Tag: gratitude

Tradeoffs

Julie Fanselow

Hello, world. This is me, poking my head up for what now seems to be a monthly dispatch. It’s hard to believe I was writing weekly pandemic postcards until a few months ago. It’s difficult to fathom I’ve just begun volume #5 of my “pandemic journal,” the notebook I write in almost daily (though that, too, has become a less-regular practice this summer).

So here we are. I want to talk a little about tradeoffs.

Tradeoff number 1: My new upstairs neighbor threw in a load of laundry at 11:30 last night. I’d been sleeping a while, but the thumping woke me up. The neighbor seems to be up all night, so I guess they work a swing shift and probably get to bed around the time I wake up–but I still hear the floors creaking at 6:30 a.m. as I write this, so who knows? Then there’s my improbably loud refrigerator, which runs about 30 minutes every hour. I hoped I’d be used to it after four months, but it’s still annoying, especially in 499 square feet.

Ah, but I like this apartment, especially its east-facing windows and sliding glass door out onto the tiny fire-escape-sized balcony, where I sit and read or listen to music, and where the hummingbirds have been gathering all summer. I’ve enjoyed its evening cool during our heatwaves, and the low-angled light will warm my apartment this winter. I value the fact I’m a quick stroll to the bus stop and the grocery store, yet within a few blocks, I can access miles of more ambitious walking terrain where the city blends into the suburbs and fat blackberries are now ripe for the picking. It’s a tradeoff: the realities of urban living.

Tradeoff number 2: The pandemic is still very much with us, and like most people who chose to be vaccinated, I’ve lost patience with the arguments of those who’ve opted to keep the virus spreading. At the same time, I know that no good comes of castigating people for their doubts and fears, so I’m opting, as usual, to give them grace. I do know that I will live my life as the delta variant runs rampant. I’m masking up again indoors, but I never saw the need for outdoor masking a year ago and I don’t now, unless you’ve chosen not to get the jabs. I’ve been traveling and will continue to do so, and for sure I’ll take that booster shot just as soon as I can get it, thank you.

It sounds like we may all be destined to get the delta variant, vaccinated or not, though it is much worse if you’re not. I’ve finally heard of the first breakthrough case among two people I know personally; they’ve had flu-like symptoms for a week, but as vaccinated people, they’re pulling through. I mostly fight despair over my relatives whose faith-based fear causes them to doubt science, and over the plight of children who have little protection as they go back to school. It didn’t have to be this way, but it is what it is. I’m grateful we had a few months of relative freedom from COVID earlier this summer. It’s been nice to go maskless at the ballpark, where I love to give fans a welcoming smile. It’s been delightful to get to know my new companion, to hold hands and hug and kiss without worrying too much about making each other sick. Yet it seems likely we’ll all need to be vigilant over this thing for a lot longer than any of us had hoped.

Tradeoff number 3: I don’t know what I want to write about Afghanistan and the resurgence of the Taliban. My country has been involved in Afghanistan for decades, but never with a clear, cogent mission. People — in this case, the Afghani people, working toward a shared destiny and the quest for human rights — need to hold each other to account. Just as we can’t beat a virus if people don’t accept shared moral responsibility, there are limits to what one country can do for another.

Thanks for reading Surely Joy. By the way, if you get these dispatches via email, my previous post from about three weeks ago seemingly never went out that way, so you can read it here. And if you’d like to get future dispatches via email (since I post so rarely these days), you’ll find a link to sign up elsewhere on this page.

Be well and don’t despair. There is much good to celebrate, even amid this unsettled, uncertain season.

60

Julie Fanselow

I know I’ve been scarce here on my blog. Rest assured: It’s not for a lack of joy. But since it’s been a month since my last post — and, hey! I turn 60 this week — I am here to share a few thoughts on attaining this milestone. 

First and foremost, I’m feeling nothing but joy at the prospect of being 60. My 50s were my favorite decade of life so far, and I have reasons to believe my 60s will be as good. Or better!

