#newsamehope / 3.29.20
What is new in the last 24 hours?
World’s first infant death linked to COVID-19 in Illinois.
89 people in detention at Cook County Jail have tested positive. This is up from 1 correctional officer testing positive one week ago. It didn’t have to be this way. Please, let us reimagine how we treat people. Please.
Chicago is identified as a hot spot and is expected to have a big uptick in cases next week.
What is the same?
The motivation to collaborate. My walk takes me past a tree hollow filled with little trinkets. People keep adding to it. Adults leaving surprises for kids to see on their walks perhaps? I like to imagine that everything in there is disinfected and that the gift-leavers are able to deposit their treasures without coming into contact with anything that could be contaminated. Unicorn. Fox. Bird. Bunny. Pine cones. Brightly colored pebbles. Space for more.
What is the hope?
I’ve been trying to take one walk each day, but today I moved around. I played songs by Tune-Yards and made my muscles move. Dancing would be a generous term. How do I always forget how good it feels to move like that? To move in response to something? To move for myself? To twist and slide and torque and surprise. To surprise. To remind myself that I can surprise myself. I am grateful for the hours I’ve spent on Zoom and on the phone, but the beating heart of my life’s work is connection. Is reaction. Is the spontaneous response to someone else’s spontaneous impulse. How wondrous will it feel when we are able to gather in a shared space again? To stand in a circle and pass something as simple as a clap or a “whoosh” sound or a deliciously onomatopoetic word like “splatter” around and around and around, allowing ourselves to be directly impacted by the energy of the person beside us? In the meantime, I look forward to the ways we will adapt that experience for the virtual stage, and the act of surprising myself this morning gives me a nice big spark to work with as we try to figure out what that will look like.
Photo: Page, Arizona. August 2018.