Expand and Contract
I used to go out of my house every morning and then come in again at the end of the day. And then go out again the next day. And then come in again. Expanding out into the world and coming back in. Out and in. Out and in. Every. Single. Day. Until the “stay at home” orders, at which time my world quickly contracted to these 4 walls - these same 4 people - these same 2 dogs who sound like 4 dogs when they bark when it’s my turn to talk on a zoom meeting. My world dwindled to this laptop with a 15-inch screen, this iPhone with a 4.5-inch screen, these smooth flat surfaces that take turns serving both as a passageway into the rest of the world and a barrier from it.
And with my 15-inch and my 4.5-inch windows on the world I double screened to get as much information as I could because even as my world contracted so tightly and I became more and more sequestered and encrusted in my own home, I could feel my world also expanding far and wide to include the entire globe - the entire world - the whole of humanity now susceptible to the same thing. The same thing everywhere. “Pan” meaning “all” and “demos” meaning “people.” We are all together. Even though we’re far apart from one another. Apart from the other side of the world. Apart from the people down the street. Apart from everyone. I watched maps and data and stats and images and videos all on my little screens - the world’s plight and fight became a bizarre and shifting work of art carved into the tiny grain of rice that was my iPhone.
So the world expanded to include everyone and contracted at the very same time drawing the 4 of us in towards one another and because we were compressed by such limited boundaries we found that we craved expansive worlds. Our family coalesced into a tight knot on the couch and together we entered - through our 15-inch portal - into the most capacious stories we could find. We watched movies but not just movies, a trilogy - and not just a trilogy, a trilogy of trilogies. Stories set “a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.” The movies inside the canon and outside that canon and the spin off show. We entered not just a universe but a galaxy. So that each weekend when we settled in after flitting about in the same few spots all week long - like trapped houseflies - we moved through vast time and intergalactic space pausing only long enough to replenish our popcorn or nachos.
The world expanded and contracted at the very same time - all at once - to be suddenly cloistered so tightly together, isolated from other people and yet connected with everyone in our susceptibility to a virus. A virus that teaches us what it means to be indiscriminate - that is to NOT discriminate (something we humans have NOT managed to learn on our own). Except - even as we see how indiscriminate it is we know the virus does discriminate against black and brown bodies. Except - we know it isn’t the virus but the centuries of systems of wealth and oppression. Long-standing inequities in income, healthcare access, housing and employment opportunities which all impact social determinants of health and increase risk for people of color. Which means it isn’t the virus that discriminates, it’s us because WE uphold and perpetuate these inequities. We are all responsible for a world where - for example - half of all essential workers are black and brown and then those essential workers keep working - and if they’re so “essential” to keeping the rest of us alive why don’t we take better care of them? And if they’re so “essential” shouldn’t they get more than minimum wage? And what about the essential workers who are immigrants? Yes, they “get the job done” but that’s because they don’t have much of a choice either way - maybe none of the essential workers do and choice means freedom and - this year for sure - freedom means health and well-being.
Freedom means lungs that can breathe without a ventilator. Freedom means lungs that CAN breathe. Not lungs that struggle as they gasp and say “I can’t breathe.” Freedom means lungs that can keep breathing after a routine traffic stop. Freedom means lungs that DON’T cry out “Momma” while dying on camera. And unless your world has shriveled to be so tiny and self-centered that you have stopped feeling altogether then there’s no way you can hear that cry and not feel your own heart swell to its largest & fullest capacity with aching and pain.
And here my concerns expand: I go from simply hoping not to contract a virus to hoping that these horrible strange times are the excruciating contractions before the birth of something new, something good. I go from contracting in the cold of fear and safety and preservation to expanding in the heat of anger and passion as so many people around the world reach a full roiling boil that cannot be stirred down.
Late at night I open the side door to let the steam out of my kitchen and I can hear the sirens just 2 miles away where protests flare well past curfew. A few days later I see footage on the news - the national news! - of this public square so close to my home and it is news footage that makes me so ashamed and angry. This immeasurable problem that exists far and wide clearly exists here. Right here. Right. Here. It was here all along and I couldn’t see it. Blinded by my own white, I couldn’t see it. Like a microscopic virus I couldn’t see it. Like a virus that expands into a neighborhood, a city, a state, a country, a world - this problem has filtered into everything. And I am spreading it - like an asymptomatic carrier, I am spreading it. Later the social justice leader assures me that even though I have arrived at the “flood” of racism hoping to build sandbag barriers to stop the damage, I am actually standing in the flood with a water hose running full blast. And I’m sorry.
So I set out trying to take it all in at once - this expansive, comprehensive history of 400 years of oppression and the contracted, concentrated problem that I see right here - in my city - in my home - maybe even in my purview. And it seems intractable.
Like a zoom meeting with a bad connection I’d like to say “let me just go out and come back in again. Go out and back in. And see if that’s better.” But I can’t. And it isn’t. I manage to find glimmers of hope that make me think “this is getting better!” Only to turn around and see something else that tells me “this is getting worse” or worse yet “this was never getting better.”
I am fixated on a binary of now and then - now this is happening - but then “when this is all over” or “once we solve this” - it’s the fallacy of “all we have to do is…” When instead of hoping for this to end or just go away, I need to accept the is-ness of whatever this is and I need to face it head on.
So, I decide on a different binary - instead of now and then. I decide on the binary of yes and no.
I decide …
No to any “silver linings” talk in all this.
No to the phrase “well, at least.”
But also no to woe is me. This isn’t about me.
And yes to masks.
Yes to anything that makes me laugh.
Yes to my children when they say “want to play lego?”
No to all the stories I’ve already been told and yes to each and every story that isn’t my own.
And I decide this. I decide to stop everything for just a second; to stop and notice my lungs - to notice how they expand and contract. Notice the air go out and then come in again. And then go out the next second. And then come in again. Out and in. Out and in. Every. Single. Minute.