closer. A few here and there, no worries, they're isolated. Then oh dear, a cluster here and there, community transfer. The sports leagues had cases; they canceled all their games. Broadway went dark. The first cases were reported in our state.
On Thursday I asked my boss if our school would close if the public schools did. She said, oh, that's not going to happen. Just because the schools are closing other places doesn't mean it will happen here. But sure, if that happens, like, next month, no worries, we have spring break soon anyway. We're certainly not going to be the only school open.
So I told my students, if there's no school next week, keep working on this chapter. They were shocked. Surely they won't cancel school, no one is saying that, it's not going to happen. But I thought, with cases already in Virginia, it would happen soon. Sure enough, the governor made the call on Friday. I went shopping before the kids got home, because Friday is my day to, but I wish I had gone earlier. It was very busy. There was plenty of most food, but no toilet paper and little bread.
Our state has had its first death. Most people I know did not go to church on Sunday. A lot of people are still saying it's a massive overreaction; it's one death and people die of flu all the time. I'm watching the news from Iran and Italy and seeing how fast this thing spreads, how high the death rate is, and I am pretty sure it will soon be that way here. I am glad the schools are shut down and I wish people were distancing themselves more than they are. Doesn't do much good to shut things down halfway.
At this point, some people are staying home entirely. Plenty of people are still going out--congregating in restaurants, congregating at bars, getting the kids together for playdates. I'm trying not to. I let the kids play with a neighbor and now I'm second-guessing it. After all, John's work still isn't canceled. I don't want to be a vector between his work and another family.
The stores are still a nightmare. I thought people would have stocked up by now and would be staying out of the stores, but they're not. Everyone wants toilet paper; no one could possibly need that much toilet paper. Somebody bought up thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer so he could resell at a profit. That kind of thing disappoints me. I would like to believe that in a crisis, we'd all choose to be community-spirited and pull together, but unfortunately in a crisis people remain about the same.
Our capitalist economy, so good at handling other kinds of change deftly, is hindering us here. People go to work sick because they don't get paid if they don't. Plenty of companies will fire you for being sick too much. People are scrambling for childcare because they have to work but the schools are closed. A coronavirus test, if you can get one at all (you can't in my town) will cost over a thousand dollars. We're beginning to realize that we are only as safe as the poorest and most vulnerable, but not in time to do very much about it. We desperately need some kind of economic help: a fund to cover sick pay for people in quarantine; eviction freezes; no payments needed on rent or loans. Instead there has been a bailout only for the banks.
Here at home, we continue on. The kids have painted, done puzzles, played with playdoh, watched documentaries, played on the computer, read books. They would like to go somewhere but don't seem too upset yet that we can't. Tomorrow it should be nice and they can play in the yard. Maybe go for a walk.
Facebook is full of selfies and memes and conversations--for me, not many arguments, just checking in. We are a little bored and a lot scared and that makes us need to talk to each other as much as we can. If we can't be together in person, let's text each other fifty times a day.
This is three days in; it's nothing yet. We're going to get a lot more bored yet, and a lot more scared. A few people I know have fevers and can't get tested. That's going to increase. Some people I know may die. I hope not. Both of my surviving grandparents are isolating themselves; everyone sick I know is doing what they can. I'm not afraid for myself; I don't want to be sick, but I am in good health generally. I'm likely to be able to get over it on my own. And I'm not afraid for my kids. They're supposed to be pretty resistant. But I am afraid for the 3% who will die if they get it, people I know and people I don't know. And I'm afraid for the many more who will die if they get it and can't get medical care because the hospitals are overwhelmed. There's a "flatten the curve" thing going around, but there's no scale bar given. And why? Because the peak of the natural curve is so steep that it's many, many times the level we can handle. To flatten it out enough, we have to stop it almost in its tracks. Which I hope--I wish I could believe we will.
I don't feel very hopeful. I feel like I'm watching a car wreck in slow motion; the outcome already determined, my feet glued to the ground. Nothing I can do can make it not unfold this way. All I can do is watch and root for humanity over a virus. I grew up thinking plagues were over; that pretty much everything serious was eradicated or treatable. Now I just worry that after this one has its way with us, there will be another, and another. And humanity too divided, too suspicious, too panicky to do anything but run and hoard and spread it.
This has been a really hard four years for me. I was just recovering from losing my faith in 2016. I thought, you know, it's a shame God doesn't have it all worked out, but we have each other. Humanity's doing pretty well considering. I read The Better Angels of Our Nature and felt like maybe things were just going to get better all the time, as we learned how to do it.
And every damn thing in the past four years has been reality hitting me with a wet smack in the face: NO! IT'S! NOT! GETTING! BETTER! Maybe there's a hard upper limit on how civilized humanity can manage to be. Maybe we're just too broken inside, not from a fruit but because evolution didn't care if we were happy or good, only that some of us were strong enough to live. Maybe we'll wipe ourselves out from our stupidity, sooner or later, with one thing or another. Maybe that's why we've never found any aliens: because nature doesn't create anything that can handle getting this far from barbarism.
I'm sorry about these negative reflections. I know it's not the whole story. I know that people are good and kind and that I'm not the only person sacrificing all the things I might rather do to save the lives of others. My neighbor braved the stores and brought me a pack of toilet paper today. That has to count for something. I want to believe things can be better. I make plans for how we'll handle the next pandemic, how prepared we'll be, what leaders I want handling it. I wait and see what will come. I wash my hands and share funny memes and try not to spiral. That's kind of all I can do right now.
That, and I can make my kids remember this as the fun school break where they played cards and got to watch so much TV.
Monday, March 16, 2020
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Utilitarianism is for pandemics
It's hard to make decisions right now. Different sources are saying different things; one minute you read about people hoarding toilet paper and laugh, the next you read about how close the closest case is to you and your chest gets tight with panic.
Or maybe that's just me.
But emotion, of course, isn't a good guide for action. It's almost impossible to choose to be exactly as scared as a situation warrants, instead of falling prey either to panic or to normalcy bias. (That would be the one where you think, whenever I get scared it always ends up being nothing, I'm going to sit tight and not worry while everyone else runs around panicking....as the room fills with smoke.) And even if you could choose to be the right amount of scared, adrenaline doesn't actually tell you what to do. It just makes you want to do something, and sometimes you pick something wildly unhelpful like stealing masks from a doctor's office.
