A Thursday Full of Courage.
This will be a short post, without the extras.
March blew in like a lion, as it usually does, but I’m not talking about the unseasonably warm weather.
I’m talking about the lion’s share of good things — proposal and dissertation defenses, talks, conferences, and Spring Break — that loom nigh.
However, the world is filled with turmoil right now. 2020 has brought turmoil from the ballot box to the streets and hospitals of the world, as humanity copes with the novel coronavirus.
As a member of an at-risk group, I’m being advised to wash and sanitize my hands and personal electronic devices, never touch my face, and honestly, reconsider being in places with large groups.
As a professor at a large urban university, I can not guarantee any of the above. College campuses, like other educational institutions, are prime spots for the transmission of communicable ailments. Our smartphones are like an appendage. And from the classroom, to invited talks and symposia, to conferences and conventions, being around people is part of the name of the game.
Thus far, neither my institution, nor those I will be visiting this spring, nor any of my major conferences have chosen to alter any domestic travel, or postpone any events.
Within the next 10 days, I will have to take my asthmatic lungs on 4 flights, 2 of them in and out of a city with cases of the novel coronavirus.
I’m anxious. Perhaps not quite frightened… yet.
Here goes: I started flying several times per year in 1995, when my parents and grandparents would dig deep to fly me to and from FAMU for Christmas break and summer vacation. By the late 2010s, I was booking between 10 and 15 round-trips each year, mainly for work and/or to visit my family, and that’s low in my corner of the world. Not enough for elite status with the airlines.
In 2021, I plan to fly less. The conditions at colleges and universities for the precariat, my health, my finances, as well as my own carbon footprint have led me to make several changes in the kinds of engagements and opportunities that are worth the toll of a flight.
You see, before the 2000s, flying wasn’t all that bad. The planes were, in general, clean. The crowds and conditions were reasonable. It was a highlight of the year for many, something you’d dress up for (although ew, I can’t believe people were allowed to smoke on flights back then — I think I’ve blocked that bad memory out!).
After 9/11, flying in the United States was never the same again. Security was tightened. Your loved ones could no longer park and spend the time with you at the gate. Screening became something other than cursory.
Then in 2006, when my friend Clare came to visit, another incident led to even tighter restrictions. We could no longer bring liquids beyond 4 ounces on flights. Full body scanners were used. And so on.
Flying became more and more difficult.
And then came the 2010s.
I noticed major changes as the economy recovered from the crash, Instagram culture arose, and continuing global precarity displaced millions of us here and abroad — count me as someone who moved to a city and metro because of a job.
Plane travel became both a necessity for professional success and a necessity for social success.
As the decade wore on, the last of the niceties faded. Major airlines racked up major profits, all while squeezing in more economy passengers, and shaving away key perks that frequent flyers used to take for granted.
The biggest thing that changed is that flying became dirty, rude, and crude. Something to dread. Something to fear.
Being courteous and civil? In the late 2010s? Nah. Better to snap and curse and demand. Patience, required since the Stone Age for travelers? Nope! Get me there now! Get out the way! How come you’re in business class and not steerage.
In 2018 and 2019, I noted how dirty planes were becoming, even ones that had sat at the airport overnight. Now, I do not blame workers — quite the opposite. They are not paid enough, nor do they make enough, to thoroughly clean after every flight.
But I have definitely noticed that no one really gives a sh— on flights any longer. Passengers leave everything from snotty tissues balled up in seat pockets to ground-up peanuts and pretzels on seats and chairs. They’ve gone viral on social media for putting feet and other body parts in people’s faces, breaking laptops while reclining, and…
Sigh. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Seems like there’s a story every week.
A bird’s eye view reveals that passengers aren’t to blame for this, either. The seats are cramped and small and awful. The plane is dirty. Accommodations aren’t always the best — the last time I sprang for first class on an American flight, the bathroom was broken.
And now, with the novel coronavirus? Perfect storm.
I’m anxious. No, scratch that — I’m scared.
In 2018, somewhere, somehow at NCTE, around Houston, or on a flight, I caught an unidentified respiratory virus that left me ill for 2 months. (Several of us caught it, and can tell you all about it.) It was not a cold, nor flu, nor pneumonia (and thank God). Whatever it was, it was extremely severe and even my PCP, a notable researcher of tropical diseases, didn’t know what the heck it was.
I was supposed to introduce Tomi Adeyemi. Instead, that honor went to a friend. I went to Detroit for Thanksgiving and spent most of my time there in bed at my mother’s home. Then I came back to Philadelphia, was hospitalized twice, did rounds of prednisone, and dodged a rogue skin infection that snagged me after with an easy outpatient surgery. Thanks to my family and friends, I recovered well.
However, I just couldn’t breathe well from Thanksgiving through Valentine’s Day. All because I went to my annual meeting.
This year at NCTE, I did better. I was recovering from surgery, and I didn’t want complications.
Therefore, I made sure that I washed my hands frequently, kept a bottle of sanitizer next to me at the Meet the Editors roundtable (all that handshaking!), drinking a bottle of orange juice daily, keeping up with meds and vitamins, hydrating between the coffee and tea in the morning and the wine and spirits in the evening, and getting enough rest even if it meant I was late to a session that I wasn’t running.
This time, I came back from NCTE, and I was just fine. No hospitals at all! Instead, I decorated my tree, finished a cross-stitch project I’ve been working on for a decade, and blasted R&B Christmas carols. Bliss..
My work travel season tends to extend from March through November. Besides spending Christmas week in Detroit, I’ve been in Philadelphia. That changes in less than 48 hours.
Here we go again…
I don’t want something worse to happen this time.
People who do not live with chronic illnesses just don’t get it. Some are sympathetic even if they don’t understand. Some get really, really angry with you.
I lost a friend that year in Houston, because I was too ill to follow up for a meeting. But I’ve been losing friends because of asthma and allergies since I was a child.
(My mother Susan, all my life: “Then they were never your friend in the first place.”)
It hurts.
It hurts when you dismiss our fears about catching respiratory illnesses, especially ones that will damage our already distressed lung tissue.
It hurts when you glibly say, “Oh, just wash your hands. Use sanitizer.” Guess who never leaves home without it? Guess who the rest of you borrow it from?
It hurts when we communicate what we need — from staying home to not being in proximity with those who are ill or known triggers — and we’re seen as obnoxious.
It hurts.
It hurts and I’m scared.
Is it foolhardy to travel right now? I don’t want to get sicker than I was not even 18 months ago…
Screw your courage to the sticking place, and we’ll not fail!
That’s a line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth that a song in Hamilton reminded me of today, as I finalized my travel plans for Spring Break.
A little time with family, and a little work.
I am hoping for a good, healthy time.
I am hoping that it will assuage the hurt.
I am hoping.
(And breathing hope.)
What I Am Reading, What I Am Writing, and Being/Doing/Going are on hiatus again this week.
Word(s) of the Week
Hope. Because it’s deeper than mere courage.