Regular readers know that while I named this blog for a phrase from Henry David Thoreau — “surely joy is the condition of life” — I have come to associate my mission more with the words of Brother David Steindl-Rast of Gratefulness.org, who has said that joy is the happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens. The corollary to this is that fear is sometimes — usually? — what keeps us from feeling joy. Fear of aging. Fear of death. Fear of disability or decline or the loss of love. Fear of the other. Fear of the unknown. It’s not that I never feel fear. I know I do. But somehow, my optimistic, hopeful orientation usually overrides whatever fear I have. I believe some of this is innate — a product, perhaps, of being surrendered and subsequently adopted in the first three weeks of life — and some of it is learned. 

Like most people, I was a bundle of anxieties in adolescence and well into adulthood. It takes time to overcome that early uncertainty about worth and purpose. (Dear young reader: Know that you are awesome just as you are, and it gets better.) Giving birth was probably the first indication I had that I could do anything, but that was nearly half a lifetime ago. So I continue to whittle away at my residual anxiety, and I feel less fearful at 60 than I was at 50, for life has shown me again and again that the hardest experiences are among the most rewarding and revelatory. 

As I greet this new decade, I’m ever aware that two of the most important people in my life, my mother and my husband, were gone at 62. As painful as these premature deaths were, they’ve helped me know all too well that our time here is finite. Rather than live fearfully, I really do try to live as though each day could be my last.

At the same time, I know it’s possible (perhaps probable) that as a healthy 60 year old, I have somewhere around a third of my lifespan still ahead of me. What fresh wonders and knowledge are still on my horizon? How will my expectations be upended? Will I feel even more joy when I turn 70? 

I am especially joyful that, after a year of anxiety in 2020 over losing most of my work in the pandemic, work is now the least of my worries. I have just enough, and best of all, it’s flexible work that allows me plenty of time for adventures, for community service, and for living a creative life. 

Over the past month, after three years of flying solo, I’ve had the utterly unexpected and delightful joy of new companionship. The day after tomorrow, I leave for a trip to Alaska — on my own. The day before I return, my friend will be off on a multi-week trek he planned long ago. I’ll be away for nearly two weeks in September. Indeed, it is likely that we’ll be apart for much of the next two months, and so a tiny bit of anxiety bubbles to the surface: Will this sweet, summer-kindled romance wind up a fleeting memory by fall? Will we be able to create time together in two lives that are already full of dear ones, commitments, and plans? 

I don’t know the answer. But I do know that although lifespans are finite, love is not. I am learning anew that although I’ve prized and often prioritized walking my own path, our time here is made richer by connections and relationships. I think he and I will find a way to keep the flame lit, and I feel ever more grateful for all my family and friends, including the ones I haven’t met yet.

Happy birthday, Julie. May the next how-many-ever-years we may have be full of joy and service and surprise and peace and love. All the good stuff. 

Remember ‘slow’?

Julie Fanselow

As a city dweller, you learn to walk defensively. That’s why I saw her glance to her left — but not to her right — before she turned out of the medical center parking lot, her right hand on the steering wheel, a big yellow bowl with a spoon balanced in her left. (It was about 7:45 a.m. Breakfast cereal, maybe?) She never saw me, but happily I saw her, so I’m here to write this.

The Seattle Times reported yesterday that traffic levels have rebounded to near-normal levels statewide. I remember how I wished last spring that cars might stay parked a lot more once we returned to “normal.” No such luck. Even though the kids are home from school for the summer and many people are still working remotely, most of us have reasons to drive somewhere. I get it; I actually drove to my walk this morning (since it was in my old neighborhood and I needed to get gas and groceries afterward), and I’ll be driving to a campsite later this weekend to beat the 100-degree-plus heat forecast for Seattle.

Still, I’d like to put in a few words for mindfulness, for taking a few minutes to enjoy breakfast at home, for savoring every sunrise and sunset, and for going slow when you have the opportunity. As the hardest part of the pandemic ends, maybe we can pretend we still have all the time in the world.

