The Stories I Will Live By

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

 I often use Joan Didion’s famous opening to The White Album in my narrative classes. Stories, I tell my students at the University of Florida, help us make sense of the world. They help us process the complex issues of the day.

I believe it to be true now more than ever before.

I believe it when I lie awake in my bed thinking of the day’s headlines that come hurtling like rocket-propelled grenades from my phone, laptop, and television screen. Of a pandemic ravaging the world and now, the greatest civil unrest since the 1960s.

I think of the more than 100,000 Americans who have succumbed to COVID-19. Of all the men and women who could not say goodbye to their dying spouses and partners. Of the doctors and nurses working to the point of insanity, the skin on their faces raw and broken by tightly pressed protective gear. 

I think of all the people of color who live in fear they will be judged because they are not white. Or worse, like George Floyd, they will lose their lives for no reason other than the color of their skin. 

This moment in time feels like no other. At the very same time that the coronavirus has shut us all down, a police killing has brought us all out. We have been socially distanced now for many, many weeks but in the last few days, we have come together in the most important of ways. 

Surely, the pandemic must end one day. Won’t it? What will our lives look like then?

I have longed for the return of a “normal” life but I don’t know what that means any more. Will things be forever changed? I hope not.

And what will come of a movement for equality reenergized by the police killing of George Floyd? Will we return to “normal” on that front as well? Or will things be forever changed? I hope so.

The uncertainty can be maddening. 

It was what I had feared most on all my reporting trips to Iraq. Not death, but uncertainty. It gnawed on me and twisted my days in such a way that I could not sit still or concentrate on anything.

My coronavirus uncertainty began with the end of spring break and the resumption of classes on March 9. Pulitzer Prize winner Lane DeGregory and her editor Maria Carillo of the Tampa Bay Times were supposed to be speaking to my narrative nonfiction class that week. My students were excited. But a text from Maria the night before informed me they would have to cancel; Maria had just returned from a journalism conference where some had tested positive for novel coronavirus. I watched disappointment drape the faces of my students in what became our very last in-person class.

The university urged the faculty to pivot to holding classes online. It hurt to tell my students we would no longer meet in Weimer 3334 or in any other place for that matter; that the students would have to practice what I had described as anathema to storytelling and immersive reporting. They would have to finish their stories by phone or video chat.

The rest of the semester felt like a roller-coaster ride: moments of utter joy on Zoom interspersed with grief so saturated that it felt as though someone in our midst had died. My students mourned the loss of classes, camaraderie, collegiate fellowship, and campus activities. The seniors bemoaned the loss of their convocation. They would graduate without ceremony, the day they had eagerly awaited four long years snatched cruelly from them.

The virus was a rotten burglar who had broken into our lives. We felt violated. All that we held sacred was marred by a tiny viral particle surrounded by a fatty outer layer with club-shaped spikes on the surface that resemble a crown. Hence, corona.

Joan Didion (yes, I have been devouring all her books again) begins The Year of Magical Thinking, written after the death of her husband, with this thought:

Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
The question of self-pity.

I struggle now to even recall my last “normal” activity before social distancing became part of our daily vocabulary and face masks began to surface in colorful patterns. I know an artist in my native India who was quite inventive in utilizing old cotton saris and an artist in Tallahassee who hand-stitched one for me with three little sequins in one corner that catch the glint of the sun. I wear that mask on my early morning jaunts to the grocery store or the post office.

It’s hard to form images in my mind of the things I did in the days before my isolation, my memory hijacked by all that has been abnormal.

I do remember a trip to a nearby Home Depot to pick up tiny tomato plants and a few bags of potting soil. I needed to transplant a coral hibiscus that had long overgrown the pot, its roots entwined so tightly that not even water could drip through. How vital the earth would become as I spent long hours under the hot Florida sun, sweat trickling down the back of my neck and my gloved hands submerged in sandy soil. I stood in my garden watching the flowers and vegetables grow like a time-lapse camera. Then one day,when southwesterly Gulf breezes had begun to weigh down the air, I harvested my first tomatoes.

I remember unpacking the remnants of my spring break trip to California from my colorful giraffe-print suitcase I bought after my luggage was stolen last summer at the Atlanta airport. Every time I unpack, I stop to consider whether it’s worth hoisting the bag back up to the top shelf of my closet. This time, I did not put the suitcase away, considering that I had a scheduled trip to Boston in late March. I did not, of course, make that flight and tucked away my giraffes, knowing they would not emerge again for many weeks or months. Or maybe even years.