So we need moral reasoning to get us through. Deontology asks: is there a moral prohibition against ever spreading illness? No, there is not; while it's generally wise to wash your hands often and to stay home if you're sick, none of us is used to cancel whole conferences because of one sick attendee. So deontology would have us carry on as usual, following usual rules. Unless your usual rule is "listen to public health organizations," which is probably a good one unless your government is so corrupt you can't trust it.
Catholic moral reasoning would ask if you intended to infect anyone. Could you know with reasonable certainly that going to work would kill someone? If not then it's probably not a mortal sin, which is all some people care about. (Meanwhile some aren't even worrying about that, because after all death isn't so bad. Which is odd if you're also het up about murder and abortion and so on. Death comes for all, but one doesn't want to be the vehicle delivering it ahead of schedule.)
Honestly, utilitarianism is the most sensible moral philosophy right now. Simply ask whether your behavior will cause or prevent deaths, and what number.
Now some are going to think that means we should never go anywhere or do anything, since there is always a risk of death. But that would ignore the risks of canceling things. School is where a lot of kids get lunch. If stores close, it will be hard to get food to people. In general, economic damage slows down the economy, which means layoffs and poverty. Poverty causes deaths.
This situation, though, may be worth the cost. Between coronavirus' virulence and its death rate, millions may die if it is allowed to spread freely. Already Italy is dealing with another kind of utilitarianism, more immediate and painful: who gets the limited ventilators. If you're very old and sick, you don't get one because they don't have high hopes for you anyway. My grandpa said this morning that, because of his age and cancer, they'd only send him home to die.
That's awful, and yet I'm not going to blame utilitarianism for it. They have to allocate those ventilators somehow, and it beats having people bid cash or something. Instead, I'd say it's utilitarianism coming into the equation too late. It should have been used to shut down towns sooner. It should have been used to stop people from leaving the virus area in China. It should have been used by Patient 31, who had a fever and yet went to church exposing thousands of people.
Use utilitarianism when you're weighing lives against things other than lives. Lives against how bored you are at home, how much you wanted to go to that conference, how much money you'll waste on those vacation tickets. And use it when you're not aware you're weighing lives against lives: do we close the soup kitchen, do we go into work at a hospital today, do we pass a bill to provide sick leave or a bill to bail out businesses for lost profits.
To practice utilitarianism, you need information. Even if it makes you nervous, it's good to read the news and check for up to date recommendations. Try, as much as possible, to think with your head.
Here are a few links I found useful.
Cancel Everything - The Atlantic
Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now - Medium
Or maybe that's just me.
But emotion, of course, isn't a good guide for action. It's almost impossible to choose to be exactly as scared as a situation warrants, instead of falling prey either to panic or to normalcy bias. (That would be the one where you think, whenever I get scared it always ends up being nothing, I'm going to sit tight and not worry while everyone else runs around panicking....as the room fills with smoke.) And even if you could choose to be the right amount of scared, adrenaline doesn't actually tell you what to do. It just makes you want to do something, and sometimes you pick something wildly unhelpful like stealing masks from a doctor's office.
So we need moral reasoning to get us through. Deontology asks: is there a moral prohibition against ever spreading illness? No, there is not; while it's generally wise to wash your hands often and to stay home if you're sick, none of us is used to cancel whole conferences because of one sick attendee. So deontology would have us carry on as usual, following usual rules. Unless your usual rule is "listen to public health organizations," which is probably a good one unless your government is so corrupt you can't trust it.
Catholic moral reasoning would ask if you intended to infect anyone. Could you know with reasonable certainly that going to work would kill someone? If not then it's probably not a mortal sin, which is all some people care about. (Meanwhile some aren't even worrying about that, because after all death isn't so bad. Which is odd if you're also het up about murder and abortion and so on. Death comes for all, but one doesn't want to be the vehicle delivering it ahead of schedule.)
Honestly, utilitarianism is the most sensible moral philosophy right now. Simply ask whether your behavior will cause or prevent deaths, and what number.
Now some are going to think that means we should never go anywhere or do anything, since there is always a risk of death. But that would ignore the risks of canceling things. School is where a lot of kids get lunch. If stores close, it will be hard to get food to people. In general, economic damage slows down the economy, which means layoffs and poverty. Poverty causes deaths.
This situation, though, may be worth the cost. Between coronavirus' virulence and its death rate, millions may die if it is allowed to spread freely. Already Italy is dealing with another kind of utilitarianism, more immediate and painful: who gets the limited ventilators. If you're very old and sick, you don't get one because they don't have high hopes for you anyway. My grandpa said this morning that, because of his age and cancer, they'd only send him home to die.
That's awful, and yet I'm not going to blame utilitarianism for it. They have to allocate those ventilators somehow, and it beats having people bid cash or something. Instead, I'd say it's utilitarianism coming into the equation too late. It should have been used to shut down towns sooner. It should have been used to stop people from leaving the virus area in China. It should have been used by Patient 31, who had a fever and yet went to church exposing thousands of people.
Use utilitarianism when you're weighing lives against things other than lives. Lives against how bored you are at home, how much you wanted to go to that conference, how much money you'll waste on those vacation tickets. And use it when you're not aware you're weighing lives against lives: do we close the soup kitchen, do we go into work at a hospital today, do we pass a bill to provide sick leave or a bill to bail out businesses for lost profits.
To practice utilitarianism, you need information. Even if it makes you nervous, it's good to read the news and check for up to date recommendations. Try, as much as possible, to think with your head.
Here are a few links I found useful.
Cancel Everything - The Atlantic
Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now - Medium
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Hygiene tips for toddlers
Of course we all have been extra careful about our hygiene lately, because of coronavirus. I'm sure everyone has been washing their hands to their favorite songs for a full twenty seconds, stopping themselves from scratching their noses at the last second, and staying home if their throat is scratchy. That's a given.
But kids, you know, have a harder time. So I thought I'd put together a few helpful tips for my toddler readers (ha!) because if there's one member of our family who needs to work on their hygiene, it's the toddler.
1. Eat a healthy diet. You know how you usually strive to eat as much food off the floor as possible? Try to keep it to 2-3 floor snacks a day. And only one of these should be off the floor of a disgusting gas station.
2. Cover your sneezes and coughs. If you can't get your hands up in time, mommy's eyeball is a great place to sneeze.
3. Wash your hands often. Mom is a horrible tyrant for ever making you stop. Turn both taps on full, splash in them, splash yourself, splash the floor. More splashes = more hygiene! That's just science!
