During this unprecedented time in our history of the Covid-19 outbreak, we put a call out for stories from our JWT community, all illuminating some aspect of what we are feeling and experiencing. We’ve had so many beautiful submissions, too many to fit into our digital series! Please enjoy these printed pieces below:
It started…with a bang.
………………………………………………..
During my first week of training for my position as a sound stage manager at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media, I–a disinterested and exhausted student — thought, “Maybe I’ll tell my boss there was a family emergency so I can leave.”
I slip into the jacuzzi tub
As it fills with warm water.
I breathe deeply
My eyes close
As it bubbles around me
The idea of an invisible being leading one and a half million people from slavery to freedom is a great story for kids and for the uneducated and non-scientific societies that existed when the Torah was written.
A two-minute play about Hope during the CoronaVirus pandemic.
[Two Jewish women are sitting on towels at Hilton Head Island Beach, South Carolina. Enjoying a Shabbat sunset. SFX of seagulls, ocean, breath of dolphins.]
Covid 19 has brought about an important new relationship in my life; Paper Towels. I’m writing this because quite frankly, I’m surprised at myself. I really should be part of a social science study, if they ever have one.
The question has come up multiple times in our lives as to what would be the most important things we would grab if we had to run out of our homes quickly due to a fire or an earthquake.
I write limericks both grown up and kiddish
But never specifically Yiddish!
A non-Jewish friend
Wants to see that all end
I hope that’s not one God forbiddish!
I’m very fortunate, I cannot go out, but I am not going crazy staying in.
I go out every other week for chemo, I also go for blood test. Other than that I don’t go out
She writes how she whipped up his favorite
kind of pancakes, secretly grateful for
him, for his enjoyment of what she provides
OKAY! — I admit it — I’m vain!!!!!
It’s due to my mother’s mantra (may she rest in peace).
Growing up in the 50’s, she would continuously say to me, ‘always look your best when you leave the house — you never know who you’ll run into.’
- Out of town family and friends can participate too.
- No need to polish silver.
- No need to borrow dishes, silverware or extra chairs.
The squirrels are partying under my orange tree eating more citrus than I can possibly pick. The green onions are taking over my yard bouncing white blossoms in the breeze. Arrogant arugula ignores the rocks between my manicured beds, spreading, heading for my neighbor’s yard.
When I was about five years old, I asked my mother, “Why are we here?” Her answer, “To help each other.” That conversation took place in the early 1940s in Canada. My mother had emigrated from Poland as a very young woman, marrying in Toronto prior to WWII…
Have you seen the show Westworld? I’ll try not to give anything away. Westworld is the ultimate theme park – an immersive experience where guests get to spend their vacation in an authentic Western Town. The town is full of “hosts” – lifelike androids – who live their stories on constant loops, none the wiser that they are not, in fact, human.
- The Pandemic has put a pause on a frenetic world.
- I have discovered there is almost NOTHING that can’t be done on-line.
- I now have a Pandemic Joke file, which I am sending out in lieu of inspirational poetry
My three grown daughters and two stepdaughters have been calling me daily since coronavirus to make sure that I am careful. I am a senior. Yes, I am the target population for the virus, but I consider myself in good health. Before the virus, I played tennis…
Can you fall in love in isolation
Over ice cream pints and soft guitar melodies
Over shared secrets and anxieties
My suitcase lay overstuffed on the living room floor, all dressed up with nowhere to go. Dancing shoes sat still, thwarted in their annual pilgrimage to tango’s mecca. I am a professional dancer and teacher of Argentine tango.
Tonight I drink Baileys instead of wine
Tonight I watch through a screen
without my family
As a recovering food restrictor and exercise bulimic, these last few days have been trying. My cabinets and freezer are stocked for the next ten days. My running shoes have become my date of choice, as I have been joining me for fresh air.
Amazing how every challenge and new technology offers incredible opps for good…
I am obeying, with conviction, the rules to protect myself and others. Thank goodness for my sweet dog who requires attention and outdoor activity. She is wonderful company for me, gives me reason to get up, and keeps me going…
Oy the old days…
Remember way back in February 2020 when hands were used for hugging and kissing and showing affection?
When they were used to pick up our children and grandchildren to cradle them in our arms and caress their adorable punims?
They are calling this a pandemic.
Widespread, over OMG
Over our whole world.
Is this like the black plague?
Are we all going to die?
All right. I don’t lie. Shit is jacked. I’m writing to you from America in the year 2020, which you actually have to write out fully on every document placed before you because apparently some genius was all “They could fill out whatever year they want to after the ’20,’” which makes zero fucking sense because we could have done that through all of ’19 as well and no one blinked.
For 1,000 patients, the USNS MERCY that docked in the Port of Los Angeles yesterday will be just that. This song made famous in 1934 by Shirley Temple was a night-time dream of lollipops, Cracker-Jacks, Tootsie Rolls and many other confections that were available at Peppermint Bay.
Silence in the house
Claustrophobic, suffocating
Aware of my aloneness
Thinking of those souls
Who always live this way
When I feel stir-crazy, I crochet to relax. To distract myself from my extreme fear of Covid-19, I took out my crochet hook and yarn, and so far my new scarf is 30 feet long.
One square, 2, 3 or 4? How many pieces of toilet paper will I allow myself
to use right now? No more just tearing it off willy nilly. These rolls need to last
for a while.
I was walking my dog Louie – or he was walking me –
When he spotted a squirrel with a delicious acorn locked in its tiny mouth.
Louie lunged, nearly ripping my arm from its socket…
These corridors, these formerly teeming arteries sparkle, gleaming like teeth that were mortally whitened we, the brave or enslaved, roll, stride, marvel at this |
My bags are packed |
“Ron is back walking again |
I’m a survivor. I’ve survived losing a dear friend, raising a teenager, divorce, and being in show biz in LA with grey hair and pudgy thighs.
Five years ago, I survived pancreatic cancer, and that’s not nothing.
So, I’m a survivor.
And now, like you, I’m surviving this.
I’m an older woman now, I’ve been around, I know the ropes. I’ve dreamed the dreams And hoped the hopes… |
“Bones I see, dry and dead “Bones on bones, minus marrow |
Being single people constantly wonder
Aren’t you lonely?
Alone yes, but never lonely.
Until now,
The original “C” word
never spoken in polite company –
Cancer
or was it c-nt.
As we now have time, I decided to go through my closets.
In a small box found a “Star of David” Ring…that I didn’t even know I had…WOW! Wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles—You just never know what treasures you will find…
Perhaps the last time most of you were isolated or quarantined in your homes was when you were ill or recovering from surgery. When that happened most of you had visitors, well wishers and you knew exactly how long the course of your illness would take. Covid-19 is different.
Article originally featured in McSweeney’s A Force Outside Myself: Citizens Over 60 Speak
Note from McSweeney’s Editors: In the past few weeks, the voices and even the lives of older people have been marginalized, scapegoated, written off. Most recently, certain politicians have presented a false and horrifying choice — either we protect citizens over 60 or we save the economy.
The virus now surrounds us.
It haunts us and it hounds us.
It causes social distance and lowers our resistance.
One thing I never thought I’d be is a lunch lady… or a high school principal… or a PE coach… or a detention hall monitor. But these are strange times.
