Born Free

One of my sisters, Renee, often takes advantage of my editing skills.

Her latest endeavor was updating the family tree on our maternal grandfather’s side as a member of The Strange Family Historical Society (SFHS). Since SFHS published its first history book over 10 years ago, they’re gathering data via an Excel worksheet to update it.

Beyond editing out the wordiness and reformatting the worksheet, the veteran teacher came out in me. The instructions included two examples of how to fill it out, using two different family members, which added unnecessary complexity. Moreover, there was no visual aid. How could instructions about one’s connection to the Strange family not include a family tree?

Fortunately, I had an illustrating app. I refreshed my memory about common conventions used in a family tree chart: squares for men; circles for women; a horizontal line connecting spouses; siblings all perpendicularly connected below their parents on the same horizontal line.

I added more features for the purpose of this data collection. First, the color coding. White was the default color, especially for the Strange family patriarch, Jessee Strange, who was born a slave and freed as a young teen as a result of the American Civil War, which ended in April 1865. Since all of my great grandfather Jessee’s 12 children were freeborn, those Stranges are referred to as The First Generation.

Half of The First Generation of freeborn Stranges had no children and were depicted with a white background. The descendants of the other half of the freeborn First Generation started wearing designated colors at our yearly family reunion, based on their branch of the family tree. For example, my grandfather, Floyd B. Strange, had lime green as his branch color.

I also numbered our family tree, starting with 1 through 12 for the siblings of The First Generation. Part of the data collection instructions included how to assign each family member a unique number, showing their relation to the Strange family tree.

Using Renee as my example, her unique number is 11-6-1 since our grandfather was the 11th child, our mother the 6th child and Renee the first born. Her youngest child, CJ, has the unique number 11-6-1-3 since he’s Renee’s third child.

As I edited the instruction examples, I was suddenly struck with a profound understanding: my sisters, first cousins and I were merely the 3rd generation of freeborn Stranges. How could that be?

There was no error in the conclusion or even the formulation of the conclusion. All my life, I’d bought into the narrative that slavery was a long time ago. So long in fact that I thought several generations had been free.

At that point, I realized I’d believed the dominant narrative hype, starting with what I learned about black people in American history class: The slaves, Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglass, MLK and Rosa Parks. This was back in the mid 80s in NC when Black History month was only a week. (Negro History Week started in 1926, then in 1976 the celebration was expanded to a month and renamed Black History month, but that hadn’t quite caught on yet in my high school. My senior year high school English teacher had crammed the Harlem Renaissance into that week.)

The glossing over and outright omission of the contributions of black people was systemic and served many purposes. First, watered-down Black history guaranteed that a straight-A student like me learned very little about the historical contributions of black people. Secondly, being uninformed, students of all races lacked an appreciation of the genius, innovation and sacrifices of black people. Such knowledge would have fostered pride in black students and respect among nonblack students.

Growing up, I’d always heard the narrative that Black History wasn’t important, not realizing that for the myth of white supremacy to be maximized, then there could be no counterexamples or so few that the “exceptional blacks” were just that.

After the American Civil War concluded, free blacks did not receive their 40 acres and a mule, nor an inheritance from their enslaver fathers. Jim Crow replaced the slave codes. States’ Rights facilitated the inequitable passing of laws to deny blacks basic resources needed to thrive such as education, health care and housing. Redlining carved up communities, dictating where blacks could live. Various repressive voter laws and gerrymandering denied blacks access to exercise their civic duty. Police and courts assume blacks are guilty until proven innocent–if we’re not killed prior to receiving justice. Underlying all of these things are those terrible Gap Twins: Empathy and Economic.

But our salvation lies in our family tree. Within the branches of our family tree are the narratives of struggle and triumph. Until our unadulterated family histories permeate throughout our culture like the latest black-inspired entertainment, the dominant narrative will continue its successful burial of our greatness through systemic racism.

The Next Stage

The week after the March 13th shelter in place declaration, I started live-streaming yoga classes from the comfort of my home.

For several weeks, the yoga instructors also taught from the comfort of their homes, with another yoga instructor in their own home as the “demo” yogi.

Then, due to both economic and political pressure, Texas started to reopen. I’ve not yet bothered to learn the fine differences among the stages, designated as 1 through 5, because my sense of logic immediately rejected the rush to reopen.

