I’m writing this at 11:52 PM on Thursday night, extremely aware of the Hugo Awards tomorrow evening (they start at 7:00 PM EST on Friday, July 31st), and all the work to do between now and then.
So I’m a ball of nerves—missing the friends who usually help me weather the stress in person, missing the brilliant talented artist friends who offer to make a canvas of my face and hair, missing the hugs and soothings. Instead I’m foam-rolling my tricksy back every few hours and mixing dough for tomorrow’s bread.
But in the midst of it all, those friends I can’t touch are speaking to me in slacks and texts and FaceTimes, giving me their care and support, and I’m thrumming as much with gratitude as with anything else.
So tell me: on this last day in the month of July, where is your body and where is your heart? Who or what are you missing, who or what are you rejoicing in the nearness of?
As an immigrant, this post speaks to me, even outside these strange pandemic times. I am used to living with my heart split up from my body (or split across oceans). This year, when I have already lost the opportunity for my mother's regular trip over to visit me (she normally comes once every northern hemisphere summer), and am no longer going to be returning to visit my country of origin in December (I have not been back or seen any relative other than my mother since April 2018, and have not been with my family for Christmas since 2015), those vast oceans and distances are particularly confronting.
My body is in this strange, sleepy, green British university town that has been home for nearly twelve years. My heart — long used to friendships that span oceans and borders — is, I suppose online, curled around those digital spaces that bridge geographical distances. I am grateful for that.
I had an endoscopy yesterday and my partner is flying halfway across the country for a month tomorrow, so my body is wishing it could be horizontal again and my heart is preparing to be wrung out and lonely for awhile. I am trying to wrangle both of them to be present for the Hugos tonight, as this is my first time as a finalist and I am trying to really savor it despite the circumstances, but I confess, I wish I could be spending tonight goofing off with my partner instead of watching the ceremony. Which makes me sad in itself? But I am trying to spend today being present and enjoying this for all that it is. I will be cheering you on!!
My body is where it always is: in a too-well-lit basement in an aging multicultural subdivision along the Scioto River, hollow and distracted, yet trying to do work. My heart is in many places. Cut into uneven triangles like an inexpertly sliced pizza, it can be found with my children, with my Twin, with the oldest and dearest of my friends, with my Beloved, and with The Kitty, wherever he is now. I miss all of them, even the ones who are here, for they, too, have pieces missing from months of isolation.
Good luck with the Hugos Amal! I'm sure you will kill it. My body is in San Jose, California, not four miles from where I was born. I am grateful to be home with my husband whom I am still in love and in like with (after 25 years, celebrated Wednesday!) and my teenage son who likes to be silly and who still snuggles with his mom sometimes. A piece of my heart is in Washington with my college daughter. Another piece is in Mississippi with a dear beloved friend I made 2 years ago. We bonded over a love of books, which led to many other connections. I am astonished at how, at age 45. my emotional landscape has expanded through this friendship, both in capacity for pain and joy. We speak weekly and I have visited her three times in the past year, and I miss her presence every day. Were it not for the pandemic, I would have seen her again last month. My longing for this friend is like being wrapped in a cozy quilt that is sewn from threads of memory and happiness...and sometimes it feels like small arrows of unjust separation piercing my soft places. I turned to poety last fall in order to help me process my feelings and though I am a little terrified to share this poem with a brilliant wordsmith like you, Amal, and this whole literary community, but I want to, so here goes:
I am missing my graduate students, mostly, being able to see them face to face, to gauge how they are, and express my concern for them. And of course friends, professional and otherwise I would have been seeing at many conferences over the past month. The year has already been full of changes, and I want to check in with many people.... on the other side, I'm not sure if "rejoicing" is a word I can use at the moment. *When* I do feel connected to anyone, through Zoom, a rare reply to a tweet, or post-card return, it is a great moment of zeal. That lasts for a day or so.
My body is struggling in the middle of this midsummer weather, in which confused plants spill their hopes and dreams and my eyes tear and stream for them without my opting in to their story. I don't begrudge them; they're just existing. But WOW is this not the time for a video-screen-only world.
My heart is conflicted between sadness I didn't get a WorldCon membership and can't see you and Cat and Liz and several others who delight me every time, and relief because my work-life has been very frazzled the last few days, like trying to repair a pretty vintage shirt whose old lace crumbles under my fingers. My poor development team got to see me mad for the first time ever, Wednesday night. I also discovered my upstairs neighbor, with whom we share both a front door and a basement, isn't social distancing anymore and I'm a bit terrified.
