The Moment of Truth

Day 40 April 29, 2020 -12:40 am

Wes fills the day

I have not turned on the radio all day.  The only media I watch are reruns of long dead series.  I can bear Twitter for about 5 minutes this morning.  Facebook even less.

I slog through work but feel demoralized by the effort of making plans when the future is all but obscured.

Even my fallback fill-up-the-day and occupy-my-mind-and-hands activities like cooking complicated dishes, organizing my drawers, or scraping paint off the basement wall have lost their savor.  

I have gone for walks. I have gone for drives.  I have donned my protective gear to go recreation shop at the grocery store, where I buy something I have never tried just to stimulate a conversation and make the day pass.

I have pulled out my first level piano books.  I clump through these pieces, then force myself to play the same easy piece in another key.  It is ugly but necessary work as I try to make up for gaps in my musical education.  I screech away on my penny whistle, where I specialize in loud, a-rhythmic playing.

I’m reading— man, am I reading.   I have at least five or six books going right now.  And boatloads of New Yorkers, and Atlantics—and daily dives into the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, and Free Press.

And yet…

The days are long and silent.

I’m sick of reading about coronavirus.  I’m sick to death of hearing about the drug-addled conman and his crew of corrupt sycophants masquerading as our government.  I’ve had it with all the preaching, yelling, chastising, shaming blather which passes for discourse on social media.

Virtual church is a simulacrum.  We note the excellence of the music, nod to the sermon, and scroll the sidebar to see who else is watching.  It is not a spiritual practice. There's no transubstantiation from afar.

My husband retreats to his office and I to mine.  We're tired of talking. When he starts, again, about how we used to joke about getting ready for the “The Big One” and here we are, right in one,  I cut him off at “used to joke.” I’ve heard it all before.

But...

I can’t keep some thoughts at bay…

We can’t keep doing what we have been doing.  I can’t keep doing what I have been doing.

The virus, if nothing else, strips away our illusions.  I face some ugly truths:

·      Our culture is willing to let people die—especially the old, poor, brown/black ones—as long as the money keeps flowing. 

·       Our addiction to petroleum will kill us and the earth because we love sloth and convenience even more.

·       My husband is facing neurological challenges and it ain’t gonna get better

·       I am a chicken and a great runner-away—to books, busyness, claptrap and distractions

We, collectively and individually, are about 70% of the way to overwhelmed. 

What happens when we have even less capacity and even more need?

Questions loom.

How can we know?  How is there to know?

The virus makes clear: there are no promises.  Not for this day, not for this minute. 

But...

I don’t want pour the water of consciousness into one glass, then pour it into another, then back again.  

Surely, surely, there is a better choice.

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May 1, 2020  7:04pm

	Cases	Deaths
Global	3,303,296	235,290
National	1,128,118	65,416
Michigan	42,356	3,866
Detroit	9,192	1,045

*US deaths are up 90% since April 18.

MayDay

Maybe it’s the buds on the trees.  

Maybe it's my worries-

       Whether to play: vita brevis

       Or to make more art: ars longa

Or prepare for the winter that is surely coming--

So within

So without

The tsunami has struck

      And the truth is

The tsunami is going to roll right on

      To the next neighborhood

And they are going to hate it.  Hate it.

Get ready for the tide that’s coming.  To your town.

For those of us left in the wake

      There’s been a lot of damage

It’s going to take a while

        To get it working again--

             For the first time

 To get us working again

              You know-

                    Look good

                    Feel good

                    Be good.

It’s gon’ take a while to have faith

              In our systems

              In our government

It'll take some time 'til we trust

         Each other

         Ourselves

Like I said—

It’s gonna be a minute.

So I guess we best get started.

Day 36: The Horror Comes Home

	Cases	Deaths
Global	2,658, 387	186,434
National	855,869	48,061
Michigan	33,966	2,813

As of April 23, 12:26 pm

	Cases	Deaths
Global	2,707,356	190,743
National	889,568	50,177
Michigan	35,291	2,917

As of  April 23, 11:07pm….

In Detroit, there are now 8332 cases and 786 deaths

Last night, my husband lay crying and shuddering in bed.  He spent too many hours reading pandemic stories.

Today, our award winning and trusted journalist broke down crying while he was broadcasting, as he remembered the Covid-19 death on a longtime listener.

Two days ago, I ranted in my journal:

I cried today reading the New York Times.  It was all too much. I had been reading stories about people who keep working because they can’t stop-even if endangers their life and the lives of their children.

I cry because the list of the dead and hospitalized read during on online Mass is long, but even so, incomplete.  Name after name is typed into the chat scroll at the same time.

I cry because the Free Press has page after page of obituaries, and these are almost exclusively European-American and I know that 75% of the people dying in Detroit are African-American.