Thanks for reading Surely Joy. Enjoy a couple of songs from The Head and the Heart, recorded in 2011 at Doe Bay in the San Juan Islands.

Happiness as a choice

Julie Fanselow

“You always seem so happy,” my ballpark colleague says to me. “Are you always so happy?”

I’m a bit thrown by such an existential question, this change-up amid the usual between-innings banter. I agree that this is true, and I mumble something about having a hopeful orientation. Orientation is one way to put it, though perhaps not the most elegant. I wish I’d replied with my favorite quote, “Joy is the happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.” (Thanks as always, Br. David Steindl-Rast.) Yet there’s little reason to overthink my reply, in the moment or in hindsight.

Am I happy? Why yes, I am. It beats the alternative.

Mixed emotions are human, and June 19 is a day that will forever bring mixed emotions for me. I mostly feel joy for the birth 65 years ago today of a man whom I had the great luck to love over the last five years of his life—though of course that joy remains tinged with regret that he is no longer here. I may have a longer essay (or two) to write someday about Tom’s last few months and the anguish I felt after he was gone.

I can’t say I was happy during those hard months. But looking back three years, I guess I was joyful even amid the depths of that anguish. Scratch that: I know I was joyful, because that’s how we survive the worst things that life and death throw our way. Joy is also how we recognize the glimmers of goodness that are always glinting in our peripheral vision—for example, people who recognize our happiness because they themselves have chosen the gift of seeing life through an optimistic lens.

(As an aside, today is the first official Juneteenth, and that brings more mixed emotions: We should celebrate how far we’ve come as a country that we can now recognize the end of slavery with a federal holiday. No, this doesn’t right all the wrongs that centuries of human bondage have wrought in our country. The work for representation and reparations will continue. But can we make it joyful, generous, perhaps even playful work? Can we curb the tribalism and bickering, escape the confines of our identity silos, and give each other some room to breathe and grow?)

(Putting my soapbox away …)

I’m uncharacteristically rambling here, so I’ll stop, but after two months without a post, I wanted to check in. Life is good: I have just the right amount of work, I’m grateful for my family and friends, I’m enjoying my new-again neighborhood, and I’m plotting all kinds of adventures for this summer and beyond. It’s a beautiful life—and yes, a happy one. I’m joyfully greeting this season of sun and light and a return to the world, and I wish that for you, too. Thanks for reading Surely Joy.

A few words about the music for this post: Last night, I went to my first live music show in about 18 months, at my fave music club. Here’s a 10-year-old radio listener lounge version of a song LeRoy Bell and His Only Friends played last night, “Everything About You.” And a few days ago, I saw the glorious, raucous, sexy “In the Heights” at my favorite movie theater. The first eight minutes are below. Enjoy!

Pandemic postcard #54: Postscripts

Julie Fanselow

When I wrapped up my series of 52 weekly posts a month ago, I said I’d write when I had something to say. Sixteen days ago, I wrote that I’d decided to move–which is mostly what I’ve been doing since then, although I’ve also managed to do a few other things. So here’s an update.

My new place is good. I moved two-and-a-half-miles and I am back in the neighborhood where I first landed in Seattle when I arrived here in 2013. At that point, I chose Lake City for its proximity to Tom and his suburban home a short bus ride away, but also for its affordability and diversity. I quickly grew to love Lake City for its human-scale character, and for the way, a couple of blocks off the gritty main drag, the streets feel nearly rural–perfect for the sort of aimless walks I enjoy each morning. I’m having a good time getting reacquainted with my new-old neighborhood, and I’ll write more about that in my next another post.

