Day 219…
From the window in our living room, I can see across the street to a building that has floor to ceiling windows. None of those windows have blinds on them, so it’s easy to see what’s going on inside the apartments. I can’t help but take a quick look over there in the evenings when I am pulling down our own shades for the night.
Let me be clear, I’m not perving on my neighbors. I have never seen anything even remotely salacious going on. All I have ever done is caught the occasional glimpse of their distant lives.
In one apartment there is a couple with a baby. One of them is often walking around the living room with it.
In another, the television is usually on. Whoever lives there is usually on the sofa in the middle of a bunch of pillows.
Another spends a lot of time sitting at a table working on something. I can dimly see the shape of whoever it is in the light from their open computer.
It’s comforting to see that people around us are living their lives in much the same way Michael and I are. New York apartments are made for a pandemic. In a city of 8.4 million people, we are already completely isolated from one another.
I can only ever see any of those people in the evenings when it is dark outside, and their lights are on. During daylight hours, the sun or the clouds are mirrored in the windows, turning them opaque. What do they do with the rest of their days?
Are they working?
Are they stressed?
What are they thinking?
We are constantly told that we aren’t what we do. That our jobs don’t define us. These days, I have to say, I can’t stop wondering that if we aren’t what we do, then who, exactly, are we?
I have never considered my job a job. I love doing it. I get excited when there is a new challenge ahead of me. I am never happier than when I am exhausted and in the middle of a difficult tech. There may be days when all I want is a break, but the kind of break that I want is just a breather. I’m always ready to go back.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about how much we used to enjoy a staycation. A week at home with no work was an unbelievable luxury. You could get things put away or fixed.
Going through my closets and drawers and getting rid of a lot of old clothes was the thing I used to yearn for. Somehow the act of organizing the physical mess of my life helped me to focus and calm down.
On a break, I could do some shopping at the stores that I was usually forced to rush by on my way to work. Maybe go to a museum.
A few days off was a chance to take a deep breath and take stock of my life. Then I was ready to go back to my real life with renewed energy. The break was always over a day or two too soon, but it still felt great to get back to work.
I never imagined that I would have a staycation that lasted seven months with the probability of at least another seven yet to come. The things in my life that needed sorting or repairing have long been done or I’ve decided that I’m never going to do whatever it is and that I’m just going to let it go.
Without an actual paying job, I have created a pandemic job for myself. Writing this everyday has become my job.
Months ago, a friend asked me, “When did you realize, oh f%$#, I now have to do this every day?” My answer at the time was day 32 - I think we were at day 80-something at the time. We both laughed.
There were days early on when I would go to sleep wondering what in the name of all that is holy could I possibly write about the next day. These days, I might think of a general idea before going to sleep or I might not, but I’ve stopped worrying about it. There is always so much that is going on. Too much, maybe.
We are all living through such a strange time. Just because it has gone on this long, doesn’t make any of it normal. We can never forget that.
We should all be forgiven our anxiety and occasional depression. Just because we have gotten used to all of this doesn’t mean that we don’t want it to stop.
Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison.
We visited one of them a few years ago, Robben Island. It lies off the coast of Cape Town in South Africa. He spent 18 of his years in prison locked down in there.
18 years in a tiny stone and brick cell, sleeping on the floor with a bucket for a toilet. He was forced to do hard labor in a quarry on the island for every single one of those endless years. He was allowed one visitor per YEAR. That visitor could stay for 30 minutes.
I am sure he got used to it, but I am equally sure that he never stopped hoping that it would end.
He had a place to sleep and was given food to eat. He survived. Is survival the same thing as living?
We are, all of us, infinitely more provided for these days than that. I am not for one second saying that any of us are even remotely going through what he had to endure. Of course not. Like him, though, many of us have been separated from doing the things that we do.
We cannot do the things that define us while this pandemic continues to spread throughout our country, not to mention, the rest of the world. We are definitely surviving, often in plenty of physical comfort, but are we truly living?
I am starting to think about some of the larger and more involved writing projects that have been lurking in the back of my mind for years. It’s not that I’m giving up hope that my industry and by extension my ability to work will ever come back. It’s not that at all. It’s just that I realize that over the past seven months I have written nearly a thousand pages. The same amount of time, if not more, lies ahead of me.
Hmm.
It’s pouring rain outside today, but the last thing that I want to do is stay inside all day.
Michael has a virtual audition for a role on a TV series today. Rather than self-taping, he’ll be auditioning live using Zoom. I’ve promised him that I’ll vacate the apartment in an hour so that he can prepare.
He really does not like to audition at all. The acting, he loves, the auditioning, not so much.
Even with all of the anxiety that gathers around the act of auditioning for him, this morning Michael is being his full, committed self. He is doing what he does and what he lives to do. At times it is utterly excruciating for him.
It’s the same for me, sometimes, when I am in the middle of a seemingly unsolvable conflict. You just pray that it will be resolved and that you can just stay home and take a break from it all. Just for a minute.
20.6 million Americans have already voted in our upcoming national election.
20.6 million Americans have made their choice about what direction they would like their lives to take.
I for one, would like to change the direction our lives have been forced to take. Some of what has occurred over these past months may have been unavoidable but much of it truly was. Completely avoidable. Enough already.
I am grateful for this time to be able to explore a different side of my working life. It doesn’t much matter to me that I created this job myself.
A job is a job is a job.
And I need a job. I need to have something to do - something to make - to feel complete as a human being.
A salary is nice, but that has almost never been why I went to work. I went to work because that is where I was able to fully express myself and to truly be who I am.
I am beyond grateful to everyone who reads these posts.
You have no idea.
You’ve given me a job.
I wonder where it will take me.
Here's your answer...to the moon, Richard, to the moon!!!
Glad you’re feeling better! Love your posts! And if you’ve really run out of things to do, get in touch... I’ve got things I can’t do and would love help!,