I cry when I read about a son grieving the loss of his step-father and grandfather, and his worries about his hospitalized mother and sick baby brother.  He tried and failed three times-to get his stepfather hospitalized, but in the end, he died in his recliner at home.

I am furious that my bank (Comerica) never even got their Payroll Protection Program started before the funds ran out.  Big corporate hogs like Ruth’s Chris Steak House got $20 million, but the little Coney Island diner down the street got nothing (Facing a backlash and a Change.org petition with 250,000 signatures, the chain decided to return their loans. (https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/facing-furor-ruth-s-chris-high-end-steak-chain-returns-n1190606

I am angry and upset and fearful because only some people get protected.  And if you don’t, too bad.  So now we watch beautiful, loving, giving, smart, ethical, courageous, generous people being sacrificed to the gods of money and self-interest.

I am angry and sad and grieving.  I don’t know what to do with these emotions.

We dream of running away.  We would only have to travel 1.5 miles to be someplace more humane, more fair, more just.  In Canada,  6 million people have already begun receiving their $2000 month stimulus check, https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/economic-response-plan.html#individuals

In the US, millions struggle to apply for their much smaller unemployment check. https://www.brookings.edu/research/unemployment-insurance-is-failing-workers-during-covid-19-heres-how-to-strengthen-it/

We are stuck with incompetence and corruption making an already unfair system even worse. 

As David Frum puts it: “In pandemic as in prosperity, the Trump way is to punish opponents, reward friends; accuse victims, protect culprits; demand credit, refuse accountability; protect preferred classes and groups of Americans—and sacrifice the rest.”    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/trump-trading-lives-poor-economic-growth/610264/

George Packer offers an even harsher analysis in “We are Living in a Failed State.”

Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state. With no national plan—no coherent instructions at all—families, schools, and offices were left to decide on their own whether to shut down and take shelter. When test kits, masks, gowns, and ventilators were found to be in desperately short supply, governors pleaded for them from the White House, which stalled, then called on private enterprise, which couldn’t deliver. States and cities were forced into bidding wars that left them prey to price gouging and corporate profiteering. Civilians took out their sewing machines to try to keep ill-equipped hospital workers healthy and their patients alive. Russia, Taiwan, and the United Nations sent humanitarian aid to the world’s richest power—a beggar nation in utter chaos.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/

So here we are, hoping that the upturn at the far right of the following chart is an upward blip on a downward trend.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2020/04/16/detroit-covid-19-data-tracking-cases-deaths/

That’s all we have: a shred of hope.  

Is that enough to keep our friends A, B, C, and D healthy and whole? (see my previous post)  A now has the virus, but is not very ill.  B is very ill, but received a negative result from his COVID-19 test.  C has been released from the hospital and moved to an unknown location.  D is holding on.   Is it enough to keep safe the sister of friend who is in a nursing home where 75% of the residents have the virus?   

It’s not enough.  

Hope is not enough when the horror is all too much. 

Day 32: Whose Liberty?

Two of our best friends (I’ll call them A and B) are now living in fear.  Ten days ago, in an act of charity, they brought to live in their home a man just released from prison.  This man, (let’s name him C) had been a member of our circle, but had been imprisoned with an extra-harsh sentence for misuse of donated church funds.

A and B are older members of a small religious community dedicated to acts of service and mercy at the most domestic level.  Through the years of C’s incarceration, A and B faithfully visited C in prison, garnered support for his parole, and retained and shared a belief in C’s core goodness.  We were all counting the days to C’s release in May.

Then coronavirus.

Because of the virulence of the pathogen and the close quarters, Michigan prisons began releasing those who were fragile or who were close to their release dates.  Our circle celebrated when we learned that C would be one of those.  One member suggested a drive-by with balloons and horn-honking to welcome home the prodigal son.

But when A and B, along with D, another member of our circle (and C’s closest associate in our group), picked up C from prison, it was clear that C was already ill.

A and B took C into their home, where he became more and more ill.  After years in a small cell, C would not be confined in his guest bedroom.  That is understandable, but he moved through the house leaving piles of detritus —discarded clothes, used tissues, dirty dishes.  When A and B asked that he stop and that he wear a mask, C refused.

But C became increasingly ill until last Wednesday, when B took him to a suburban urgent care facility.  After depositing him at the door, B waited for hours in the parking lot.  Unbeknownst to him, C had been transported to and hospitalized at a major medical center in Detroit.  To no-one’s surprise, but everyone’s consternation, C tested positive for coronavirus. He is on oxygen and receiving an experimental drug treatment.

Now these two elderly religious are left in quarantine and fear.  Both are in their late 70’s.  A is nearly blind; B has had heart problems.  They scrub their house and worry.  And we worry about them---and about D, who has significant health problems and who should not have spent hours in a car with someone carrying the virus.

So now we wait and pray.  You should, too.