I am rejoicing in the nearness of my spouse, of my sweet gloriously-dopey animals, and of your words and the gorgeous words of so many others who visit my inbox on a weekly basis. <3
I usually have friends whom I play board games with on weekends, so due to Coronavirus fears and social distancing, we haven't met in months (and probably won't for the remainder of the year).
An acquaintance also recently got married, but of course due to the current situation, wasn't able to attend their wedding, although I did get them presents and hoping to send it to them next week.
I'm terribly sad that we weren't able to make our summer trip to Ontario - I miss seeing the friends and family there, who still love me even though it's been over 30 years since I left. No lazy days by the lake at the cottage, just four walls and closing horizons.
I have a job interview in an hour so I can relate to thrumming with nerves! Otherwise I will be attending a fan-only series of Potter events (that don't give JKR money) all weekend so that should be good fun! I do miss seeing my friends on the weekends though...
I miss you Amal! And I'm cheering you on!! I am of course also missing many other friends, both far and painfully near (but still only able to see them six feet apart behind masks outside).
I am rejoicing in the nearness of my wonderful partner and housemates, and count myself very very lucky to be quarantined with them.
I'm at home in Cambridge, UK, with my spouse and our children, and I'm so glad that at least we have each other through all this. This week we should have been on a family holiday together in the Netherlands, catching up with friends there. I still have the week off work but am spending it mostly on New Zealand time at virtual Worldcon, while the rest of the family stay on UK time, so that's been interesting.
But we are all at home together, and we're lucky enough to have a home where everyone can go in a room by themselves and shut the door when we need it, which is probably why we're all getting on as well as we are after 19+ weeks going nowhere else.
I miss the extended family: our parents, our siblings and their children. I have a nibling I've never met, born in February, seen only in photos and videos on the family groupchat. I'm incredibly grateful for living in a time where group chat and video calls are possible; for having an employer that was proactive about sending us all to work from home, and a department head who is repeatedly vocal about our top priority being our health and that of our households, and in no rush to bring us all back to the office. I'm grateful for having meaningful useful work to do, and job security in uncertain times.
I miss my friends. I miss the friends we should have been seeing this week, and the ones that live locally. I've seen a few friends in their garden or mine, carefully negotiating logistics and respective comfort levels in advance, and it was SO GOOD to see people not onna screen, but I miss hugs and being close to my friends. I miss holding other people's babies.
I miss the ordinary everyday things: my teenage child and I had developed a little weekend morning routine where we'd bus to skating class together, and then get brunch and potter around Forbidden Planet and maybe some other shopping before catching the bus home. Now skating is closed and eating out, shopping and bus travel are all fraught with risk analysis.
I had this up in a tab so I could come congratulate you here as well as on Twitter after the ceremony (felt pretty confident about Time War, of course! Though of course everyone's work on the list was amazing), but the... ceremony, if you can call it that, threw me into a tailspin for the whole weekend. Well, congratulations again! Your speech was phenomenal, one of many bright swords raised against the night. And that cape! Miri Baker is amazing! Elise Matthesen as well!
My heart and mind is always with my daughters, with whom I email and Skype regularly. I haven't seen them in eight months because of the pandemic. I'm also thinking of my mother in Mississippi, in her seventies and vibrant, and my aunt who lives with her. They're reluctant mask-users and take their news from Murdoch, so I worry about their safety.
I hope you've felt the love of your friends and the SFF community at large this weekend and that the bread came out well. :)
My body is in Minneapolis. South Minneapolis to be exact. My heart aches for my neighbors, from George Floyd's family to the people rebuilding shops to ... well, everybody here, especially people usually overlooked. I don't know how many tents are still in the park a few blocks from our place; there were two encampments of people who were houseless, and they cleared one of the two last week, removing 310 tents. And that's one of two encampments in one of numerous city parks providing sanctuary -- and it's all very complicated and I can't succinctly explain all the local politics involved. But people are hurting, and things need to change. Which means people need to change things.
My heart is also with you and everybody getting ready for the Hugos. Eeeee! I miss everybody, I miss my first ever chance to attend the finalists' pre-Hugo reception on my own hook rather than as a plus one. I miss the squee and the admiration of splendid hair and makeup and all the jitters and celebration.
I rejoice in the nearness of J, my spouse and partner, who has taken up (or more accurately returned to) cooking in a big way, which is why there are leftover garlic green beans on my lunch plate right now. We're helping each other get through all the things.
