Tag: positivity

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.

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.

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.