Losing Sleep

photo: @dtait_photography

I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately…not gonna lie. And feeling ill at ease. Not out of the ordinary, all things considered, I suppose, but there are times when I am better at shaking it off. I feel nervous about what’s happening in the U.S., even though I am miles and miles away. I feel anxious that my son is there, not to mention all of my extended family and much of my husband’s. While the political landscape seems to be imploding (it might be more accurate to say the Republican party is imploding, but we all know it will affect the entire country and its democracy)—while all this is happening, I am watching the news of hospital after hospital filling up with patients who have Covid (and losing staff because they, too, are falling ill). I am also watching people continue to deny the validity of the virus itself. It often takes rock bottom for those people who resist changing to take note of the destructive nature of their habits/beliefs, but how many people have to die before the people who are resisting these realities hit their rock bottom and change their tune?

I recently had a friend (a DEAR friend, by the way, one I respect and adore and in whose kindness I would rest my soul) send me a quote from a fitness expert/public figure. Here’s what it said: “The infection to survival rate for COVID is 99.96%. That means the public have been tricked into giving their freedom, liberties, and rights away for a 0.04% chance that they won’t die.” So I’m going to ignore the grammar here and assume what he’s saying is that people are being asked to wear masks and cease gathering indoors with people not in their immediate bubbles and essentially stop engaging in activities that would perpetuate and accelerate the spread of the virus on the 0.04% chance that such behaviour should kill them. First of all, I’m no statistician, but I can tell you that when it’s you, it’s 100% every time. “Statistics, shmatistics,” a very wise friend once said to me. It doesn’t matter if the odds of dying from a disease are 0.04% or 99%, if it’s your mother or father or, God forbid, your child, it’s 100% for you, and that’s that. Also, no one is being asked to do anything forever. And no one is being asked to “give up their freedom.” They are being asked to behave responsibly…to protect those people (the elderly, the immunocompromised, etc.) for whom the chances of dying from this disease are far greater than 0.04%. They are being asked to think like a community. Like a tribe. I know that most people of European descent are so far removed from their roots that they have no memory (epigenetic or otherwise) of being part of a tribe, but maybe it’s time for all of us to re-learn. To remember, as it were, how to care about others as much as we do about ourselves. To be the people.

What we have with this quote is someone who thinks he lives in a vacuum. You don’t. We don’t. What we have here is a voice of privilege. If you are privileged (and many of us are), it’s not your fault. You are lucky. Blessed. But we have a responsibility to think about the underprivileged among us. Like those who live in a 700 square foot house with 9 family members (for my metric system readers, that’s about 65 square metres for 10 people). Yes, I have a former student, let’s call her Leticia, doing this in Watsonville, and her situation is typical in her neighbourhood. Of those 10 family members, four are “essential workers.” One cares for the elderly in a home—God forbid they should contract the virus. One is out bagging groceries and two are picking fruit so that we can continue to have our organic berries (delivered to our homes by another essential worker, because we can afford the delivery fees and appropriate tip) in our breakfast as the pandemic rages beyond our doors.

When someone in Leticia’s household gets ill, there is no isolating. They will be on top of each other, as they always are, and if Abuela (Grandmother) gets sick, there may or may not be room at the hospital for her to receive care (because so many people are ‘exercising their rights’ in California—to gather, to ditch the mask, to disregard public health guidelines—and have fallen ill with Covid-19). Not to mention the fact that no one in the house has health insurance. Who will pay if one of them does need care? And will they be first served if they are in line among countless others with varying abilities to pay, with a range of skin colours, with and without “papers” to be in the country at all? While the privileged exercise their ‘right’ to resist wearing a mask, Leticia’s family is left vulnerable and naked. They have lost one uncle so far. They brace themselves for the next wave of Covid in the wake of all those who wouldn’t be ‘controlled’ so much as to miss a single holiday with loved ones, all the while openly and shamelessly risking the lives of people like Leticia and her loved ones.

I can’t say that the voice of privilege, though it is sometimes mine, is one I can listen to right now…or perhaps ever again. Once you have seen your privilege, you can’t unsee it. But if you haven’t yet seen it, now, when so much is on the line, might be a good time. When hospitals threaten to overflow with patients so that even those with issues unrelated to Covid won’t be treated—that’s a good time. And the disparity between poverty and wealth is the bottom line. Yes, of course race is a factor—our broken systems have perpetuated an incredibly inequitable “playing field,” that is no secret. And it is for this reason that the lines of poverty and wealth are so frequently and clearly drawn along the lines of race in our communities. And yes, the poor are suffering disproportionately from shut-downs, too. Restaurant staff and retail workers—they’re out of jobs, too, and many of them don’t have a savings to fall back on. They are starting to go hungry. Until those with greater positions of privilege start thinking about someone other than themselves, about something greater than their own convenience and “rights,” this won’t change.

So yes, I’m losing sleep. I watch the news and see that people who can’t stand the thought of losing the support of the 70+ million constituents who actually cast their vote to keep Trump are STILL pretending that Trump was robbed in the election that so clearly ended his term in office. They know that no change can come of their actions, but they want to come out the other side with the support of that rabble. I get it, and yet the unrest, the actual violence, that is being fomented by its continuation is a cost I can’t get my head around willingly accruing. And I’m not there. Maybe that is actually worse. Maybe if I was there it would be like the frog in the pot of boiling water thing—I wouldn’t feel the heat as it rises. But here in New Zealand, the virus continues to be under control not just because of level-headed, compassionate leadership but also because of a citizenry that is capable of thinking about their community. Because of people who don’t see participating in protecting the vulnerable as a violation of their rights. Why does this not speak to more Americans? I know we’re an island country, so the U.S. probably couldn’t achieve the total eradication of community cases of Covid the way New Zealand has, but they could be SO, SO much closer.

And when I think about the bigger picture, I am physically sickened. It’s a purge really. And it’s already well underway. 350,000+ people that were just not valued enough to protect. If you bristle at this, if it makes you angry because you lost a loved one, you SHOULD bristle at it. We know too much now. We know better. To say that Covid is a hoax, a non-threat, a 0.04% chance of dying (such a woefully misleading and limited statistic) in the face of even one of those lost people is profoundly disrespectful. To say it to the family of even one person who lost his/her fight with this disease—it’s cruel. I don’t know what’s happening in the U.S., but it scares me. I resolve not to watch American news, not to keep such close tabs on American politics and public health—but I can’t help it. I love my family and friends there. I want to see my parents and my brother again…in their homes. I want my son and his partner to make it out of there unscathed. And I want them all to be safe in the interim.

I’ve stopped using Melatonin to help me sleep. One shouldn’t cultivate such a dependence (it’s the same reason I quit caffeine). Now I’m on to tonics of chamomile and Californian poppy. I keep breathing, and I keep living. I keep in touch with family and friends, and I keep writing. My blog followers probably think I have a split personality—one minute a hopeful, uplifting message, the next a despondent, woeful rant. But that’s how it is right now. We’re all over the place. We’re allowed to be. I can only embrace all the feels, pleasant and painful. That’s what being human is like, especially during a crisis. These parts of me, they’re not the ALL of me. They’re my parts. And they all matter. Here’s hoping and praying that the tribe of America can embrace all its parts. That people can step outside of themselves for enough of a moment to see those less fortunate than themselves. Here’s hoping and praying that we can take care of each other by making some changes in our lives, even changes that constitute restriction. It’s only for now. It’s for the people.