The day after the highest number of reported COVID-19 infections, Texas started to reopen. From then on, I’ve not given a damn about which particular stage number we’re actually on. All I know, my livestream yoga instructors returned to the studio and taught class to both virtual yogis and a socially-distanced, reduced number of in-studio yogis.

In-studio yogis had to register online prior to their arrival, wear their masks coming and going to class, and take their showers once they returned home. Originally, they could remove their masks when they were on their mat. Then, due to a change of “stage number,” yogis had to practice with their masks on. Then, yogis had the option to practice with their masks on or off, but the instructors continued to teach with their masks on.

With all the mask wearing, the sale of lipstick decreased 15%. Even the president, who consistently downplayed the pandemic, to the extent that he called it a hoax, was finally publicly seen wearing a mask.

COVID-19 parties are all the rage among college students and other young adults. EXCEPT the coronavirus may be more like a cold rather than the chicken pox when it comes to developing immunity. EXCEPT young people are dying from the infection even though they have no preexisting conditions. EXCEPT this is the plague. Not a hoax.

Speaking of hoaxes…on his deathbed in a San Antonio hospital, an unidentified 30-year-old man confessed to his caregivers that prior to catching the plague, he thought the pandemic was a hoax. Would it be too callous for me to say that he was dead wrong? Or is it now appropriate to have a sick sense of humor?

People who proclaim to be pro-life won’t wear a mask to save lives. Apparently, that pro-life stance is only important when controlling pregnant women.

This is the stage we’re in.

4th of July 2020

This year, more than any other, I heard my fellow Americans pointing out that not all were freed on the original July 4th.

This wasn’t a new idea to me, but we’re now living in the intersection of pandemic, global police brutality protests and the strong light of truth being shined on systemic racism.

And to counterpoint the highly vocal people about how not everyone was freed, there were also people highly vocal about reasserting white supremacy. Yet, most of us, just want to live our lives, which should never be too much to ask.

The pursuit of happiness for most of us was a convenient opportunity to be outside. After all, The Fourth of July landed on a Saturday. Some working people had a 3-day weekend. Some, such as myself, had a regular weekend. So, regular in fact, one would not have known that Saturday was a holiday–except for the Macy’s Fourth of July TV special.

This was the first time I’d ever heard the black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” played during this celebration. Rumor has it, it’ll also be played at the start of NFL football games. The question remains: When the hell will there ever be another football game?

Nonetheless, I continued my Saturday routine with a few tweaks: call Mom; call older sister who thinks she’s my mom; write; yoga; order takeout; watch movie while eating takeout; illustrate while watching TV, including Macy’s Fourth of July.

Rinse and repeat.

Is that depression talking or merely cabin fever? Either way, it’s definitely not “I’m ready to tear off this mask and go running around in a crowd of other unmasked people.” I still value being safe. I even value my Saturday routine. I guess it’s the lack of variation that’s beginning to weigh on me.

Special Election in July 2020

We’ve had runoff elections in the past, but never during a pandemic. The common sense thing to do would be vote online or by mail-in ballot, but as Trump pointed out, if voting became easier to do, no Republican would ever be elected again. Of course, anytime he tells the truth, many rush in to “correct” him. He later regurgitated the party li(n)e: voting via mail-in ballots would increase voter fraud.

There are a few states which allow mail-in ballots without much hassle, but since everything’s bigger in Texas….A lot of confusing legal back and forth ensued as to whether voting by mail out of fear of catching the plague is legal.

In Texas, only three categories of people can vote by mail: voters 65+, voters with disabilities and absentee voters. The second category has caused all the court battles. One side declared that fear of catching the coronavirus if you have pre-existing health conditions or live with someone who does counted as a disability. The other side stated that people couldn’t claim fear of catching the plague a disability–to do so would be committing a fraud. But wait! no one has to prove their disability, so no fraud would be committed.

I took the usual precautions of social distancing and wearing a mask in order to vote. Black women before me endured far more to exercise their right to vote, therefore I carried on the torch. I even brought an umbrella, just in case it was too sunny or raining.

I actually dreaded what I may find at my normal polling place during this unnormal time.

Yet, this was the best outcome.

