Conversations

Yesterday I visited a friend of mine at the West end of the ranch. Based on our habits of the last month or two, we assessed the chances of either of us being sick as very small. We sat outdoors on his patio, a good distance apart, wiped the chairs and surfaces with disinfectant cloths, and mostly kept our masks on. I sipped from a thermos of coffee I had brought, and I could hear fragments of opera coming from the radio inside his house, and it was all so very civilized and pleasant.

We talked about travel and how we spend our days these days and the questions we wish we had asked our fathers. He is the son of Greek immigrants, a retired professor, a thoughtful and brilliant man, but he doesn’t claim to have any answers. He’s grateful to be reading T.C. Boyle’s novel San Miguel in a home from which he can actually look out and see San Miguel Island. The distribution of blessings is inequitable and bewildering.

By the standards of others, our version of quarantine is a garden party. We have the balm of nature around us, good food, walks outdoors, and social interactions that, while limited and new in format, are enjoyable and meaningful. I think in some ways we are going deeper in our conversations, appreciating friendships more than ever. I carry a share of personal disappointment and global worry about what is happening, but I know that I am privileged.

Even in my own family of origin, scary problems are accruing. My sister sent me a litany via text of her very real hardships, anxieties, and fears, and they filled my heart like heavy weights, sinking me. I tried to be supportive, made a few small gestures, and offered encouraging words, but some problems are insoluble. But maybe the very act of listening can be helpful. I’ve gotten good at that. And I’d rather have an honest narrative than superficial chatter.

I listened to an On Being podcast interview with Ocean Vuong recently. I loved so many things about it! The way he talks about the immigrant experience, his mother’s humble work, the power and nuance of language, views of history through different cultural lenses, and perhaps above all, how his uncle’s suicide made him realize the desperate need we have to use language not just as filler, but to speak real and honest truth, to admit when we are in pain, to truly connect with others. He used the metaphor of a fire escape: “And yet only the fire escape, a clinging extremity, inanimate and often rusting, spoke — in its hardened, exiled silence with the most visible human honesty: We are capable of disaster. And we are scared.”

Yes, we are capable of disaster, and we’re scared, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Last night as Monte and I lay in bed side by side in the darkness, two aging Boomers wide awake with all our diffuse anxieties and vague fears, I asked, “Do you think we’re supposed to find meaning in all this?”

That’s when I realized I had become a New Yorker cartoon. (At least I know I’m ridiculous.)

One of my Besties says there isn’t any meaning to be found, only lessons. The other says that sanity lies in focusing and acting on that very small category of things we can do something about. Smart women, both of them. But oh, this is a strange, disorienting time! I hope I can rise to the occasion.

Meanwhile, there was something timeless about sitting on my friend’s patio yesterday looking out toward Point Conception, and we story-talked and sometimes fell silent, and the wind carved whitecaps into the sea and trembled all the grasses, and I thought myself on a dream-ship, without a chart or a compass, a sextant or a wheel.

I’m carrying Ocean Vuong’s closing words on my heart today: “I want to love more than death can harm. And I want to tell you this often: That despite being so human and so terrified, here, standing on this unfinished staircase to nowhere and everywhere, surrounded by the cold and starless night — we can live. And we will.”