4. If you're planning to lick your palms, rub them together, and apply them to friends and family saying you're "putting sunscreen on them," ask first. For some weird reason, some grownups don't want you to do that! It's like they want to get skin cancer!
5. Get a good night's sleep every night. Of course we all know that's impossible without a parent's presence. Wake every three hours to check that they're there. If not, bellow! You need your shut-eye and it's just inconsiderate of them to keep leaving like that.
6. Avoid contact with strangers, like babysitters, the doctor, and Grandma. I recommend the stink eye and an angry grunt if they try to talk to you. This doesn't count that nice kid at the park who is throwing sand with you. He is your best friend now. Borrow his sippy cup.
7. Bathrooms are unsanitary. Don't potty train. Just say no. Forever.
8. Pets help strengthen your immune system. Share your lollipop with the dog.
9. Stop grocery store hoarding. If your mom stops at the store for extra hand sanitizer to donate to the school, scream. Roll on the floor. Say you want to sit in the cart and then make your body rigid as a board. You know what to do.
10. Stay home if at all possible. And guess what, it's always possible! Explain to mom why she can't go to work. Grab the work clothes out of her hands as she tries to get dressed. Block her path to the shower. Hide her keys. It's for public health.
Toddlers, we are counting on you!
But kids, you know, have a harder time. So I thought I'd put together a few helpful tips for my toddler readers (ha!) because if there's one member of our family who needs to work on their hygiene, it's the toddler.
1. Eat a healthy diet. You know how you usually strive to eat as much food off the floor as possible? Try to keep it to 2-3 floor snacks a day. And only one of these should be off the floor of a disgusting gas station.
2. Cover your sneezes and coughs. If you can't get your hands up in time, mommy's eyeball is a great place to sneeze.
3. Wash your hands often. Mom is a horrible tyrant for ever making you stop. Turn both taps on full, splash in them, splash yourself, splash the floor. More splashes = more hygiene! That's just science!
4. If you're planning to lick your palms, rub them together, and apply them to friends and family saying you're "putting sunscreen on them," ask first. For some weird reason, some grownups don't want you to do that! It's like they want to get skin cancer!
5. Get a good night's sleep every night. Of course we all know that's impossible without a parent's presence. Wake every three hours to check that they're there. If not, bellow! You need your shut-eye and it's just inconsiderate of them to keep leaving like that.
6. Avoid contact with strangers, like babysitters, the doctor, and Grandma. I recommend the stink eye and an angry grunt if they try to talk to you. This doesn't count that nice kid at the park who is throwing sand with you. He is your best friend now. Borrow his sippy cup.
7. Bathrooms are unsanitary. Don't potty train. Just say no. Forever.
8. Pets help strengthen your immune system. Share your lollipop with the dog.
9. Stop grocery store hoarding. If your mom stops at the store for extra hand sanitizer to donate to the school, scream. Roll on the floor. Say you want to sit in the cart and then make your body rigid as a board. You know what to do.
10. Stay home if at all possible. And guess what, it's always possible! Explain to mom why she can't go to work. Grab the work clothes out of her hands as she tries to get dressed. Block her path to the shower. Hide her keys. It's for public health.
Toddlers, we are counting on you!
Saturday, February 29, 2020
G-Gpa
I got to thinking about my great-grandpa last night. He died when I was in boarding school; two days before I came home for summer break. But I grew up not far from where he lived, so I saw him often as a kid.
Before I was born, he sold cars. Then the Depression happened, and he took his wife and several children to a cabin on a lake to live off the land. They ate venison and berries and fish. There are black-and-white pictures of my grandpa and his brothers, holding up the morning's catch with the caption "breakfast!" I won't say they lived just fine out there--my grandpa's growth was stunted from malnutrition, and he and his brother both had heart troubles later on--but they survived it.
But that's all hearsay; stuff I remember from being told. What I remember, myself, is mostly G-Gpa's house.
It was a brick house, not large, with a pretty ordinary-sized lot. But where other yards in the neighborhood sported mown lawns and hedges, G-Gpa had raspberries and grapevines. He had fruit trees and a greenhouse. He had beehives and a big clump of pine trees in the back.
G-Gpa didn't really go to the store, except for ice cream. He lived off his land, and in the winters he went down to Baja California to fish. He caught big marlins bigger than his boat, fed pelicans, spotted breaching whales. He was featured in a magazine as the crazy old man who rowed his own boat and intended to row till he was one hundred.
His kitchen was where the adults gathered. It smelled like fish, and we would be served odd things like venison liver or giant salads with salmon in them. But after the gross adult food, he would bring out cardboard cartons of ice cream out of the deep freeze. He would hack straight through the carton with a machete, peel of the cardboard, and dump a slice of it in your bowl. Then pour over the sweet, tart raspberries and hand it over.
G-Gpa was hard of hearing, especially at high pitches, so we kids mostly didn't talk to him much. We'd let him comment on our height, admire his white hair and his big, bushy eyebrows, and then make ourselves scarce while the adults shouted back and forth. We didn't want to hang around in the fish-scented kitchen.
The upstairs was oppressively quiet, with heavy, dusty air. We always felt like we weren't supposed to be there, though no one had ever told us no. But still, we weren't about to touch the heavy chimes by the unused front door, or the knick-knacks in the dining room. The living room, we did have things would could play with: polished stones that my great-grandmother had polished, in a big box. You could stick your hands under the rocks and feel the weight of all of them. Or you could pick out your favorites and trade them. On the mantle were an ostrich egg and an inlaid tray decorated with blue butterfly wings. More things from G-Gpa's travels.
I don't remember my great-grandmother, though I am told I have met her. Her name was Dorathy, and she polished stones and bowled competitively. The stairwell was full of her trophies.
Downstairs was where the house got seriously weird. There was a wall by the furnace with all the great-grandchildren's heights measured, and a box of wood blocks you could build with. And beyond that, the main room, where the ping-pong table was. There must have been about thirty big sets of antlers, with names and dates of the people who had shot the deer, and styrofoam cubes stuck on the tips so that you wouldn't gash your head on them while playing ping-pong. Apparently that had to happen a few times before the styrofoam was added.
There were glass shelves full of fish skeletons and birds' talons. A big pufferfish skeleton hung from the ceiling, forever inflated. In a chair, there was a fox pelt; you could put it on and terrorize the cousins with it. It smelled old and musty.
