lover carrots

deep in the soil,
in the darkness,
earthness
you were born
once
upon a time
in separate places.
even then,
before you knew
of your own existence
and each other's
you began reaching out,
growing closer.
with every pass of the sun
through a sky you could not see
your bodies stretched slowly
towards a beloved presence
beyond.
with every wax and wane
of the moon
your longing grew stronger,
still nameless
formless
movement in mud,
until,
until,
until
your skins suddenly touched
in the black beneathness,
and you discovered
a perfect familiarity apart,
a bright beseeching
an invisible dance
eyes closed
deeply knowing
just when and how to be
as one.

Reopening Our Boundaries

“I’m afraid that as the world opens back up and others feel safer to explore it that I will be left alone.”

I sent this text last week to my “apocalypse buddy”, the person I’ve had the most continued close contact with through #covidtimes.

“I think now is the time to fully embrace yourself and think of that experience as positive not negative. No, you won’t be left all alone but yes you might be more distant than normal for a bit. It too shall pass though. Your timeline is just a little different than others,” he responded.

But should it be?

From an equity lens, shouldn’t we reopen our doors during this pandemic in a way in which we can all go out safely?

I am a person with a chronic illness, and the medication I take to keep from going blind suppresses my entire immune system. I am also a public health leader, and someone who has struggled with anxiety and depression my entire life as well. These are the lived experiences that inform my words today.

Last week, my apocalypse buddy was invited to play volleyball. When I told my therapist, she gasped. She, who usually reserves emotions for me, reacted so strongly I had to laugh through my tears. I likened it to being in an intimate relationship with someone and being casually told he was headed to an orgy. She said that was the perfect analogy, what with all the aspirating and sweating he would do playing ball with five others. She suggested I tell him how I felt and give him that understanding instead of feeling unconsciously abandoned. So I sent the text, and he made his choice.

We all must take risks during this time.

Some must take many more than others—our essential service providers and medical providers; folks in public or overcrowded housing, with no housing, or with prison bars around them; public transportation riders; those who need special care; the ones who teach our youngest children. We shouldn’t take the privilege to physically distance for granted. It is not an imposition on our freedoms, but rather a reflection of them. 

For older adults, those of us with chronic illnesses, and other groups, each of the risks we take is much greater, as we are more likely to experience severe illness if we contract COVID-19. This includes over half of adults in North Carolina, as 51.1% are 65 and above, have a chronic illness, or both.[1] Among people of all ages who have died from COVID-19 in NC, 74% have a confirmed underlying condition, like me.

There are many more risks we could take, but we have a choice not to. It is these choices I am writing of today.

Many of us are struggling and feeling the need to return to the activities and people that keep us resilient. Do this. However, take care of yourself and others by thinking about each activity with intention. Ask, “is this worth the risks? How might I lower them?” Ride your bike in the park but don’t play volleyball yet or play only with your #quaranteam. Continue to wear coverings, wash your hands, and keep your distance.[2]

I am not saying don’t do anything, only urging you to things differently than before-- safely and slowly with extra thought in the coming months. 

Just because the doors are open doesn’t mean the threat is gone.

Since we haven’t seen the most tragic and traumatic effects of COVID here, it can feel easier to return to a sense of safety and normalcy as the world reopens. Still, we must remember the lessons we have learned during these challenging months and hold onto the heightened awareness of just how interconnected we all are.

Please continue to stay safe. Connect with each other in ways that don’t sacrifice our health for discomfort, our collective wellbeing for our individual desires. Let’s be conscientious as the boundaries between us dissolve again. 

Let’s continue to take only worthwhile risks and as safely as we can. If not for yourself, then for those who have less choice and more to lose.

---

[1] Data is from the NC State Center for Health Statistics Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System and cited here: https://files.nc.gov/ncdhhs/documents/files/covid-19/Risk-Factors-for-Severe-Illness-from-COVID-19.pdf Research also shows that people of color are at increased risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19 but is not reflected in this data source.

[2] For additional guidance on what you can continue to do, see https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/.

scents of love

The first smelled of salt:

Waves filled with sunrise.

Hands shaping bodies,

bodies shaping hands,

the breath of pebbles whispering.

The next fire.

Gasoline from tools he used to fight,

Soaked through his flannels

into our blankets, the bath,

the forest floor smoldering.

For a while, then a while, I smelled the hunt.

Ripenesses of man in pursuit.

Awakening in darkness.

Returning in darkness,

at times with the iron taste

of blood on his skin.

Years later, it was soap--

the freshness of stability,

a house with a fence and a lawn.

Even cut grass didn’t linger in his beard.

At times for meetings, our partings,

the beard disappeared entirely,

a part of himself swept aside.

She was different. I don’t remember

which smells she held. Only those around her:

Whiskey, lavender, lemons, linen.

The Hudson and Queen Anne’s Lace,

moonlit and howling.

Once a lover smelled of oak moss and amber.

I chased him to learn

where it came from

and led to
but never found the source.

This one smells of clay. Deep underearth.

Like a golem he buries it in my bed.

I cannot escape.

I wonder

what is left of me

on their pillows,

in their dreams,

in their woods.

I wonder

what was left on me,

tangled in my hair,

the track marks on my body,

the remnants in my breath.

I am one who wants

what she cannot have.

Don’t give me all of you

All at once.

Little by little,

instead, seep in

to the depths of unconsciousness,

so the lightest breeze

becomes enough

to raise your ghost.