And I rejoice in the nearness, even mediated by Zoom, of other members of a bunch who have been referring to our get-togethers as meetings of the Senior Gender Outsiders. Their existence and our discussions and their minds and hearts are part of what's making so many things possible.
Time-wise I am rejoicing in the nearness of starting the next phase of working on the wirework lesson videos. Carpe diem time, is what it is.
As an immigrant, this post speaks to me, even outside these strange pandemic times. I am used to living with my heart split up from my body (or split across oceans). This year, when I have already lost the opportunity for my mother's regular trip over to visit me (she normally comes once every northern hemisphere summer), and am no longer going to be returning to visit my country of origin in December (I have not been back or seen any relative other than my mother since April 2018, and have not been with my family for Christmas since 2015), those vast oceans and distances are particularly confronting.
My body is in this strange, sleepy, green British university town that has been home for nearly twelve years. My heart — long used to friendships that span oceans and borders — is, I suppose online, curled around those digital spaces that bridge geographical distances. I am grateful for that.
I had an endoscopy yesterday and my partner is flying halfway across the country for a month tomorrow, so my body is wishing it could be horizontal again and my heart is preparing to be wrung out and lonely for awhile. I am trying to wrangle both of them to be present for the Hugos tonight, as this is my first time as a finalist and I am trying to really savor it despite the circumstances, but I confess, I wish I could be spending tonight goofing off with my partner instead of watching the ceremony. Which makes me sad in itself? But I am trying to spend today being present and enjoying this for all that it is. I will be cheering you on!!
My body is where it always is: in a too-well-lit basement in an aging multicultural subdivision along the Scioto River, hollow and distracted, yet trying to do work. My heart is in many places. Cut into uneven triangles like an inexpertly sliced pizza, it can be found with my children, with my Twin, with the oldest and dearest of my friends, with my Beloved, and with The Kitty, wherever he is now. I miss all of them, even the ones who are here, for they, too, have pieces missing from months of isolation.
Luck and Good Wishes to you and yours,
tch
Good luck with the Hugos Amal! I'm sure you will kill it. My body is in San Jose, California, not four miles from where I was born. I am grateful to be home with my husband whom I am still in love and in like with (after 25 years, celebrated Wednesday!) and my teenage son who likes to be silly and who still snuggles with his mom sometimes. A piece of my heart is in Washington with my college daughter. Another piece is in Mississippi with a dear beloved friend I made 2 years ago. We bonded over a love of books, which led to many other connections. I am astonished at how, at age 45. my emotional landscape has expanded through this friendship, both in capacity for pain and joy. We speak weekly and I have visited her three times in the past year, and I miss her presence every day. Were it not for the pandemic, I would have seen her again last month. My longing for this friend is like being wrapped in a cozy quilt that is sewn from threads of memory and happiness...and sometimes it feels like small arrows of unjust separation piercing my soft places. I turned to poety last fall in order to help me process my feelings and though I am a little terrified to share this poem with a brilliant wordsmith like you, Amal, and this whole literary community, but I want to, so here goes:
I scratch the itch of longing
to feel the tang, the sting of loss;
to twist inside its sweetness,
rip the scab and see the
bloody, honey gloss.
I am missing my graduate students, mostly, being able to see them face to face, to gauge how they are, and express my concern for them. And of course friends, professional and otherwise I would have been seeing at many conferences over the past month. The year has already been full of changes, and I want to check in with many people.... on the other side, I'm not sure if "rejoicing" is a word I can use at the moment. *When* I do feel connected to anyone, through Zoom, a rare reply to a tweet, or post-card return, it is a great moment of zeal. That lasts for a day or so.
My body is struggling in the middle of this midsummer weather, in which confused plants spill their hopes and dreams and my eyes tear and stream for them without my opting in to their story. I don't begrudge them; they're just existing. But WOW is this not the time for a video-screen-only world.
My heart is conflicted between sadness I didn't get a WorldCon membership and can't see you and Cat and Liz and several others who delight me every time, and relief because my work-life has been very frazzled the last few days, like trying to repair a pretty vintage shirt whose old lace crumbles under my fingers. My poor development team got to see me mad for the first time ever, Wednesday night. I also discovered my upstairs neighbor, with whom we share both a front door and a basement, isn't social distancing anymore and I'm a bit terrified.
I am rejoicing in the nearness of my spouse, of my sweet gloriously-dopey animals, and of your words and the gorgeous words of so many others who visit my inbox on a weekly basis. <3
Sending Amal virtual hugs. We support you!
I usually have friends whom I play board games with on weekends, so due to Coronavirus fears and social distancing, we haven't met in months (and probably won't for the remainder of the year).