A folding screen separated out an area where a cousin slept; later it was a different cousin in the same spot. G-Gpa's house was a place you could live if you needed a place. On the screen were pinned birds' wings, dozens of them in different sizes and colors. It was like a natural history museum, only with ping-pong. I was awed by it, wondering how many places G-Gpa had had to go to find these things.
G-Gpa sometimes took us around the yard to show us different things he was working on. He showed me a spinach leaf for the first time, and I remember being amazed because it looked so different from the dark, shriveled stuff that came out of our freezer. Sometimes he sent us home with big boxes of food: tomatoes, corn, honey, and milk jugs of grain. For a family that was used to ramen noodles with frozen spinach, those boxes were like Christmas.
Our family reunions every Fourth of July were partly to celebrate his birthday, which fell near then. I remember him wearing his Uncle Ernest's bathing suit, an old-timey singlet in red, white, and blue, ready to start the festivities by jumping in the lake. Someone from the shore shouts, "Wait, did he take his hearing aid out?" His son, my Grampy, shouts back, "Yep, he can't hear a thing!" G-Gpa jumps into the frigid glacier water, and I jump in after. Nobody else comes in, and G-Gpa shouts affectionately, "My little swimmer!"
One of the last times I saw him, we were at a park where he did his daily swim. He already had cancer then, but he explained that he still swam five miles a day in Lake Washington, regardless of the weather. His body was like a wiry piece of leather, scraped almost clean of flesh but still strong. I felt like he would never die, not G-Gpa.
At his wake, we all laughed and talked and played games. It seemed right, because G-Gpa wasn't a somber man. And after all, he'd lived past eighty and seen his children's children's children. No tragedy, not really.
But sometimes I wish I could take my kids to the old brick house, show them the smooth pebbles and the birds' wings and the old man with the red face and the bushy white eyebrows, and I can't. And I think, maybe it was a tragedy after all. Every death takes something out of the world that can't ever be put back. I like to think his spirit was distributed among his descendants, that I got some of the gardening and the cold-water swimming and the deep desire to support myself without going to the store. And maybe we got fragments. But the greater part of his spirit, the man himself, is gone and I still miss him after all this time.
Before I was born, he sold cars. Then the Depression happened, and he took his wife and several children to a cabin on a lake to live off the land. They ate venison and berries and fish. There are black-and-white pictures of my grandpa and his brothers, holding up the morning's catch with the caption "breakfast!" I won't say they lived just fine out there--my grandpa's growth was stunted from malnutrition, and he and his brother both had heart troubles later on--but they survived it.
But that's all hearsay; stuff I remember from being told. What I remember, myself, is mostly G-Gpa's house.
It was a brick house, not large, with a pretty ordinary-sized lot. But where other yards in the neighborhood sported mown lawns and hedges, G-Gpa had raspberries and grapevines. He had fruit trees and a greenhouse. He had beehives and a big clump of pine trees in the back.
G-Gpa didn't really go to the store, except for ice cream. He lived off his land, and in the winters he went down to Baja California to fish. He caught big marlins bigger than his boat, fed pelicans, spotted breaching whales. He was featured in a magazine as the crazy old man who rowed his own boat and intended to row till he was one hundred.
His kitchen was where the adults gathered. It smelled like fish, and we would be served odd things like venison liver or giant salads with salmon in them. But after the gross adult food, he would bring out cardboard cartons of ice cream out of the deep freeze. He would hack straight through the carton with a machete, peel of the cardboard, and dump a slice of it in your bowl. Then pour over the sweet, tart raspberries and hand it over.
G-Gpa was hard of hearing, especially at high pitches, so we kids mostly didn't talk to him much. We'd let him comment on our height, admire his white hair and his big, bushy eyebrows, and then make ourselves scarce while the adults shouted back and forth. We didn't want to hang around in the fish-scented kitchen.
The upstairs was oppressively quiet, with heavy, dusty air. We always felt like we weren't supposed to be there, though no one had ever told us no. But still, we weren't about to touch the heavy chimes by the unused front door, or the knick-knacks in the dining room. The living room, we did have things would could play with: polished stones that my great-grandmother had polished, in a big box. You could stick your hands under the rocks and feel the weight of all of them. Or you could pick out your favorites and trade them. On the mantle were an ostrich egg and an inlaid tray decorated with blue butterfly wings. More things from G-Gpa's travels.
I don't remember my great-grandmother, though I am told I have met her. Her name was Dorathy, and she polished stones and bowled competitively. The stairwell was full of her trophies.
Downstairs was where the house got seriously weird. There was a wall by the furnace with all the great-grandchildren's heights measured, and a box of wood blocks you could build with. And beyond that, the main room, where the ping-pong table was. There must have been about thirty big sets of antlers, with names and dates of the people who had shot the deer, and styrofoam cubes stuck on the tips so that you wouldn't gash your head on them while playing ping-pong. Apparently that had to happen a few times before the styrofoam was added.
There were glass shelves full of fish skeletons and birds' talons. A big pufferfish skeleton hung from the ceiling, forever inflated. In a chair, there was a fox pelt; you could put it on and terrorize the cousins with it. It smelled old and musty.
A folding screen separated out an area where a cousin slept; later it was a different cousin in the same spot. G-Gpa's house was a place you could live if you needed a place. On the screen were pinned birds' wings, dozens of them in different sizes and colors. It was like a natural history museum, only with ping-pong. I was awed by it, wondering how many places G-Gpa had had to go to find these things.
G-Gpa sometimes took us around the yard to show us different things he was working on. He showed me a spinach leaf for the first time, and I remember being amazed because it looked so different from the dark, shriveled stuff that came out of our freezer. Sometimes he sent us home with big boxes of food: tomatoes, corn, honey, and milk jugs of grain. For a family that was used to ramen noodles with frozen spinach, those boxes were like Christmas.
Our family reunions every Fourth of July were partly to celebrate his birthday, which fell near then. I remember him wearing his Uncle Ernest's bathing suit, an old-timey singlet in red, white, and blue, ready to start the festivities by jumping in the lake. Someone from the shore shouts, "Wait, did he take his hearing aid out?" His son, my Grampy, shouts back, "Yep, he can't hear a thing!" G-Gpa jumps into the frigid glacier water, and I jump in after. Nobody else comes in, and G-Gpa shouts affectionately, "My little swimmer!"
One of the last times I saw him, we were at a park where he did his daily swim. He already had cancer then, but he explained that he still swam five miles a day in Lake Washington, regardless of the weather. His body was like a wiry piece of leather, scraped almost clean of flesh but still strong. I felt like he would never die, not G-Gpa.