Here on the courtyard side of my new complex, I’ve mostly found the quiet I seek–though who knew a brand-new refrigerator could run so loudly, that people sometimes fly drones at the exact treetop level of my balcony, and that dogs (who may outnumber people here) like to bark at all hours. I hear one howling now, though that’s actually a much nicer complement to the birds’ dawn chorus than the staccato yips I hear around midnight. I had a few moving-in hiccups, including a minor water leak that the property manager swiftly addressed. She didn’t know about the drones, though. No place is perfect, but this place will do. I have the same sublime morning light I enjoyed at the last place, and a little more room, and a neighborhood I already know and like.

What else is new? I wrote five weeks ago about my then-uncertain prospects of getting vaccinated anytime soon, as a healthy 59-year-old in a state where there was then no timetable for anyone under 65 getting their shots. By early April, Washington state (spurred by leadership in the other Washington) had finally announced that everyone under 60 would be eligible on April 15, so I’d been prepared to wait a looooong time for my first jab–and likely not be fully vaccinated until well into May. But then, on the very day I gave notice that I’d leave my former apartment, I got an email from the property managers there noting that a mobile clinic would be on site to offer the one-and-done Johnson & Johnson vaccines that Friday. Everyone was welcome. So just like that, I got my shot. Of course, a few days later, the J&J “pause” was announced, but as a post-menopausal woman, the news was a mere stress blip on my moving-focused radar. I am grateful to be vaccinated; I tucked my CDC card into my passport, for it represents the same kind of freedom and sense of possibility. It’ll still be a while before I go abroad again, but it won’t be another full year.

Meanwhile, I’ve taken one more step back into life as I knew it pre-pandemic. Last Wednesday, 13 months to the day since I’d last seen a film in the theater, I returned to my favorite movie house and saw Minari. I was the only person there for the late-afternoon matinee, but I left my mask on anyway. That was weird, but it was delightful to see a movie on the big screen. Four days later, I returned to watch Nomadland, this time with a handful of other folks. (Although I’d already seen it twice on Hulu, I couldn’t pass up a chance to see its gorgeous cinematography of the American West in widescreen splendor.)

Yet more signs of spring: I am going to a ballgame today–I have one of about 9,000 tickets to see the Mariners and Dodgers play from socially distanced seating–and I return to my ballpark ushering job next week. A friend has invited me over for a small dinner gathering of five fully vaccinated friends this weekend, and I was delighted to be able to say, yes, I’ll be there.

Best of all, just a few weeks from now, I will be on a road trip to see my daughter for the first time since last July and to hug her for the first time since December 2019.

It won’t get any better than that.

We haven’t left the pandemic behind yet, but with fans in the stands and newly vaccinated folks reuniting every day, it feels like we’re on the way.

Thanks for reading Surely Joy. I write for a living, so if you enjoy my work, feel free to hit the tip jar. If you’d like to get future posts via email, look for the link on the right side of this page (or maybe below this post, if you’re on a mobile device).

Pandemic postcard #53: Moving right ahead

Julie Fanselow

This Easter morning, I’d planned to be packing my suitcase for a journey to the Deep South, to see two of the only four states I haven’t yet seen. I was going to visit my friend Eileen in New Orleans, drive from Selma to Montgomery for a few days of reflection, and wind up on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. Instead, I am packing boxes to move a week from tomorrow.

It’s been a difficult Lent. Right now, things are blessedly quiet because it is Sunday. But tomorrow morning, the crew on the light rail extension project will fire up a generator that will drone on 24/7 until next Friday evening, sometimes accompanied by beeping and scraping during the night-shift work and always with a low-level vibration that seeps into my home and my bones. This has been going on since January, but it’s only been in the past few weeks that I have realized what a toll it has been taking on me.

Worse, I haven’t been able to get a good answer on how much longer it will continue. Another month, perhaps, or maybe a year. The noise level increased last week, when another construction project started to the north. I’ve found myself unable to sleep well, unable to think straight with the constant clamor. Meanwhile, COVID cases are going in the wrong direction and I’m still weeks away from getting a vaccine. The truth hurts, and the truth is it probably is not a good idea to travel cross-country on a non-essential trip.