An acquaintance also recently got married, but of course due to the current situation, wasn't able to attend their wedding, although I did get them presents and hoping to send it to them next week.
I'm terribly sad that we weren't able to make our summer trip to Ontario - I miss seeing the friends and family there, who still love me even though it's been over 30 years since I left. No lazy days by the lake at the cottage, just four walls and closing horizons.
I have a job interview in an hour so I can relate to thrumming with nerves! Otherwise I will be attending a fan-only series of Potter events (that don't give JKR money) all weekend so that should be good fun! I do miss seeing my friends on the weekends though...
I miss you Amal! And I'm cheering you on!! I am of course also missing many other friends, both far and painfully near (but still only able to see them six feet apart behind masks outside).
I am rejoicing in the nearness of my wonderful partner and housemates, and count myself very very lucky to be quarantined with them.
I'm at home in Cambridge, UK, with my spouse and our children, and I'm so glad that at least we have each other through all this. This week we should have been on a family holiday together in the Netherlands, catching up with friends there. I still have the week off work but am spending it mostly on New Zealand time at virtual Worldcon, while the rest of the family stay on UK time, so that's been interesting.
But we are all at home together, and we're lucky enough to have a home where everyone can go in a room by themselves and shut the door when we need it, which is probably why we're all getting on as well as we are after 19+ weeks going nowhere else.
I miss the extended family: our parents, our siblings and their children. I have a nibling I've never met, born in February, seen only in photos and videos on the family groupchat. I'm incredibly grateful for living in a time where group chat and video calls are possible; for having an employer that was proactive about sending us all to work from home, and a department head who is repeatedly vocal about our top priority being our health and that of our households, and in no rush to bring us all back to the office. I'm grateful for having meaningful useful work to do, and job security in uncertain times.
I miss my friends. I miss the friends we should have been seeing this week, and the ones that live locally. I've seen a few friends in their garden or mine, carefully negotiating logistics and respective comfort levels in advance, and it was SO GOOD to see people not onna screen, but I miss hugs and being close to my friends. I miss holding other people's babies.
I miss the ordinary everyday things: my teenage child and I had developed a little weekend morning routine where we'd bus to skating class together, and then get brunch and potter around Forbidden Planet and maybe some other shopping before catching the bus home. Now skating is closed and eating out, shopping and bus travel are all fraught with risk analysis.
I had this up in a tab so I could come congratulate you here as well as on Twitter after the ceremony (felt pretty confident about Time War, of course! Though of course everyone's work on the list was amazing), but the... ceremony, if you can call it that, threw me into a tailspin for the whole weekend. Well, congratulations again! Your speech was phenomenal, one of many bright swords raised against the night. And that cape! Miri Baker is amazing! Elise Matthesen as well!
My heart and mind is always with my daughters, with whom I email and Skype regularly. I haven't seen them in eight months because of the pandemic. I'm also thinking of my mother in Mississippi, in her seventies and vibrant, and my aunt who lives with her. They're reluctant mask-users and take their news from Murdoch, so I worry about their safety.
I hope you've felt the love of your friends and the SFF community at large this weekend and that the bread came out well. :)
My body is in Minneapolis. South Minneapolis to be exact. My heart aches for my neighbors, from George Floyd's family to the people rebuilding shops to ... well, everybody here, especially people usually overlooked. I don't know how many tents are still in the park a few blocks from our place; there were two encampments of people who were houseless, and they cleared one of the two last week, removing 310 tents. And that's one of two encampments in one of numerous city parks providing sanctuary -- and it's all very complicated and I can't succinctly explain all the local politics involved. But people are hurting, and things need to change. Which means people need to change things.
My heart is also with you and everybody getting ready for the Hugos. Eeeee! I miss everybody, I miss my first ever chance to attend the finalists' pre-Hugo reception on my own hook rather than as a plus one. I miss the squee and the admiration of splendid hair and makeup and all the jitters and celebration.
I rejoice in the nearness of J, my spouse and partner, who has taken up (or more accurately returned to) cooking in a big way, which is why there are leftover garlic green beans on my lunch plate right now. We're helping each other get through all the things.
And I rejoice in the nearness, even mediated by Zoom, of other members of a bunch who have been referring to our get-togethers as meetings of the Senior Gender Outsiders. Their existence and our discussions and their minds and hearts are part of what's making so many things possible.
Time-wise I am rejoicing in the nearness of starting the next phase of working on the wirework lesson videos. Carpe diem time, is what it is.
So much love to you, dear Amal.