At his wake, we all laughed and talked and played games. It seemed right, because G-Gpa wasn't a somber man. And after all, he'd lived past eighty and seen his children's children's children. No tragedy, not really.
But sometimes I wish I could take my kids to the old brick house, show them the smooth pebbles and the birds' wings and the old man with the red face and the bushy white eyebrows, and I can't. And I think, maybe it was a tragedy after all. Every death takes something out of the world that can't ever be put back. I like to think his spirit was distributed among his descendants, that I got some of the gardening and the cold-water swimming and the deep desire to support myself without going to the store. And maybe we got fragments. But the greater part of his spirit, the man himself, is gone and I still miss him after all this time.
Sunday, February 23, 2020
The hardest part
I hear a lot about how hard it is to be an "autism parent." And it's not wrong; parenting a child with autism is playing on hard level. There are extra things to worry about and appointments to make. Potty training may take years. Sleep might be disturbed for a decade.
But the hardest part of all, I think, is the judgment of other people. Autism looks a lot like bad behavior, especially to an older generation that prizes politeness. Autistic children scream, cry, fail to sit still, won't say please and thank you, or don't play well with other kids. And so bystanders tend to look on and say, "That child is a bad child, where are his parents? Somebody should try raising that kid."
It's easy enough to shake off from strangers. But the same comes from friends or family. If I vent about some difficulty I've had, there's always somebody ready with the standard parenting advice: have you tried punishment? Have you tried boundaries? Have you tried, you know, actually raising your kid? Because from what you're saying about their behavior, it looks like you don't know what you're doing.
I went through all of this with Marko, and because I didn't have a diagnosis for so long, I often just censored myself altogether. Better not to even say how he was acting or what we were struggling with, because I knew people would blame me. In public, I was ready to defend him at all times, because people constantly tried to talk to him and would get miffed when he didn't respond. I knew that I acted differently from other parents. I knew that not all parents went to such huge lengths to keep their children happy. And I knew that I would get judgment for behaving that way.
When we were having the autism assessment, everyone was so kind. I asked many times, in worried tones, whether it was my fault. Had I been spoiling him by not subjecting him to environments that upset him? Had I hindered his education by not pushing harder at writing and reading? And they were so reassuring. They said that I had clearly sensed what kind of parenting he needed and provided it. That he was doing really well and the reason was probably me and my above-and-beyond parenting. I could have cried. All those years of bending over backward for him, being sure I was screwing him up because everyone seemed to think so, and being told it wasn't me. That I had been doing things right all along.
It's on my mind a lot because the same dynamic is happening with Jackie. I don't know yet if she has autism or anything you could diagnose. Maybe not, because as I've mentioned, autism is diagnosed mostly as a social deficit and Jackie is plenty communicative with us at least. But I do know she's not like other kids. I know that something is up, and if there's no name for it, that changes nothing about what she needs.
She needs about three times the bending over backward that Marko did. Everything in my entire day is controlled by Jackie, what she will tolerate and what she won't. I can't wear a sweater in her presence. A shower requires significant advance planning. Leaving the house may require half an hour of preparation and outfit changes and toy collecting, and even then she might need to be packed in screaming. I'm trying to wean her right now and it's so hard. She just gets upset by so many things, and there are so few that calm her down.
Yesterday I went with her to a party, and like every time I try to socialize with her around, she didn't like it much. She climbed on my head, flipped upside down, made dozens of ridiculous and contradictory demands. By the last hour she just asked to leave, over and over.
It was embarrassing, seeing her act like that while, in the same room, another three-year-old was completely entertaining himself. And knowing that many of the other adults have high standards for kids, and maybe were thinking Jackie was spoiled, that it was my fault, that kids shouldn't be so needy. Nobody said anything, this time, but it was hard to avoid that feeling of judgment.
Even my other kids sometimes say I let her get away with too much, let her have too much of what she wants. All I can say is that I've tried it before and her behavior gets ten million times worse.
Online, occasionally I vent about what a challenge she is. How much I would like to be able to just attend a school meeting or throw in a load of laundry without having to work out how to get Jackie to handle it. How tired I am of nursing her, three years in, or how much I want to sleep through the night before I'm old. Most people, to their credit, empathize. But every once in awhile someone does judge and it hurts so much. They'll say: well, with my child, I try saying no to them. Or: you're the mom, if you are tired of nursing just stop. Or: at her age she can handle not getting what she wants.
It tears me down so much, every time I hear this. Because the undercurrent is that it's my fault. That I took a normal child and spoiled her to the point that she cannot handle existing in this world. It's an awful thing to feel, and it takes hold so much because it hits a tender patch of self-doubt inside me. Because I do worry it's me. I do worry I've spoiled her. I do worry that if somehow I had been better, she could get up in the morning and go down and eat breakfast without having a wailing meltdown because I wanted to drink a cup of tea. Heck, even if it is purely her brain, maybe it's still somehow my fault because I was such a mental-health wreck while I was pregnant with her. Or if it's genetics, isn't it then my fault for getting pregnant again?
I took her to her three-year-appointment this week. I dreaded it for weeks ahead of time. What if I was honest about our struggles and the doctor said, try actually parenting her? What if I tried to explain and the doctor brushed me off and said all toddlers have meltdowns sometimes? Maybe I should just keep all that to myself and pretend she's potty-trained and weaned and sleeping through the night.
In the end, I chose to be honest. I already had Jackie thrashing in my arms and demanding to leave the room; how could I pretend I had no concerns? And the doctor was extremely kind. She said it sounded like I was doing all the right things. She said if I have concerns, it's worth it to get an assessment. She gave me a referral to an occupational therapist, saying it sounds like I need help now and not months from now when we finally get in with the psychologist.
I could have cried. After all the judgment I've had, the surprise from people when they see how she acts, and the well-meaning "well did you try . . . " comments, there is nothing in the whole world that means so much as "it sounds like you're doing all the right things."
Because when it comes down to it, the judgment is the hardest part of the whole business. Not that I can't go to social events; not that I don't get sleep at night; not the occasional days where she cries the whole time. It's the fear that I caused it, and the judgment I get from people who assume I did. Other parents get to vent about their kids, so long as everyone's kids are doing more or less the same stuff. And if your child is extra hard, you need the support of other people all the more! But if your child falls outside the norm for whatever reason, it's hard to find safe people to vent to.
