THE MYSTERIOUS DANCE OF THE COVID
In 2019 I had three jobs and two side hustles, so for all practical purposes I was rich. I could afford groceries, an occasional tunic, regular bodywork, car insurance, food, and art supplies. I also had the distinct feeling that one day soon my chair massage gig was going to be over forever, so every time I got to go to work I accepted it with delight and did my duty to help the clients who came to me for help with their aches and pains.
I also worked at a toy store with a group of depressed, anxiety ridden young people. I did barefoot Ashi massage at a space that I rented, I babysat dogs, cats, and plants while people went on vacation, and I made things with my sewing machine. I also knitted hats whenever I had a spare moment to do that.
I had two projects which I needed to complete and absolutely no energy to finish, and I had so little time to myself that when I did have time I would just nearly drop dead in my bed at the end of a double shift.
When I felt anxious or poor I bought either yarn or fabric to knit or sew later. I bought essential oils to make blends I wanted to market to my clients. I got regular acupuncture and I saw a great therapist for three months, working out some of the deeper issues I had which prevented me from feeling heard, successful, and accessible. Then I got sick. Like really sick, with a lung illness that lasted five weeks, rendering me unable to work at any job I had because exposing people to what I had would have also made them vulnerable. My manager at the massage booth was a complete asshole toward me during this time and kept insisting that I could work on people despite my terrible cough that made me pee on myself. Thankfully I had saved many paychecks and other wages so being off for that long did not hurt me like it might some people.
Christmas came and went. I worked at the toy store, but not too much. I also shared something I wrote with one of the other employees there after talking to her while she was drunk at our Christmas party and the next thing I knew, I was removed from the schedule indefinitely with no notice. I wasn't fired, I was just removed, and for something I wrote that my boss never even saw. When she asked to see it I told her that she would have to buy the book. I wasn't about to share it again. I have been removed from jobs for telling my truth. It is unfortunate, but there was more strange fortune coming for me.
I felt like perhaps I was merely moving toward the place where I would be completely self-employed and able to support myself sooner than I expected. Since it is said that we never are loaded up with more than we can take, I figured that the powers that be must think I am ready to drive the boat myself, so I just kept going. I booked more massages. I sold some of my handmade things.
Then, in early March of 2020, the hammer came down. I was working at a massage booth and suddenly we were closed overnight with no notice. I had already lost 2/3 of my income in less than two months. Now I was completely out of work. Completely.
The week before this occurred, I was in San Antonio at a place called FABRICTOPIA buying $325 worth of linen for making clothing. We were at the edge of the pandemic and I was buying linen, but I wasn't aware of what was coming quite yet. After staying with a friend who had a mood swing and decided I could not stay with her during the Covid thing, I ended up in Dallas with my wonderful friend, where we set up a six foot long table for me to sew, and I started sewing masks, then quilts, then pants, and I ordered enough anti-viral essential oils to equip a Roman Army with supplies to stay well. I could not stop ordering those oils no matter how hard I tried. I ordered herbs, an extra pair of hiking boots, and some seven-star needles for use in healing work. I ordered goat milk soap. I sent my mother pants. I sent fabric to a new friend. I donated stuff I wasn't using. I gave away masks that I made to complete strangers and to friends of friends.
For the first month of Covid, I knit one hat per day until it was finished. After 29 days I ordered a little more yarn and knit a small pile of hats to add to the larger pile. By the time I was done I had made 31 hats. I started making a blanket I had been waiting to do since I ordered the kit during the Christmas holiday.
The surges of panic and anxiety during the first part of this thing were pretty notable, and I had trouble sleeping, so I watched Perry Mason with my friend and ate dinner, then sat up watching crime shows until very late, making hats. My friend kept making dinner, appetizers, and many tuna salad experiments. I ate almost an entire pound of really good English cheddar that was in his refrigerator. We purchased pounds of beans that we never did eat, not even once.
For some reason I felt like I needed to order enough gardening seeds to start a small seed bank even though I only had enough room in Dallas to plant one basil plant, which I did. Two years later my friend was still cooking with that basil.
While I was up there, I helped my friend organize his pantry and office. This is a perpetual job and worth doing. Releasing clutter makes more space for energy to flow, along with the fact that I had basically turned his museum showroom into a manufacturing studio overnight, which I'm sure drove him a little crazy. Sometimes he'd come home from work and see my piles of fabric, sewing machine and supplies where the dining table used to be and ask me "What's this?" I wanted to respond, "It's progress!" but I didn't.
I walked his two dogs during Covid every day that I was in Dallas. Since the streets were empty and hardly anyone was driving there was plenty of fresh air for the plants to flourish. I watched bamboo grow. I'll probably never have that kind of time again.
During the pandemic my mother was panicking, but I think she secretly liked it that she was now officially isolated from everyone. And my stepfather made her wait in the car with a mask on while he went shopping for groceries. Sometimes she would call me from the car and whisper through her mask that she was alone, as if talking to me loud enough for me to hear her would transmit the virus through the phone. She was finally being held hostage in the same way she did that to everyone else she knew. The fucking virus was generating so much fear, it was remarkable.
My friend and I put a couple of onions in the back garden, which is only about 14 inches wide and has little trees in it. And they started to grow.
At some point during my time in Dallas my friend Jason, who is also a gardener, sent me two culinary mushroom growing kits. Since I had cleaned up the laundry room at my friend's house, I set up the growing kits on top of the dryer, complete with chopsticks and little plastic tents to keep the mushrooms humidified.
One day soon after that my friend asked me, "What are those?" to which I responded enthusiastically "Mushroom growing kits!"
Those mushroom growing kits ended up being the last straw for my friend, who, after 6 weeks, had had enough of my creative enterprise and just wanted his dining and laundry rooms back.
I did return to Austin shortly afterward, noting that other artists had experienced some creative response to being told to stay home. My friend Carolyn hired a very famous artist and another creative to work on a bathroom tile remodel that ended up costing twice as much as the original bid and made the bathroom look like a Mexican hacienda. Carolyn might have had the most fun during Covid, as she got to cook and share meals with her fabulous friends like they were on a long term women's retreat.
I returned to the house where I was living and my housemate was working in the Covid ICU daily. She told me she had exposed me to it at least 1,000 times and if I wasn't dead by now I probably wasn't going to be.
I made some mistakes at that house. One night I left the windows open to get some air. And I forgot to close them before I left for New Orleans to help my friend who had a neck injury and needed a driver.
While I was gone, Austin froze, and so did all of the plants in my room, along with the room itself, which made my housemate lay down a rule that I could never open the windows again.
I left that May and slept in many places for several months, picking up jobs here and there and enjoying the space around people, and the lack of contact with them in general.
All I had to think about was keeping ice in my little cooler.
Covid changed so many ways that systems operate. Now it's nothing for people to have food dropped off at the door by an anonymous ninja , and people are still wary of hand shaking and hugging, even 5 years later.
I managed to re-create a living where I have far less stress, and I realized that massage therapy is never coming back to Whole Foods again. I guess, for me, I may be one of the people who was affected the worst. My massage building was mowed down; all that's there now is a concrete slab. My massage table is in a storage unit and I go grab it when it's time to use it and return it when I'm done.
One thing I'm glad about is I can once again hug a few people without them looking at me like I'm going to kill them. And every once in a while, when I...