And I remember a visit to my accountant to discuss this year’s income tax return. It’s normally not the stuff of vivid memories but this encounter burns bright in my mind for its mundaneness. Isn’t that what we crave now? The banal, bland acts of everyday life?

That brings me back to the power of story.

In this time of the coronavirus, in these eerily strange days redolent of science fiction, I find myself searching, as Didion goes on to say in her White Album essay, “for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five.”

Yes, yes. Tell me stories that make things more bearable. or I shall go mad in my isolation, this forced confinement that made me come one tiny step closer, perhaps, to comprehending what it must feel like to be taken hostage or spend weeks, months even, in a prison’s solitary cell. Again, I am keenly aware of my good fortune. Physically, I am in a house that would be called large by most of the world’s standards. I have every comfort at hand. But they cannot take away the loneliness, the longing for the presence of another person. To hug. To touch. To converse. And to laugh. Together.

And so, perhaps, I am seeking stories that are delusional. Or at least the ones that will make me believe in the future again. The ones that will stave off self-pity or help make life less uncertain.

I am not sure those stories exist.

But I sought to tell a snippet of my own story every day during this terrible time.

I drove home from my campus office on a sunny Thursday in mid-March, not realizing then that I would not see it again until the fall. By then, COVID-19 was very much in the news. Congress was nearing a deal on a stimulus package, Italy was warning the world, and sickened people across America were voicing outrage that they could not get tested. I was beginning to accept that I would be home, alone, for the foreseeable future; that I would have to live with myself and all my brooding cynicism.

My friends have always known me to be somewhat of a jaded journalist, hardened by war and suffering. I have been an eternal pessimist at heart, a woman who has an uncanny ability to find bleakness in everything. I see dark when there is light. I fear there is a mountain to climb where there is really only an undulation before me. Part of it, I believe, is armor for my soul. If I do not allow myself to hope, I will be protected from disappointment. But a part of it is not.

At a wedding last year, a close friend asked: “Why are you always so negative?” That rhetorical question burned inside and consumed me like a California wildfire. For many months, I have considered how I might answer. Or rather, how I might change.

So, when I went home from the university that Thursday, for the last time, it seemed as good a time as any to make a conscious effort to seek the sunny side of things. To find the sermon in the suicide.

At first, I thought I would write something about my isolation every day, but luckily I had the foresight to know that such a task might quickly become a burden. I say, luckily, only because now I have the hindsight of recognizing the recent changes in my behavior. As the days became weeks and closed in on months, I became increasingly restless. I paced up and down the hallways and rooms of my oddly shaped house. I found myself out the door at sunrise for walks that I wished were interminable.

I am normally fairly disciplined in my work but these days, I can hardly sit at my computer for more than 20 minutes at a time. I get up to fetch yet another treat for my 7-pound dog who never rejects any sort of food. I should probably weigh him. I am sure he has gained weight. As have I from my constant snacking. I do laundry even when the washer is only a third full. I check my mailbox two or three times a day, and once in a while, my eyes light up at the sight of a handwritten letter from a friend. I am not sure how I got through the spring semester, editing student stories and preparing class plans. I am not sure of anything anymore, except that back in mid-March, I decided to make use of my Facebook page. There, I began posting a photo every day of something that brought joy. Something that served as a deflection from the pandemic.

On Day 1 of my isolation, I savored a delicious South Indian meal of idli (steamed rice cakes) and sambar (lentils) that I made from scratch. The idlis could have been less dry; the sambar, thicker. But with each bite came a flood of childhood memories of a roadside food stall near my grandfather’s house in Kolkata. 

The following day, I challenged myself to bake a chocolate cake. I am not a baker. I don’t possess a mixer or any of the proper tools needed for perfection. I am certain I will never win the great bake-off reality show, but the cake was delicious. Then came a series of photos of my garden: Florida orchids, crossvine, hibiscus, irises, and magnolias. And Ichiban eggplant, peppers, and papaya. On Day 7, a packet arrived in my mailbox containing a Florida Flambeau t-shirt. I was editor of that small newspaper once, and on Valentine’s weekend, we had held a nostalgic reunion in Tallahassee. On Day 15, I was overjoyed to have logged 21,009 steps on my iPhone walking app. My average would soon rise to 30,000. 