Listen to a special-needs mom today, without offering any advice. It'll mean the world.
But the hardest part of all, I think, is the judgment of other people. Autism looks a lot like bad behavior, especially to an older generation that prizes politeness. Autistic children scream, cry, fail to sit still, won't say please and thank you, or don't play well with other kids. And so bystanders tend to look on and say, "That child is a bad child, where are his parents? Somebody should try raising that kid."
It's easy enough to shake off from strangers. But the same comes from friends or family. If I vent about some difficulty I've had, there's always somebody ready with the standard parenting advice: have you tried punishment? Have you tried boundaries? Have you tried, you know, actually raising your kid? Because from what you're saying about their behavior, it looks like you don't know what you're doing.
I went through all of this with Marko, and because I didn't have a diagnosis for so long, I often just censored myself altogether. Better not to even say how he was acting or what we were struggling with, because I knew people would blame me. In public, I was ready to defend him at all times, because people constantly tried to talk to him and would get miffed when he didn't respond. I knew that I acted differently from other parents. I knew that not all parents went to such huge lengths to keep their children happy. And I knew that I would get judgment for behaving that way.
When we were having the autism assessment, everyone was so kind. I asked many times, in worried tones, whether it was my fault. Had I been spoiling him by not subjecting him to environments that upset him? Had I hindered his education by not pushing harder at writing and reading? And they were so reassuring. They said that I had clearly sensed what kind of parenting he needed and provided it. That he was doing really well and the reason was probably me and my above-and-beyond parenting. I could have cried. All those years of bending over backward for him, being sure I was screwing him up because everyone seemed to think so, and being told it wasn't me. That I had been doing things right all along.
It's on my mind a lot because the same dynamic is happening with Jackie. I don't know yet if she has autism or anything you could diagnose. Maybe not, because as I've mentioned, autism is diagnosed mostly as a social deficit and Jackie is plenty communicative with us at least. But I do know she's not like other kids. I know that something is up, and if there's no name for it, that changes nothing about what she needs.
She needs about three times the bending over backward that Marko did. Everything in my entire day is controlled by Jackie, what she will tolerate and what she won't. I can't wear a sweater in her presence. A shower requires significant advance planning. Leaving the house may require half an hour of preparation and outfit changes and toy collecting, and even then she might need to be packed in screaming. I'm trying to wean her right now and it's so hard. She just gets upset by so many things, and there are so few that calm her down.
Yesterday I went with her to a party, and like every time I try to socialize with her around, she didn't like it much. She climbed on my head, flipped upside down, made dozens of ridiculous and contradictory demands. By the last hour she just asked to leave, over and over.
It was embarrassing, seeing her act like that while, in the same room, another three-year-old was completely entertaining himself. And knowing that many of the other adults have high standards for kids, and maybe were thinking Jackie was spoiled, that it was my fault, that kids shouldn't be so needy. Nobody said anything, this time, but it was hard to avoid that feeling of judgment.
Even my other kids sometimes say I let her get away with too much, let her have too much of what she wants. All I can say is that I've tried it before and her behavior gets ten million times worse.
Online, occasionally I vent about what a challenge she is. How much I would like to be able to just attend a school meeting or throw in a load of laundry without having to work out how to get Jackie to handle it. How tired I am of nursing her, three years in, or how much I want to sleep through the night before I'm old. Most people, to their credit, empathize. But every once in awhile someone does judge and it hurts so much. They'll say: well, with my child, I try saying no to them. Or: you're the mom, if you are tired of nursing just stop. Or: at her age she can handle not getting what she wants.
It tears me down so much, every time I hear this. Because the undercurrent is that it's my fault. That I took a normal child and spoiled her to the point that she cannot handle existing in this world. It's an awful thing to feel, and it takes hold so much because it hits a tender patch of self-doubt inside me. Because I do worry it's me. I do worry I've spoiled her. I do worry that if somehow I had been better, she could get up in the morning and go down and eat breakfast without having a wailing meltdown because I wanted to drink a cup of tea. Heck, even if it is purely her brain, maybe it's still somehow my fault because I was such a mental-health wreck while I was pregnant with her. Or if it's genetics, isn't it then my fault for getting pregnant again?
I took her to her three-year-appointment this week. I dreaded it for weeks ahead of time. What if I was honest about our struggles and the doctor said, try actually parenting her? What if I tried to explain and the doctor brushed me off and said all toddlers have meltdowns sometimes? Maybe I should just keep all that to myself and pretend she's potty-trained and weaned and sleeping through the night.
In the end, I chose to be honest. I already had Jackie thrashing in my arms and demanding to leave the room; how could I pretend I had no concerns? And the doctor was extremely kind. She said it sounded like I was doing all the right things. She said if I have concerns, it's worth it to get an assessment. She gave me a referral to an occupational therapist, saying it sounds like I need help now and not months from now when we finally get in with the psychologist.
I could have cried. After all the judgment I've had, the surprise from people when they see how she acts, and the well-meaning "well did you try . . . " comments, there is nothing in the whole world that means so much as "it sounds like you're doing all the right things."
Because when it comes down to it, the judgment is the hardest part of the whole business. Not that I can't go to social events; not that I don't get sleep at night; not the occasional days where she cries the whole time. It's the fear that I caused it, and the judgment I get from people who assume I did. Other parents get to vent about their kids, so long as everyone's kids are doing more or less the same stuff. And if your child is extra hard, you need the support of other people all the more! But if your child falls outside the norm for whatever reason, it's hard to find safe people to vent to.
Listen to a special-needs mom today, without offering any advice. It'll mean the world.
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Libertarianism, socialism, and whatever the heck this is
I'm not a libertarian any more. I was never that hardcore of one, in that I stuck with libertarian policies mainly because I found them practical. Further research has revealed that some of them aren't that practical, so I abandoned them. Libertarianism doesn't reliably care for the poor, protect the environment, or prevent massive corporations from taking advantage of ordinary people. That stuff is important enough to be a dealbreaker.
But of course, when you suggest that complete anarcho-capitalism isn't ideal, people demand to know whether you're a socialist. Trouble is, socialism seems to have shifting definitions. Is the gold standard for socialism the USSR, or Norway, or maybe Venezuela? If you propose a single change, like universal healthcare, you're told that's socialist. But that one policy certainly doesn't make a country equivalent to China or Cuba. There are a lot of stops on a scale from pure anarchy to pure communism - both of which, proponents will tell you, have never actually existed in real life, not on a large scale.
