can you feel me hugging you? OR care via time travel in the days of covid-19

here in the barely united states, we are in the days of increasing coronavirus chaos. i have a cough and a runny nose. i think it’s allergies. i hope my cough is just a post-nasal drip (when i took allergy meds yesterday morning, my cough disappeared for most of the day). it might be covid-19, though. how will i know? i don’t think i can. even if it is, my symptoms aren’t bad, and i hear the tests are limited (though it’s getting better… hopefully fast enough).

thursday morning i was talking with luana and eroc and something hard came up. eroc had us pause in the conversation to slow down and be with the energy of that moment. he paused and had us imagine standing together, holding each other as we often do. each of us leaning on the other, hugging tight, heads leaning, breathing deeply. together.

it reminded me of this story that bryan stevenson told at the 2019 vision & justice conference at harvard (s/o lily song for telling about the story)! it’s about 2 minutes long and worth every second.

in these days where we are being encouraged to keep our bodies apart (to #flattenthecurve), how do we keep our hearts together? i think stevenson’s grandmother (i should find out her name) has given us (through bryan) a powerful tool. can you remember back to the last time your loved ones held you? can you close your eyes and remember what that moment felt like? can you use that memory to hold you up today?

words / writing / post-processing
259w / 10min / 10min