As I approached, I saw a woman returning from the direction of the main door.

I asked if they’d redirected her to the side door to vote. After confirming my question, I entered after her. At a safe distance, of course.

The volunteer who checked my ID sat behind plexiglass, but I was more interested in the other things on the table.

To the right were popsicle sticks. Yet the real eye-catching items were the finger condoms on the left. The volunteers didn’t call them “condoms,” but I can’t remember the sanitized word they used.

I made my selections quickly since I’d studied before hand.

Yet, the main thing I wanted to do was rush outside and take a picture of my finger condom. One of the volunteers delayed my mad dash to the exit and reminded me to get an “I Voted” sticker. I left the polling place, proudly strutting with the sticker, which promptly blew off my chest into the wind. Hope that wasn’t symbolic of what just happened to my vote.

I’d originally overcropped the picture because after more than 4 months of no manicure,

I couldn’t stand how my hand looked, especially the cuticles. So, I texted the above picture to my family to show off my finger condom–even calling it by that name–and still some family members thought I’d texted them a penis.

Mom thought I was wearing it to “play doctor.” One of my nieces thought it looked strange. And for the family members who thought it was a penis….I assured them that a) I hadn’t had a sex change; b) even if I had, I wouldn’t have whipped it out just to vote with.

The day’s amusement wasn’t all about finger condoms. Since I had just 5 candidate races to vote in, I gave myself more than just the reward of exercising my civic duty. I wanted gifts, based on how many out of the 5 candidates I voted for actually won. So here’s the breakdown of what I’m going to gift myself to celebrate:

  1. Box of ice cream sandwiches
  2. Bottle of Cabernero
  3. Bottle of 1800 tequila
  4. A Plantronics CS520 XD Wireless Headset
  5. BARWING 4D Vibration Platform

For the near-impossible 5 out of 5 winning candidates, I’m going for the first piece of exercise equipment I’ll ever purchase. Since I’m exercising at home every day anyway, I might as well go for something that’ll make my joints feel amazing and is lauded for toning muscles.

Since I saved so much time at the polling place, I went grocery shopping afterwards.

I didn’t realize there was another shortage brewing until I got into the checkout line.

Good grief. Can these crises choose another year?

Juneteenth 2020

I jumped at the chance to hang out with a handful of friends for Juneteenth, which, conveniently enough, landed on a Friday.

One of the perks of working for myself is that I can take a half day. The morning started off with the usual routine: breakfast, work, yoga.

Then I hopped in my car, picked up lunch and dessert and headed over to my friend’s house. Even though I whipped off my Wakanda-decorated mask once the above picture was taken, I wanted to document how different this Juneteenth celebration was.

Since a week before the official shelter-in-place announcement, I’d ordered from a local restaurant once a week,

not just to support those businesses, but also to have a sense of a “weekend.” One restaurant, threw in four free plastic tumblers with my drink order. I saved them for the first person who’d invite me to their place for a celebration. I also brought over novelty (and cheap) blue tequila and some red velvet cupcakes. Red foods for Juneteenth signifies, among other things, the blood of the slaves.

After gobbling down my sushi tuna salad, I took advantage of the hammock.

I knew about the pool prior to my visit, but since I’d planned to view a virtual celebration,

I didn’t want to get sucked into the lazy daze of a swimming pool.

As usual, my capoeira teacher (on the right) was the last to arrive,

but at least I finally had a chance to meet his girlfriend, who, like me, was a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. In the brief time of our acquaintance, I managed to tell her about three of my Peace Corps “war stories.”

Such a beautiful day, one would never know that we were still in the throes of a pandemic.

As a matter of fact, Texas was one of the states where coronavirus rates were increasing. We all used the honor system of sheltering in place, taking precautions and no one experiencing any symptoms.

This was truly the poster child for “no more fucks to give”

—at least for the moment! By looking at this picture, no one would ever appreciate how much trouble he went through to position the doughnut float into the hippo float’s mouth, so he could be elevated enough to drink.

I taught everyone the “proper” way to eat a cupcake.

First, peel all the paper from the cupcake. Then, break off the bottom half and place it on top of the frosting. Finally, enjoy your cupcake frosting sandwich! I’m so happy no one had their camera out when I was eating one. I inhaled mine so quickly that I looked as if I hadn’t eaten lunch first.