And one of those stops is the US. The US is not libertarian or purely capitalist. We have socialized education, socialized libraries, and a socialized retirement program. The government manages labor laws, breaks up monopolies, and injects cash into the economy to stave off recessions. Whether it's successful at any of those is always a matter for debate.
I read a book some years ago about North Korea. The North Korean defectors spotlighted in the book knew their communist system had flaws, but they were sure it was better than the alternative, which they imagined was something out of a Dickens novel. Child labor, grinding poverty with no aid available, no free schools, no affording a doctor if you're poor. What convinced them communism wasn't actually the best option was learning Western nations had modified their capitalist systems so they weren't like that anymore.
Which of course is exactly what happened. America isn't purely capitalist because we tried that and it was bad, so we established some safety nets and that was better. Capitalism isn't ruined just because there's an income tax or some food stamps.
So how much government intervention do you have to have before it's socialism? Frankly, I don't know and don't care; that's a question on the order of "is taxation theft," namely, arguing about definitions rather than realities. The real question is, how much management of the economy, in the form of graduated tax brackets and social programs, would it take to remove the advantages of having a free economy?
The advantages of a free economy include flexibility (there are lots of kinds of jobs and products, new products can arise all the time, prices are responsive to demand) and the ability to affect your own situation by working. Decentralizing decision-making means one person making a stupid decision won't cause an entire industry to go under. Income tax doesn't change these things significantly, not unless it's many times higher than what we have. Some socialist policies do threaten them. For instance, subsidizing anything risks increasing its price uncontrollably- since people aren't paying directly, they won't stop purchasing even if the price gets exorbitant (see: higher education, houses, healthcare*).
[*though with healthcare, since we need it to live, it's never going to be perfectly price-controlled by demand.]
So we just have to be careful with it. The main thing I learned when I was studying the food system is that there are no simple solutions. Some horrible situations (like, for instance, e. coli in meat, or small farms going under) are caused by too little regulation, others by too much. Sometimes it's just the wrong regulation, either because lobbyists got through something to protect their interests, or because people didn't think through the consequences of their actions. So, whether we're adding regulations or taking them away, we have to be smart about it. That's a lot more important than whether something is "socialist" or not. We also have to consider who the policy will benefit: the ones in our society who need it most, or the ones who are doing fine and will continue to?
My current favorite candidate is Elizabeth Warren. She is concerned with helping those who need it most, and just as important, she's run the numbers and actually has a plan for everything. She's practical, and I like that.
Don't get me wrong, though, I'd vote for a hole in the ground before I'd vote for the incumbent.
But of course, when you suggest that complete anarcho-capitalism isn't ideal, people demand to know whether you're a socialist. Trouble is, socialism seems to have shifting definitions. Is the gold standard for socialism the USSR, or Norway, or maybe Venezuela? If you propose a single change, like universal healthcare, you're told that's socialist. But that one policy certainly doesn't make a country equivalent to China or Cuba. There are a lot of stops on a scale from pure anarchy to pure communism - both of which, proponents will tell you, have never actually existed in real life, not on a large scale.
And one of those stops is the US. The US is not libertarian or purely capitalist. We have socialized education, socialized libraries, and a socialized retirement program. The government manages labor laws, breaks up monopolies, and injects cash into the economy to stave off recessions. Whether it's successful at any of those is always a matter for debate.
I read a book some years ago about North Korea. The North Korean defectors spotlighted in the book knew their communist system had flaws, but they were sure it was better than the alternative, which they imagined was something out of a Dickens novel. Child labor, grinding poverty with no aid available, no free schools, no affording a doctor if you're poor. What convinced them communism wasn't actually the best option was learning Western nations had modified their capitalist systems so they weren't like that anymore.
Which of course is exactly what happened. America isn't purely capitalist because we tried that and it was bad, so we established some safety nets and that was better. Capitalism isn't ruined just because there's an income tax or some food stamps.
So how much government intervention do you have to have before it's socialism? Frankly, I don't know and don't care; that's a question on the order of "is taxation theft," namely, arguing about definitions rather than realities. The real question is, how much management of the economy, in the form of graduated tax brackets and social programs, would it take to remove the advantages of having a free economy?
The advantages of a free economy include flexibility (there are lots of kinds of jobs and products, new products can arise all the time, prices are responsive to demand) and the ability to affect your own situation by working. Decentralizing decision-making means one person making a stupid decision won't cause an entire industry to go under. Income tax doesn't change these things significantly, not unless it's many times higher than what we have. Some socialist policies do threaten them. For instance, subsidizing anything risks increasing its price uncontrollably- since people aren't paying directly, they won't stop purchasing even if the price gets exorbitant (see: higher education, houses, healthcare*).
[*though with healthcare, since we need it to live, it's never going to be perfectly price-controlled by demand.]
So we just have to be careful with it. The main thing I learned when I was studying the food system is that there are no simple solutions. Some horrible situations (like, for instance, e. coli in meat, or small farms going under) are caused by too little regulation, others by too much. Sometimes it's just the wrong regulation, either because lobbyists got through something to protect their interests, or because people didn't think through the consequences of their actions. So, whether we're adding regulations or taking them away, we have to be smart about it. That's a lot more important than whether something is "socialist" or not. We also have to consider who the policy will benefit: the ones in our society who need it most, or the ones who are doing fine and will continue to?
My current favorite candidate is Elizabeth Warren. She is concerned with helping those who need it most, and just as important, she's run the numbers and actually has a plan for everything. She's practical, and I like that.
Don't get me wrong, though, I'd vote for a hole in the ground before I'd vote for the incumbent.
Friday, January 31, 2020
The last decade, and a word
It's the thing, apparently, to have a decade flashback. Where were you a decade ago, and where are you now?
A decade ago was honestly a low point for me. I was pregnant with Marko, living in Philadelphia. More specifically, a cruddy little duplex in Hatboro. Tiny living room, tiny kitchen, bedroom barely big enough for a mattress on the floor, and every night we could hear our neighbors screaming at each other and throwing things.
We worked opposite shifts from each other, me at school and him at the bank, so we only got a whole day to spend together on federal holidays. Our first year of marriage was mostly eating dinner on the couch, too tired to talk much. Between our two paychecks we were doing all right, except for the fact that I knew I'd have to quit and then there would be only one paycheck. We had no real friends. I liked my coworkers but work was an hour from home so we couldn't hang out socially. And I hadn't really hit it off with the rest of the people in choir yet.
