“You have to promise me something.”
It’s Tuesday. The Girlfriend stands at my apartment door, wearing helmet, mask, ready to wheel in her bicycle.
“OK.”
“I’m going to tell you something, but you have to promise not to get mad at me.”
“OK.”
“I fell off my bike. I’m fine. But I did fall. Twice.”
“OK. You want to tell me about it?”
She told me. Then I had her tell me again, for this post.
Me: What happened on Tuesday?
The Girlfriend: One of the things true in my experience of CoronaWorld, and I believe true in everyone’s version of CoronaWorld, is that multiple, intense engagements with my body, my housing, my family, my work, my health, and those of my family, in addition to the trauma, violence, destruction of the lived world — they’re all happening at the same time. On top of that, my ability to manage these shifts and assaults is weakened.
So on Tuesday, I had two personal challenges align. First, I’ve been managing a health problem, which had manifested out of the blue about a week ago, and I was awaiting test results that would either establish that it was a serious problem — cancer — or rule that out. That’s how modern medicine works: they do a biopsy, and you wait for the results. Second, in that same week I decided to turn up the volume on purchasing a house, because, one, conditions of my house sale in California put me on a six-month timeline and that clock is ticking; and two, life in CoronaWorld has changed enough so that looking at properties again, going out into Brooklyn and visiting houses, and just having the headspace to reimagine my future — all that has opened up.
So after not doing anything about purchasing a house since March 9, three days before CoronaWorld hit, my Realtor made appointments on Tuesday for us to see four houses. They’re all in my neighborhood, so I could ride my bike. And as I was getting ready to leave, my phone rang. I was nine-tenths of the way out the door: packing my water bottle, my computer because afterward I was going to your house, my #BlackLivesMatter sign because we were going to a protest. And I got a call from an unknown 212-number, which I knew was the doctor, calling to say whether I had cancer. I took a deep breath. Obviously getting test results was more important than looking at houses, but I wished I didn’t have to answer because it was scary. But I did, and it was good news: the biopsy came back negative. This doctor is a traditional male OB-GYN; he’s not chatty, discursive, sensitive, warm, or empathetic. But he gave me two choices for next steps, and I said I’d talk to friends who were doctors and get back to him, and then I got on my bike.
As I was riding to the first house I took my phone out and called my friend who’s an OB-GYN, a feminist, and a good doctor; she’d been previously advising me. Mostly I wanted to tell her the good news, because I knew she was concerned. And also I wanted to ask her opinion of which of the two procedures I should choose. So I was holding my phone and riding the bike — I was only a block from the house — and I was distracted, and I didn’t see a car crossing an intersection until too late, and I stopped abruptly and flew over the top of my handlebars and had what was really a small bike accident. I landed on my right thigh and shoulder — those took the brunt of the fall — and scraped my right hand and my left knee. I can’t really process how I fell. Several pedestrians asked if I was OK; someone stopped their car to check. And then I got up and rode to the appointment. I was basically fine.
I told you not to be mad at me because the fall wasn’t particularly bad, but I knew I’d been negligent and overwrought and stupid. It came from trying to manage two big things at the exact same time. A normal person would have called the Realtor and said, "I need 15 minutes.” But I was agitated, so I was not thinking clearly. Partly that’s because I’m ambitious and capable and can do more than one thing. But I was juiced up. The two things were both good news: I didn’t have cancer, and I was about to buy a house. I felt energized. And in the end I liked that first house, and now I’m in contract to buy it.
Me: What about the second accident?
The GF: That wasn’t even an hour later, and it was barely an accident. In a better world you wouldn’t even include it in your plague journal, because it’s just embarrassing. I did almost the same thing. I was riding between the first and second house, and I was trying to follow directions so I was on my phone, looking at a map. I wasn’t as revved up or distracted, but the same thing happened — I wasn’t looking and had to stop quickly. But I wasn’t moving very quickly, and nothing happened on that fall; I didn’t hurt myself. A mother and daughter were standing on the corner, and the girl, maybe 5 years old, got upset and was crying. I told her I was OK, and the mother said, You just have to be careful when you ride your bike, and I said, Yep, you do have to be careful when you ride your bike.
Me: So you think the falls are connected to CoronaWorld?
The GF: Well, the world keeps throwing me one consequential problem or crisis after another, as it’s doing to all of us; I’m engaging them, but I’m not at normal competence. You helped me understand it, actually: in CoronaWorld, none of the ground on which we’re making decisions feels firm. Financial decisions about the house, choices about health care, choices about transportation — nothing feels real or solid. Is it a good time to buy a house? Am I being crazy? I’m taking the less conservative course of medical treatment in part because I don’t want to get a hospital procedure because of Covid-19. But is that a good decision? Another friend who’s a doctor helping run the Covid response in San Francisco says hospitals across the U.S. have never been more safe, and that’s likely to be true for the next few months. I haven’t been on the subway since March 12 — is it safer to be on a bike? Should I take my car everywhere? Everything’s up in the air.
Me: How do you feel now?
The GF: I feel like I'm a human being in the time of Corona who has not just survived but has experienced some actual bounty in the world. I’m about to buy a house. And there remain life’s uncertainties, in the form of health and precarity, as well as fundamental issues like labor, insurrection, infection. And this is taking place in a great city that is reckoning daily with the underlying injustices and violence which is made more visible.
Me: What do you mean?
The GF: I’ve been an activist my whole life; I’ve tried to be part of the solution before this, as I’m trying now. For me and for everyone in CoronaWorld, the injustice and the magic of this city co-exist — or, that co-existence has come more to the surface. We’re all bringing our bounty and joy and privilege and oppression and rage and hope to the accounting that’s currently taking place in this extreme pressure cooker. The current crisis is induced by Covid-19, but it’s exposing what was always there. So I feel lucky and concerned and afraid and angry and hopeful.
Me: When I asked how you felt, I was actually asking about your body.
The GF: [Shrugs] I’m all but better. For real. My abrasions are superficial and healing; my thigh bruise is deep and turning green and a little sore. My shoulder’s a tiny bit sore. But overall I feel fine. I’m taking a new course of medicine that I hope won’t have any side effects. As you know, I don’t take medicine; this is new.
Me: Any lessons learned?
The GF: On a practical level, I won’t take my phone out when I’m riding my bike. When you texted me yesterday trying to find me at the protest, I got off my bike and opened my panniers and read your message and texted you and put the phone back in my panniers and then got back on my bike.
More fundamentally, as I say to my children, multitasking isn’t actually a thing. I work better when I make structures that encourage me to finish one big task before I start another. But I often feel like I can rush through things, and when I’m aggravated or excited I try to do too much. At those moments, I need to take a deep breath, slow down.
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