April 8, 2020

My brother in Wyoming sent me another troubling story. A young man whose roommate worked in medical facility with one of the state’s worst outbreaks was tested for the virus and told to self-isolate until he received his results. That did not stop him from going to two parties—shared on Facebook Live where partiers mocked fears of the virus-- between the time he was tested and when he received his positive results.

Wyoming has relatively unscathed by the pandemic, with only 383 cases and 2 deaths.  It had been the site of the 1^st protest again lock-down orders.  Protesters perched on street corners demanding an end to the social distancing.

Operation Gridlock in Michigan, April 15,2020

The same show appeared in Michigan this week, as hundreds  drove from outstate Michigan to participation in Operation Gridlock.  There, the cars blocked traffic at the Capital—and kept ambulances from reaching Sparrow Hospital.  Abandoning their cars, protesters spilled onto the lawn of the Capital.  Most were not wearing masks.  Some carried confederate flags.  A large number carried automatic weapons, misdrawn swastikas and racists signs about Detroit bumped up against  signs calling for “Liberty” and “Freedom.”

What is the freedom to do exactly as one pleases without any regard for anyone else’s health or safety?  What is the liberation that prioritizes personal desires over all other considerations?

What kind of culture and what kind of future can we have when “love your neighbor” and “be your brother’s keeper” are overwhelmed by  self-centered, self-seeking, and self-rewarding behaviors?

So now we wait.  We watch.  We pray.  But we wonder.  Will the toxicity of America’s brand of rugged individualism feed the pathogen at our door?

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The numbers as of April 18, 2020 11:28am

	Cases	Deaths
Global	2,256,844	154,350
National	712,184	34,386
Michigan	30,023	2,227

As of April 19, 10:20 am

	Cases	Deaths
Global	2,329,539	160,717
National	740,557	38,979
Michigan	30,791	2,308

The US had its first fatality from the coronavirus on February 29, 2020.

Michigan had its first fatality from the coronavirus (in Detroit, of course) on March 19, 2020.

Day 27: Dear Adults of the United States

April 14, 2020

As of April 14                Cases                   Deaths

Global                          1,973,715            125,910

National                           612,380             29,867

Michigan                            27,001              1,768

As of April 10                Cases                   Deaths

Global                          1,677,256            101,372

National                           492,995              18,248    

Michigan                            22,783               1,281

As of April 8                  Cases                   Deaths

Global                          1,475,978            86,979

National                           417,206            14,183

Michigan                            16,970                845

The deaths in Michigan have doubled in six days.  In the United States, as well.

The deaths are very close to us now.  On Sunday, we received word that a friend and neighbor, a vibrant, gifted organizer and activist, who just returned to work as a surgical tech, has died of the coronavirus.  Her beloved husband is ill too.  These are people from my block, from my life, from my community.  You can read about her here: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2020/04/13/coronavirus-cuts-down-metro-detroit-activist-monica-echeverri-casarez/2983592001/

All around us, the bodies are piling up.  This is not a metaphor.  Look at the horrifying pictures given to CNN reporter Marshall Cohen by staff inside Sinai Grace Hospital. https://t.co/zqzkv1sZAB. 

To make matters worse some for profit hospitals are not even reporting their cases and hospitalizations:

“Detroit Medical Center, Trinity Health Michigan and Ascension Michigan do not publicly report coronavirus cases or hospitalizations in Southeast Michigan, citing patient confidentiality.”

https://www.crainsdetroit.com/coronavirus/michigan-covid-19-deaths-cases-spike-after-recent-declines

But we don’t need the newspapers and twitter feeds to feel the grief all around us. One of the men in Wes’ singing group is going to fly to Florida to go to his cousin’s funeral. His partners—which included one choir member whose brother just died from the virus-- begged him not to go.  But he will go.

One of my former co-workers at Congress of Communities has been keeping her ghastly numbers: she now has 37 people in her life who have died from the coronavirus.  One of the artists in my Kresge Arts Fellowship cohort has been posting stories of the deceased every day. There are now 10 stories on her feed.

During prayers of the faithful, shared during our Facebook live Easter Services, the names of people in our parish who are sick, hospitalized, and dead took five minutes to read.

Yet some people want to open the economy.  Do they want this menace in their midst?  Do they somehow believe that they are immune from dying?  That the dying will stay in Detroit? 

It makes me want to holler.

Dear Adults of the United States,

Enough is enough.  We are at the crossroads.  How much longer are we going to allow this genocide? 

We must choose

the culture we want--

More exploiting, more destruction, more death

OR

Cooperation with natural systems

         Clear skies

         Good clean water

                  Homegrown and sustainable

                           Food, shelter, and clothing

Public control of public goods and utilities

         You know…

Water (for a re-start)

                   Decent Medical Care

                    Public Education

                           The basics of a civilized society

OR

Endlessly fueling consumption

         Which endlessly hurts us

                  But provides more power and

                           Control to those

                                    Who already have too much.