As relaxing as this visit/celebration was, I had to say good bye to the pool partyers.

Although I didn’t grow up celebrating Juneteenth, I’ve observed it since moving to Austin and volunteering at the George Washington Carver Museum.

Several of us played historical characters who were previously enslaved in Texas. Our lines came from narratives that were collected in the 1930s of interviews of the former slaves.

Before I had the opportunity to tune into the virtual Juneteenth celebration, many businesses, who’d never shown any interest in either speaking out against systemic racism nor letting me know about the celebration, had emailed me information about it. One big business after another declared Juneteenth to be a business holiday.

Juneteenth’s Saturday takeout was from a historically black-owned business district that’s slowly disappearing due to gentrification and imminent domain.

And like many streets across the US, this one had been painted over to reflect that black lives matter.

I just hope fatigue doesn’t set in long before the paint fades.

Here’s to the Black Men Who Breath Freely

Memorial Day commemorates the men and women of the Armed Forces who have died in the defense of the United States.

Yet, like every other thing existing with the COVID-19 pandemic in the background, even this celebration morphed into the latest wave of international protest.

On Memorial Day 2020, two black men, one in New York City and the other in Minneapolis, both going about their lives in the great pursuit of happiness, entered the most dangerous space known to black people: the mind of a racist.

Avid bird watcher and Harvard grad, Christian Cooper, merely wanted a woman to leash her dog, so it would stop trampling all over the plants–or “plantings” as he called them. (Let the record show that I thought of him as a nerd long before I knew he was a Harvard grad when I heard him talking about “plantings”!)

When the woman didn’t comply with his reasonable request, he took a treat out of his pocket for the dog. His reasoning: most people didn’t like strangers feeding their dog, so they would leash them. At least that was the usual response, but thank goodness he videotaped her response.

Amy Cooper (no relation) reached into her arsenal of white privilege and told Christian that if he didn’t leave her and her dog alone, she’d call the police. She calmly voiced her threat to weaponize the police against an African American man who’d done nothing more than ask her to put her dog on a leash and then offer the dog a snack.

(Side note: I italicized “African American” because Amy made a point to use the politically correct phrase while doing something racist. To which I say, don’t bother calling a black person an “African American” if you’re just going to treat them like a nigger.)

Christian told her to go ahead and call the police.

See, when black people stand our ground, we usually don’t have a gun aimed at the other person. We stand our ground by daring to show our courage and bravely staring down our threats.

With her bluff called, Amy called 911. Her demeanor changed as she displayed her voice-acting skills. She shrieked into her cellphone about how an African American man was threatening her and her dog–all the while Christian was obviously more than the acceptable 6ft of social distance away from her.

The police arrived and, thank God, saw through the sham. After all, both Amy and Christian were still there. No tickets, no arrests, no shooting, no death. The police concluded that two people merely had had a verbal altercation.

Afterwards, Christian reached into his arsenal of social media and uploaded the video. It was the ultimate clapback. Of course the video went viral. Millions of people, especially black people, witnessed the how a white woman, who was fully aware of the potential police brutality against a black man, proceeded all because she could.

The backlash was swift. She lost her job because her employer said they didn’t tolerate racism. She lost her dog. Yes, the same one that she’d rather weaponize the police over than to put a leash on.

The animal shelter insisted on her surrendering the dog so they could place it in a safe home. You see, despite Amy’s insistence that an African American man was threatening her dog, all Christian really did was offer the dog a treat. Amy, on the other hand, had dragged the dog around by hooking her fingers into its collar.

In the aftermath, Amy did two predictable things: she offered a self-serving apology and she declared she wasn’t racist.

Let’s hope her apology indeed made her feel better. So much better that it leads her to read up on systemic racism. And while she’s at it, perhaps she’ll learn that racism isn’t like pregnancy: either you are or you aren’t. No, racism has degrees.

Picture, if you will, a racism continuum. At one end are microagressions such as when a white co-ed during my freshman year in college paid me the insulting compliment, “Teresa, you don’t talk like a black person!” At the other end is first degree murder like when a white gunman carried out his plan to mass murder black people at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina. In between is every other racially-biased action such as when Amy voice-acted her 911 call to weaponize the police against a black man.