So in the last week, I made two decisions: I’d cancel my (fortunately refundable) trip plans and I’d use my vacation time to move. The good news is it’s a renter’s market here in Seattle and I was quickly able to find a new place. I’ll pick up the keys in a few days and I’ll have most of my stuff there a week from tomorrow. I’m reminded anew how it is beautiful to live a simple, streamlined life. (Of course, I talked this over with the property manager at my current place, who gave me her blessing.)

I’m a little sad at having to leave this little apartment I’ve had since February 2019. There was a lot to like about it. I chose this place with a gut feeling it would work well for me, which it did — until it didn’t.

I’ve written before about how it’s good to be able to pivot, and how there is rarely such thing as a final decision. I am heading back to the familiar neighborhood I first called home in Seattle, to another snug studio that would have been out of my price range before the pandemic. I look forward to staying more than two years, if the rent stays reasonable.

Who knows? Maybe this rolling stone will gather some moss. Hope springs eternal, and more will be revealed. Here’s to the spirit of Easter, of renewal, and of rolling away the big rock when it’s time to make a change.

Thanks for reading Surely Joy. I write for a living, so if you like what you see, feel free to hit the tip jar.

Pandemic postcard #52: Last in a series (for now)

Julie Fanselow

One year ago tomorrow, I wrote the first of what has become a year’s worth of dispatches from our pandemic year. Although I’ve been blogging since 2003, I’d never been especially faithful about posting here at Surely Joy, but that changed last March. “I am going to write here every Friday, as I am able,” I said a week later — and I have. (Well, sometimes, I’ve posted on Thursday or Saturday. Close enough!)

We’ve all been marking anniversaries this month: the last time we went to an office, a classroom, a concert, or a religious service. The last unmasked visit with a friend. The last time we got to see someone who is no longer with us. So much lost. And yet so much gained, too, in understanding and perspective as we’ve navigated what Sophie Gilbert recently described in The Atlantic as “our unholy era of perpetual March.”

This is my last weekly pandemic postcard; I’m going to return to posting here when I feel I have something to say. As I conclude this year’s worth of weekly musings, I’d like to leave you with an exercise you can do to mark the end of your year in the pandemic, something I am borrowing from my friend Laura, who suggested it on her blog earlier this month. Laura described re-reading Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning and seeing anew a passage about how we store memories, “the full granaries of the past” into which we bring the harvest of our lives: “the deeds done, the ones loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity.”

Laura writes, “The passage from Frankl’s book prompted me to begin a list of things I have done during this pandemic year, which has also been a time of change and loss in a different way. I have often felt unfocused and wondered where the days have gone. Have I lost them?” She continues, “My list included everything from caring for my husband post surgery to writing every morning (finally) to holding yoga practice with friends in my front yard. I quickly realized, this wasn’t a list of accomplishments, but rather a list of experiences. I had so many valuable memories that I quickly ran out of room on the page.”

At this time last year, we all had many ideas on ways we could bring meaning to a time that seemed devoid of any sense. We thought we might have a few weeks of isolation and weirdness, so most of us felt compelled to use it wisely. Then time folded in on itself; weeks became months and months became a year and here we are. Forget everything you didn’t do (or that you didn’t do as much as you had hoped). Think about what you’ve done — your storehouse of experiences and memories. Make a list or a drawing or a collage to capture it. Maybe write a letter to yourself to read a year from now.

I’d also love to leave you with these words, which I recently read in Creative Care, a book by Anne Basting. She writes, “Happiness or joy can spring from immediate pleasure in the moment. Meaningfulness, on the other hand, needs more cooks and more time to cook.”

This past year, we’ve all been part of creating something the world has never seen — a stew that has been seasoned by tears, laughter, despair, resilience, and hope. The kettle is still simmering; we’ll need to stir it from time to time.

We may never know when it’s done, but I still look forward to seeing how it turns out.