I wrote a whole blog post post about how this must be part of some better plan. And you know what? It wasn't. Moving to Philly was probably a mistake and that entire year ended up being just a holding pattern till we managed to leave.
But that's kind of okay, in retrospect. Because I never have to do that year again. It's 2020 and I have a big house, a schedule I can handle, and enough money to order a pizza now and then. It's pretty nice!
Now, my life is still overwhelming and hard in a lot of ways. Different ways. At least there's less time in the car. And I'm not pregnant! Not being pregnant is the BEST. Last night I slept on my hip funny and woke up with it hurting at five am so I went back to sleep. When I woke up it was fine. Amazing. That doesn't happen when I'm pregnant!
Still, I struggled to come up with a word or resolution for the year. I still believe in my goals for past years and am still trying to achieve them. But all the things I most want to happen this year, none is entirely under my control:
-wean Jackie
-potty train Jackie
-get Jackie to sleep through the night
-be able to accomplish more in a day
-get a literary agent
-finish 1-2 novels
-Donald Trump gets voted out
These are all things I want, things I'm motivated to get, and things I have plans to achieve. But all of them are subject to the cooperation of others. I'm doing pretty well about writing in the available time, but the available time has shrunk to an hour or less in the evenings because Jackie literally demands my attention all the rest of the time. I'm putting my work out there, but publishing, as the agents who reject me keep reassuring me, is a subjective industry.
It's been years that I've tried to pull myself up to a basic level of functioning. Years that I've hoped and tried and planned and schemed to get full nights of sleep, sort the laundry before anybody was out of pants, make appointments when I first think of it rather than after months of forgetting, get more exercise than carrying Jackie up and down the stairs. And it hasn't happened, or not for more than a week or two before we all get the stomach flu and my head's shoved back under water.
It would be really tempting to just give up and let it happen. Just put my laptop inside a drawer, as I've had to before, and say this is not my year or my decade. To move from frustration to despair and stop believing that things will eventually get better.
And that's when my word came to me, as it always does: HOPE. I'm not going to do a blessed thing any differently. I'm just going to choose not to give up hope. I hope Jackie sleeps through the night. I hope I get an agent. I hope I'm able to finish this beautiful novel I'm writing, which I'm so in love with.
There's the old experiment with animals, where you put them in cages they couldn't possibly get out of, and eventually they stop trying to get out of even flimsy cages. Learned helplessness is what it's called. And that's what I reject. I reject the idea that because I haven't had much success with things in the past, I never will. I reject defeat and hopelessness. I choose to keep trying because sooner or later, things will get easier, and I don't want it to find me sitting on my butt with no ideas and no craft supplies. I'm pushing a rock up a mountain and it's basically going nowhere, but if I've got my shoulder to it, sooner or later I'll notice that it's starting to pick up a little speed.
That's what I hope, for 2020.
A decade ago was honestly a low point for me. I was pregnant with Marko, living in Philadelphia. More specifically, a cruddy little duplex in Hatboro. Tiny living room, tiny kitchen, bedroom barely big enough for a mattress on the floor, and every night we could hear our neighbors screaming at each other and throwing things.
We worked opposite shifts from each other, me at school and him at the bank, so we only got a whole day to spend together on federal holidays. Our first year of marriage was mostly eating dinner on the couch, too tired to talk much. Between our two paychecks we were doing all right, except for the fact that I knew I'd have to quit and then there would be only one paycheck. We had no real friends. I liked my coworkers but work was an hour from home so we couldn't hang out socially. And I hadn't really hit it off with the rest of the people in choir yet.
I wrote a whole blog post post about how this must be part of some better plan. And you know what? It wasn't. Moving to Philly was probably a mistake and that entire year ended up being just a holding pattern till we managed to leave.
But that's kind of okay, in retrospect. Because I never have to do that year again. It's 2020 and I have a big house, a schedule I can handle, and enough money to order a pizza now and then. It's pretty nice!
Now, my life is still overwhelming and hard in a lot of ways. Different ways. At least there's less time in the car. And I'm not pregnant! Not being pregnant is the BEST. Last night I slept on my hip funny and woke up with it hurting at five am so I went back to sleep. When I woke up it was fine. Amazing. That doesn't happen when I'm pregnant!
Still, I struggled to come up with a word or resolution for the year. I still believe in my goals for past years and am still trying to achieve them. But all the things I most want to happen this year, none is entirely under my control:
-wean Jackie
-potty train Jackie
-get Jackie to sleep through the night
-be able to accomplish more in a day
-get a literary agent
-finish 1-2 novels
-Donald Trump gets voted out
These are all things I want, things I'm motivated to get, and things I have plans to achieve. But all of them are subject to the cooperation of others. I'm doing pretty well about writing in the available time, but the available time has shrunk to an hour or less in the evenings because Jackie literally demands my attention all the rest of the time. I'm putting my work out there, but publishing, as the agents who reject me keep reassuring me, is a subjective industry.
It's been years that I've tried to pull myself up to a basic level of functioning. Years that I've hoped and tried and planned and schemed to get full nights of sleep, sort the laundry before anybody was out of pants, make appointments when I first think of it rather than after months of forgetting, get more exercise than carrying Jackie up and down the stairs. And it hasn't happened, or not for more than a week or two before we all get the stomach flu and my head's shoved back under water.
It would be really tempting to just give up and let it happen. Just put my laptop inside a drawer, as I've had to before, and say this is not my year or my decade. To move from frustration to despair and stop believing that things will eventually get better.
And that's when my word came to me, as it always does: HOPE. I'm not going to do a blessed thing any differently. I'm just going to choose not to give up hope. I hope Jackie sleeps through the night. I hope I get an agent. I hope I'm able to finish this beautiful novel I'm writing, which I'm so in love with.
There's the old experiment with animals, where you put them in cages they couldn't possibly get out of, and eventually they stop trying to get out of even flimsy cages. Learned helplessness is what it's called. And that's what I reject. I reject the idea that because I haven't had much success with things in the past, I never will. I reject defeat and hopelessness. I choose to keep trying because sooner or later, things will get easier, and I don't want it to find me sitting on my butt with no ideas and no craft supplies. I'm pushing a rock up a mountain and it's basically going nowhere, but if I've got my shoulder to it, sooner or later I'll notice that it's starting to pick up a little speed.
That's what I hope, for 2020.
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