She, like many white people, don’t view seemingly nonviolent actions as racist. What she fails to see is the “death by 1000 cuts” aspect of her actions. She contributed to Christian’s everyday stress of living while being black. This violence is slow-moving, collective and deadly over time. This constant racial stress has been shown to shorten the life expectancy of black people.

An example of the racism most white people acknowledge as racism occurred on the same day in Minneapolis when George Floyd encountered weaponized police. For 8 minutes and 46 seconds, Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck as he agonized about not being able to breathe. With his dying breath, Floyd called out for his deceased mother.

For all who watched this viral video, it was the last straw. Firing the four officers involved was not enough. Even Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stated in a press conference that if anyone else had done what former Officer Chauvin had done, they would’ve been arrested.

Waves of local protests grew into national protests, which spread into international protests. By that Friday, former Officer Chauvin had been charged with third degree murder. The protests continued. Former Officer Chauvin’s charges were upgraded to second degree murder while the other former officers who had stood by watching him kill an unarmed, handcuffed black man, where arrested and charged with third degree murder. The protests continued. Even when opportunistic looting erupted, the protests continued. Even when some police were brutal with peaceful protesters against police brutality, the protests continued. Even when some police took a knee and marched with protesters, the protests continued.

(Side note: Once I witnessed cops taking a knee against police brutality, the situation had come full circle for me. I instantly thought out loud, “So when is Kap getting is job back?” Lest anyone forget, Colin Kapernick started the nonviolent taking of a knee to protest police brutality.)

Protesters declared that black lives matter even when there were next to no black people in the protest. Around this time, corporations and city councils, those uneasy bedfellows, starting saying that black lives mattered.

Many questioned how a cop could choke a man in broad daylight, with 3 other cops around, and witnesses and videos. The short answer is systemic racism curated over 400 years. Everything in former officer Chauvin’s past experience, what he knew to be true, told him that he’d not receive any serious consequences. He figured he’d not be charged for months if at all.

What he hadn’t counted on was the waterless flood known as COVID-19. What once was, was no longer. The pandemic had already changed the contour of our existence. Anyone under the illusion of things set in stone need only to look at how the Colorado River shapes the Grand Canyon.

The biggest difference, the coronavirus didn’t need millennia to fundamentally change our environment. Infrastructure vulnerabilities revealed. Food and product chains disrupted. Healthcare professionals swamped. Essential workers exposed.

Systemic racism depended on hiding in plain sight. The constant, distracting rat race of existence provided an excellent cover. Lots of stimuli to draw focus in several different directions all at once.

Then–POOF–the frenzy stopped. Without the blurring fog of activity, systemic racism no longer had shadows to hide behind. No denial plausibility of something else actually going on.

So the real debate: what to do when there’s a glaring problem?

Nostalgists long for things to return to “normal.” Realists embrace “the new normal.” Optimists dream of a future better than before. Pessimists dread that the best days are behind us. Conservationists seek new ways to preserve old structures. Revolutionists want to tear this motherfucker down to rebuild with equity.

While all the “-ists” jostle for position, Mother Nature rages on.

The Gift of Relaxation

On a bright and beautiful Saturday morning during the umpteenth day of self-quarantine, I ventured out to pick up a massage chair my cousin had gifted me. Pre-pandemic, he’d hosted movie nights at his place. I’d had the joy of sitting in that chair while we talked and joked so much that sometimes a movie wasn’t actually shown.

For most of my Zoom calls, I’d rolled in my work chair from my bedroom, where my office is set up, into the dining room. Now, my massage chair is there. Something about a vibrating chair that enhances the joy of drinking. No meeting will ever be dull again.

My cousin warned me that I could time travel (ie fall asleep) in that chair if I wasn’t careful.

I nearly did that once, but at least I wasn’t in a meeting.

“How’re doing?” is usually said as a form of greeting without really wanting to hear any heavy response. Thanks to this pandemic, some people feel bad for asking as if it’s still a superficial question. While I’m not so far gone after seemingly innumerable days in self-quarantine to reply, “You know how the fuck I’m doing,” I have an amusing response:

“I’m sitting in self-quarantine heaven with this massage chair, sipping a glass of Malbec (or margarita), and talking to you.”