Thank you for reading Surely Joy. A special thanks to these people who offered support via my Patreon page over the past six months: Natalie, Jeff and Kevin, Rebecca, Laura, Marge and Lew, Jim and Kitty, David and Carrie, Chris and LeAnne, Anita, Jan, Nancy, Marianne, Joanne, Victoria, Tara, Scott, Kevin, Felicia, Eileen, Linda, Karen, and Mari. If you enjoy my writing, you can continue to support it via sharing my posts, hitting the tip jar, or buying a book. And elsewhere on this page, you’ll see a place where you can sign up to get Surely Joy via email when I write again — which I will. See you again soon.

Pandemic postcard #51: Waiting my turn

Julie Fanselow

It’s sometime in April, and I’m in line outside the stadium field house that has recently opened as Seattle’s mass vaccination site. Nurses are standing by with tens of thousands of single-dose Johnson & Johnson shots newly arrived from the feds, and I hold a sliver of hope that my silver hair will confer an advantage in securing one of these coveted vaccines. I easily pass through the entrance, and my excitement builds as I near the station where volunteers are verifying eligibility.

The woman at the sign-in table glances at me, starts the paperwork and asks for my driver’s license. She frowns as she sees that, despite a mane of graying hair, I am a few months shy of my 60th birthday. A few more questions reveal that I live alone and do my non-essential work from the safety of my computer, that I am not a smoker, and that I have no serious health conditions.

Turns out I’m still not eligible for a vaccination, and it remains unclear when I will be. “Maybe by late May?” the volunteer muses. I stifle an urge to cry as I turn for the exit. I have plans to visit my daughter over Mother’s Day for only the second time in more than a year. Will I still be unable to hug her?

__

I didn’t feel any vaccine envy until last Saturday, but it hit full force for me that day. First, I saw a friend’s Facebook story reveal that he’d secured a vaccine as a teacher. He’s in his 30s and teaches English as a foreign language — online. If anyone questions his eligibility, I guess he can argue that maybe he’ll get an in-person job soon. Later in the day, I learned that two family members had also received their first doses of the Moderna vaccine. Their situations merited legitimately getting the shots despite their tender ages (26 and 55), yet I still felt twinges of jealousy.

Then on Tuesday, the CDC announced that vaccinated people can now safely socialize together indoors without masks. I’ve signed up to write thank-you notes to people who take part in my church’s annual pledge drive, and within hours of the CDC announcement, the organizer sent an email inviting people to her home for an indoor note-writing party next week. As I sent my regrets, I felt another pang of loss and a preview of the limbo that we last-to-be-vaccinated folks will endure this spring as social gatherings ramp up among the protected.

It’s still the early days. As I write this, 19 percent of Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine to fight COVID-19, and one in 10 are now fully vaccinated. I’m genuinely happy for people who are managing to get the shot, and it does look like the pace of vaccinations is quickening. But I also know that, due to my age, self employment, and lack of risk factors, I will likely be waiting a long time. It’s not always easy to make peace with that, but at least it’s a short-term situation, and certainly shorter than the year I’ve already endured.

Our priorities as a society seem clear and indisputable: vaccinate older folks and people of color, because they’ve been hit hardest by the coronavirus’s lethality. Beyond that, it gets a bit fuzzier. People under 65 with underlying health conditions need the vaccine, but that’s a wide category, subject to squishy interpretation and self identification. We need to give people the benefit of the doubt and honor those who feel they can’t wait, especially since a constellation of factors may be in play.

How about a 60-year-old with minor health issues who is caring for an aging parent? How about a 35-year-old who has been housebound for a year with an immune disorder? These seem like no-brainer situations. Get them their shots, stat. Then again, how about younger people who have mild health issues? And who is most essential in the vast category of essential workers? I’d put front-line healthcare personnel and grocery store workers at the front of the line, followed by teachers so we can open in-person learning. But hairstylists and health club employees? Maybe, but it gets murky.