On the last day of March, a visitor came to my door. It was Mackenzie Behm, a star journalism student, who arrived with homemade banana bread in hand. I brimmed with excitement and asked her to sit for a while on my patio, properly social distanced. At that point, I had not spoken to another human being face to face for nearly three weeks. When it was time for Mackenzie to leave, my heart sank. I wanted to beg her to stay.

Day 36 was special. I learned that UF had chosen me as its undergraduate teacher of the year. The news lifted my spirits, and I was a bird in flight who never wanted to land. The doubts that lingered within about whether I could be a good teacher suddenly fell away. I felt grateful for my students, for my job, and for journalism.

I marveled at the lakes, swamps and parks of Gainesville and the cardinals who’d taken up residence in my newly planted maple tree. And cherished the box of eco-friendly toilet paper that arrived via UPS at my doorstep. One afternoon, I painted a Bengali new year’s card with the never-opened acrylics I bought five years ago at the Blick’s in Midtown Atlanta. I had intended to mail the card to a cousin but I was too afraid to walk into the neighborhood post office.

On Day 24 came news from India that my beloved auntie, Pishi, had died. She had been my second mother all my life and especially so after my own mother died 19 years ago. Pishi was 92 and had been ill for many months. I knew her time had come. And yet, I hated that she had died without loved ones by her side. I could not stop the tears.

Mother’s Day fell on Day 58 of my isolation, and it was equally difficult. Grief can discombobulate the mind, and amid this pandemic, it had the potential to be crushing. My longing for my aunt and mother lingered long past the milestones and are an essential part of who I am or who I want to be. I coveted my memories, held them close like long-lost treasures. I floated in the air, buoyed by the comfort they brought.

I shed my leggings and T-shirt and put on a dress, the first I had worn in two months. I thickened my lashes with noir mascara and slathered my lips — the lips behind my mask that no one sees anymore — with my favorite shade of crimson. I even put on earrings and bracelets and tossed the flip-flops for a real pair of shoes. With heels. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to attempt to look decent. Almost.

Here I was, on Day 60, all dressed up with, well, nowhere to go.

Then, after Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor; after slavery and Jim Crow; after 400 years of brutality against black people, America exploded.

Thousands of people took to the streets to protest racism and an unjust system of law enforcement. The demonstrations spread across the nation and in my hometown, Atlanta, anger erupted downtown. Protesters set police cars on fire and vandalized my former workplace, the CNN Center.

Amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, Americans were determined to end another one that plagues this nation.

On Day 78, I came across a striking portrait of George Floyd made by Atlanta artist Magda Dumitrescu. He floated amid a halo of sunny daisies in Magda’s painting, peaceful in death while out on the streets and on the airwaves, the demands for justice grew louder and louder. 

The virus had vanquished entire communities. And now, rage had consumed them. 

I found myself navigating to CNN, the network where I worked for almost 10 years. I had watched intently for the first few weeks, but less so recently. I was suffering not from the virus but from virus fatigue. I had always despised it when editors batted away stories I proposed from Iraq because of “war fatigue.” But now, I got it. The steady dose of terrible news has a way of squashing one’s soul. I dreaded recoiling into my old somber self. I stopped watching CNN for longer than five minutes at a time. Thank you, Mindy Kaling. “Never Was I Ever” more ready to laugh.

A former colleague asked if I missed being a daily journalist in this unprecedented moment in history. I thought I would answer yes, but my response was quite the opposite. I was relieved not to be mired in tragedy. Relieved, for a change, not to be on the frontlines but a part of America’s pajama-clad audience. 

I was grateful to my former colleagues and all those out there who were telling the stories of our times so that we may all make sense of it all. Through them, we may come to know people who have suffered and persevered. That is how we might be able to see light amid the darkness.

In the first essay of The White Album, the one that begins with the oft-quoted line, Joan Didion makes sense of random events by structuring them in an orderly fashion, by telling a story. By doing so, these individual events seem to shed their momentary significance and take on greater meaning.

“We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience." 

I am left to ponder the moments in my pandemic phantasmagoria and how I will make meaning of them all. It is those stories by which I will live.

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