May not be much, but it’s something. That’s all most of us are looking for right about now. An amusing distraction, but not too much to cause FOMO. Or make us feel guilty for not doing more. Or any other motivation to invite negativity in.

Oh, Ovo-lacto Pescatarian!

I’ve pretty much been a lifelong omnivore with about three years of eating no mammals. (I used to love telling people that and they’re reaction would be, “But you’re eating chicken!”) Since then, I’ve rarely cooked pork or beef, substituting in ground turkey, turkey bacon or turkey sausage. Now, I see the writing on the wall, written in meat.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to expose the fragility of our infrastructure, namely the lack of healthcare for employees whose jobs weren’t previously thought of as important enough to provide such a benefit. The general population acknowledges, perhaps for the first time, that healthcare is a human right. Corporations, which haven’t offered much outside of an underemployed hourly wage, have started to do the bare minimum by offering paid sick leave. That would at least encourage employees to stay home if they’re sick.

Yet coronavirus treatment costs thousands of dollars. So, even if someone has paid sick leave, that wouldn’t begin to cover that medical bill without health insurance.

One of the inevitable consequences has finally reached the shores of the meat packing plants. If they’re anything like what I’ve read in The Jungle, then I’m surprised we hadn’t reached this point back when there was still a TP crisis.

Although I still consider myself an omnivore, I’m no longer buying any meat, outside of eggs, while this shit is still going on. Even if I eventually must become a vegan because of this situation, it seems better to wean myself off meat rather than go cold turkey.

I’m sure the next reports will be about how the coronavirus affects chicken farms. Even if the stories haven’t reached me yet, egg and poultry prices haven’t noticeably increased–yet. Not like avocado prices. The best way to lose my taste for a certain food is for the price to soar out of my beyond my budget.

I’m probably being optimistic, thinking I can be an ovo-lacto pescatarian. None of those jobs involved in the food supply chain offer health insurance. Perhaps grocery store supervisors would be the first across the board to already have had that in place before this crisis–along with employees at upscale grocery chains where I can’t afford to shop.

Then again, I don’t completely understand the food supply chain. As I continue to order takeout once a week from some local restaurant, I’ve discovered that they’re prices for meat dishes haven’t increased. That’s at least an omnivore’s silver lining. So, it’s now become more affordable to buy already cooked meat than to buy it at a grocery store and cook it at home.

As if I needed another sign of the devil at the grocery store!

I’d been hunkering for trail mix. Recently, some of the bulk foods have returned. The bulk items in which customers use a scoop are still off limits, but the bulk foods that come fully enclosed a dispensing container are back. I had so much trouble with this mix pouring out that employee had to take the container down and shake it several times to fill half the bag.

At one point, I told her that I felt so bad that she had to go to so much trouble to assist me, despite her cheerfulness. As soon as I saw the sign-of-the-beast price, I burst out laughing and showed it to her. She said she’d share that experience with others.

The drama continues…

Princess Leia Goes Grocery Shopping

Never one to miss an opportunity to dress up, I celebrated “May the 4th Be with You!”

After all, roughly half of my walk-in closet houses costumes from the days when I used to produce my own spoken word and storytelling show, The Austin Writers Roulette. I’ve recycled this Princess Leia costume many times over, but never with a mask. This burst of impractical creativity felt more exhilarating than usual. Just what the doctor ordered during this COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to this being my regular grocery shopping day,

I shopped for three special recipes for the next day’s celebration, Cinco de Mayo: two “Mexican” recipes and a coconut margarita recipe.

The first dish I cooked was something no self-respecting Mexican would ever eat

–or at the very least, consider “Mexican.” It had “tater tots” in its recipe name, but like any potato, meat, bean, corn, cheese and hot sauce dish, I absolutely loved it.

For my second recipe, which used ingredients commonly found in Mexican food, but wasn’t quite a Mexican dish, I made something that could either be thought of as a burrito pie or taco casserole or some such thing, but this recipe used tortillas as its carb rather than tater tots. All in all, still very delicious.

The only recipe I felt absolutely confident about was the Coconut Margarita.

Not that I necessarily needed a recipe since, as my favorite type of margarita, I had been making these for years. I just wanted to see if there were any interesting twists on it that I’d find delicious. There weren’t.