I volunteer twice a week as an online English teacher, and there is no way I’d stretch that fact into a qualifying condition since I can’t catch COVID on Zoom. On the other hand, I also volunteer a few times a month at a food bank, and it was after such a stint that I received word in December that I may have been exposed to the virus. (I quarantined, and I tested negative.) I understand the food bank’s full-time staff may soon be eligible for vaccination, and they should be. But what about those of us who drop in on occasion? Although it doesn’t seem right to push us forward in the queue, I could reasonably argue that I might expect to earn a few bonus points toward eligibility via this moderately risky unpaid work. For now, though, I’d rather my shot go to the older woman volunteering beside me who hasn’t been able to get an appointment.

There are stand-by lists aimed at distributing unclaimed vaccinations so they don’t go to waste. People sign up and get alerted by text if a shot is available and they can immediately go get it. Intrigued, I checked to see if such a program is available in Seattle. It is, but only for people 65 and up. Then there’s the phenomenon of people traveling to places with fewer restrictions in order to get their shots. Alaska is one of the only four states I haven’t yet seen, and everyone 16 and older there is now eligible for the vaccine. Hmmmm … like many of us, I can work from anywhere these days … but I guess you actually need to prove that you live there. Go figure.

It’s human nature to want to give ourselves the best shot at life. Eventually, there will be enough vaccine for everyone who wants it, and it sounds like that time is now mere months away. After a year without hugs and unmasked human contact, my vaccination can’t come soon enough. But I’ll wait my turn, hoping that the people who truly need this protection are getting it the soonest. I’ll also try to remember that my place near the end of the line is the result of my relative youth, reasonably good health and no small measure of privilege and good luck — and for all these things, I am grateful.

Thank you for reading Surely Joy. You can find the first Pandemic Postcards and my earlier writings here. If you’d like to get future posts via email, look for the link on the right side of this page (or maybe below this post, if you’re on a mobile device). I write for a living, so if you’d like to support my work, please hit the tip jar. Thank you.

Pandemic postcard #50: Help along the way

Julie Fanselow

There are plenty of reasons to cheer as the Senate seems poised to pass the latest — and let’s hope final — pandemic stimulus package, from ramping up the vaccination campaign to cutting child poverty in half to offering help with daycare costs so parents can get back to work. Personally, I am glad because I’ve already spent my next stimulus check.

I didn’t wake up the other day planning to buy a new laptop. But after a few weeks of increasingly sluggish performance, a Microsoft warning that I could no longer update my cloud-based Word software was the nudge I needed to replace Tom’s late-2011 model MacBook (which itself had come out of the closet to replace the 2013 Mac desktop that had hemorrhaged on me last year). With luck, I will get nearly a decade of use from this nimble new machine. Meanwhile, I’m marveling at the speed with which I’m opening and saving files.

It definitely feels like we’re accelerating out in the world, too. And much as it helped to have spring arrive just as we were locking down last March, the longer days and warming temperatures are welcome harbingers of better times ahead. But we’re not out of the dark winter yet, despite what certain governors would like to think. Ask the essential workers who haven’t yet been vaccinated as variants of the virus continue to spread, or grocery store staff working hazardous jobs for $10 an hour, or the kids who are eager to return to school before fall. Ask the folks in Jackson, Mississippi, who haven’t had water to drink or even flush their toilets for three weeks.

We’ve learned a lot of lessons this past year. One is that official inaction kills people, as it did with weeks of insistence that the virus would magically disappear. Another is that government can do a lot of good, as it did with the first round of stimulus relief, passed last March like the emergency bill that it was. Yes, the national debt is piling up, but with near-zero interest. Economic activity will replenish the coffers as we spend money and pay taxes. It’s smart to go big, especially to help the littlest and the least among us.

Self-sufficiency is a myth that deserves to die, and it sometimes feels like a more humane form of capitalism may be within sight, if only we can learn the lessons of 2020. Wouldn’t it be great to live in a country where people didn’t need to choose between food and medicine? Where people have help — via a reasonable minimum wage, for example — affording rent and child care, not just when emergencies happen, but to prevent them?

The government rescued me and millions of others last year with the first-ever unemployment assistance for freelancers, and now it has helped me replace the main tool of my wordsmithing trade. I am happy to have my first new computer in nearly a decade. Thank you, Uncle Sam. I’ll pay you back soon, I promise.


Thank you for reading Surely Joy. You can find the first Pandemic Postcards and my earlier writings here. If you’d like to get future posts via email, look for the link on the right side of this page (or maybe below this post, if you’re on a mobile device). I write for a living, so if you’d like to support my work, please hit the tip jar. Thank you.

Pandemic postcard #49: Reel life and real life

Julie Fanselow

Like most of you, I’m sure, it’s been nearly a year since I’ve been in a movie theater. Of all the activities I’ve missed most this past year, sitting in a big dark room with strangers ranks near the top. Here’s how I described the experience in a column I wrote many years ago:

Everyone knows why we go to the movies. To escape, right? And sometimes, there’s nothing like a few hours away from reality, bathed in darkness, completely consumed by a story that sweeps us far from our daily routines.

The last movie I watched in a theater was exactly like that. Portrait of a Lady on Fire took viewers to France in the late 18th century, immersing us in a forbidden romance. My act of seeing it in a theater on March 14, 2020, had a hint of danger, too, even with only a handful of people at the Saturday afternoon showing. Two days later, all theaters in Washington state shut down. Some are reopening now, but I’m not especially eager to go—except, perhaps, to a no-concession matinee where people need to stay masked the whole time, and that doesn’t sound like much fun.

Still, there’s a part of me that aches to see a film in a theater. That feeling was reawakened last weekend by Nomadland, a film currently in theaters and on Hulu that is about solitude and self-discovery amid community and hardship. I was captivated by its indelible characters, by its understated music and lovingly photographed scenes of the American West, and by its portrayal of resilience—so much so that I watched it again the next day.

From rom-coms to action epics, films sometimes serve as Rorschach tests, giving us a chance to see aspects of ourselves through the characters on the screen. We needn’t identify with a character to love a film: The weekend before last, I re-watched an old favorite, Harold & Maude. I thoroughly enjoyed it, yet I don’t see myself in either of its main characters. But I see much of myself in Fern, the central character in Nomadland, an uprooted woman in the residual stages of grief, a person near my age who enjoys the company of others yet is prone to wandering away from the pack. For that matter, I see myself in Dave, the other lead role, someone who is more of a people person than Fern.

Nomadland reminds us of what we are missing in 2021, as many of us who live alone mark the first anniversary of our last hugs. The film is a feast of human connection, from haircuts to campfires to stargazing parties, from breakroom conversations to Thanksgiving dinners. It made me deeply miss seeing people in person, but it was comforting to watch the people onscreen casually go about their lives, especially because—with the exception of lead actors Frances McDormand and David Straithairn—people in the film are playing themselves.

That’s yet another remarkable aspect of the film, how it blends real life with reel life. It shows that there is dignity in hard work, that 99 percent of people are essentially decent, and that everyone has a story. You only need to ask—and to listen. Nomadland also serves as a 108-minute meditation on why we decide to keep the things we hang onto, from homes to vehicles and jobs and relationships and stuff, and why we choose to let things go. It’s also about how people and things come back to us.

I could go on and on; Nomadland is a cinematic onion, revealing many layers and asking many questions without resorting to political debate or judgment. In the end, its central question seems to be: What makes a good life? If one version of the good life goes away, do we have the inner fortitude to make another one? Do we greet these changes as obstacles or opportunities? Can a restless and often difficult but ultimately free life be as satisfying as a settled one in a comfortable, well-furnished home? Is there a middle way?

We’re all living with versions of these questions in 2021, no matter what the past year—or decade—has thrown at us. I expect I’ll watch Nomadland many times over the coming years as I live into the answers.

Thank you for reading Surely Joy. If you enjoy my work, please consider sharing it with others.