Little did I realize at the time, but this would mark the last time I bought meat at the grocery store for a while. As it stood, I’d only bought poultry on a regular basis: eggs, turkey and chicken. Since I’m an omnivore, I’d order red meat at restaurants.

Yet, now with meat packing plants closing down due to the pandemic, I’m no longer buying meat except for eggs. Even for takeout, I’ve been ordering seafood.

A lawyer friend of mine took me to task, telling me that my buying habits wouldn’t change how they processed meat. Plus lessening the demand would merely put more people out of work.

Yet, she misunderstood my position. With meat processing places shutting down do to illness among the employees who worked there, the price of meat has increased. I stopped buying avocados last year for the very same reason. Regardless of how anyone processes food, if I can’t afford it, I don’t buy it.

I’d love to vote with my dollars. Have my spending habits influence better practices up the food chain, but the reality is, there are many other food choices I can make. What I look for in recipes are tastiness and affordability. I generally cook nutritious dishes, but my Cinco de Mayo recipes weren’t quite that. I tried to compensate by not eating large portions in one setting, but let’s face it: since I made both to alternate between lunch and dinner, I just slow trained through those less than good nutrition dishes.

The other sinister consideration was perhaps I’d do myself a favor by weaning off meat. I’ve known for a while that the US consumed resources at a 5 planets/yr rate. The next iteration of “meat processing” may not be something I actually want to eat.

We’re either heading for a more dystopian society or we’ll bounce back better than before. Or, and this may be the dismal truth, dystopia will exist for those of us who don’t make the financial cut while systemic improvement will exist for those who can continue to afford it.

Cleansing the Air

While watching a horror movie, I texted a friend, who had grown up in a home where indigenous medicine was practiced,

about one of the scenes where people were cleansing themselves with smoke from an herb bundle. Sage perhaps? She confirmed my conclusion.

She told me the practice was called “smudging.” People smudged to cleanse the energy when they moved into a new place, or when something bad has happened, or to eliminate negative energy or serious problems. She had me at “cleanse the energy.” Since my roommate and I’ve been sheltering in place, the energy had become stale and emotionally strained.

My friend volunteered to bring me some of her sage the following day. She arrived wearing a mask and I opened the door while wearing mine. Although we avoided embracing one another, it was such a joy to see a friend in the flesh rather than virtually.

She handed me a plastic ziplock bag, which enclosed a short bundle of sage sticks. Even though that was the point of the visit, she stood just outside the doorway and I’d backed up at least 6 ft away and we talked for a while. I would’ve offered to set a chair out on the porch for her to sit, but she was en route to visit another friend who was recovering from surgery.

Following what I’d read about smudging, I lit the bundle of sage sticks and cleansed myself, then I walked around all the rooms in the apartment. Before cleansing my roommate’s room, I asked her if she wanted to be cleansed first.

I believe in prayer and even the power of positive thinking. It’s more challenging when the whole world is undergoing a prolonged trauma though. Every little bit helps. Smudging once a week, daily yoga, daily microdosing CBD & CBG, sleeping 7-8 hours a night. Just as important as the preceding list of self-care, I’m still working from home.

In the past, underemployment has been a source of my insomnia. Despite all my big plans for multiple streams of income, my day job has been my Steady Eddie. I’ve not abandoned hope in those other pursuits. I’ve just slowed down my frenetic pace. I’ve read that being under prolonged trauma, such as this pandemic, drains one’s energy. Instead of being full of untapped energy due to the lack of a schedule, people are zapped of energy. I calmed down and dedicated myself to doing a little at a time until a project is done.

Especially the 156 illustrations I must complete for my third book. Initially, I tried to whip out an illustration a day. Then, I reframed the whole process and considered it a part of self care since I enjoy coloring and painting. Once I scaled back my ambitions, I began truly embracing my shortfalls and mistakes as another creative way to do things. After all, I wouldn’t want every illustration to hit the same note.

With my recent illustrations, I’ve become more efficient with some techniques and have learned some new tricks, especially with shading and highlighting. Cannot say that’s directly related to burning sage. Yet, the atmosphere in my little creative cave hasn’t been unconducive to progress.