Hate (again)

This shit is on my mind all the time.
So I'm writing about it again.
In the last post I mentioned a story I've heard about a monk coming out of the mountains having meditated for a long time. He is full of peace and love and believes he is enlightened. As he walks into town he stubs his toe on a beggars bowl and becomes enraged. I like that story because it demonstrates how easy it is to feel peace and love when you're alone and how hard it is to keep feeling that way in the presence of others.
I saw Fran Lebowitz in conversation once. The other woman in the conversation was a very nice woman in pastel colors and sandals. Fran was in her cowboy boots, suit and tortoise shell glasses. Fran smokes. She wasn't smoking at the time but she smokes. The woman asked her if she wasn't worried about smoking in public. Wasn't she worried about annoying someone. Fran said - I don't think people understand the use of the word public. To be in public is to be annoyed.
I love Fran.
In that answer she demonstrated that her smoking may be annoying and it's very likely she is also being annoyed by something. In public we are in each others shit. The beggar wasn't trying to annoy the monk. He was just being a beggar. He had his bowl in place in hopes of a contribution. The monk stubbed his toe as a result of his own lack of awareness. So much for enlightenment.
I haven't smoked for almost twenty years. But I loved smoking. I miss smoking. I never mind walking through smoke on the street. I get that for non smokers it might be annoying. I don't really feel like the smoke in a public place is terribly dangerous for a non smoker. You're past the smoke quickly, generally speaking. It's just unpleasant. Non smokers (particularly ex-smokers) are infuriated by people smoking in public.
To be in public is to be annoyed.
Covid is different.
In Oregon we are in a phase one opening. What ever that means. There hasn't been a lot of enforcement of the rules before this. A friend reposted a post from a woman who owns a shop here. She said not many of the people who were in her shop yesterday had on masks. Most of the shops down town are small spaces. I think there's supposed to be a limit to how many people are in a shop but how are owners enforcing that? I'm not sure what that woman did about the people and the masks but it's ridiculous that she has to even think about it.
As I look out my window I don't see many masks. If people are walking down Oak street right now they are probably alone. They are in an open space. Does it matter that they don't have a mask?
This morning I looked out the window and saw a couple walking down the hill and a woman walking up. No masks. The woman appeared to be trying to walk around them. She was almost off the curb. The people made no effort to move. I don't know if she was trying to maintain distance but even if there was no epidemic wouldn't it have been polite to yield a little space?
I have often said - I hate people. Every time I have said it it was because of a lack of consideration or just bad faith behavior. This morning watching these people - no masks - no distance - no awareness - I felt angry. I felt hate. I turned back to my book and tried to let it go.
There are probably a lot of those moments happening. All over the place. In some percentage of them a person gets sick. In some percentage of them a person dies.
The governor when announcing the phase one said she was asking for people to be considerate. Has she been in public? The mayor of Hood River said this opening was for locals and not for people from out side. Is there anyone carding people? I don't see them.These "careful" openings are going to cause more spread because people are not considerate. And they are not paying any kind of price. Yet.
I feel a need to qualify and talk about the stories I've heard about people being kind and generous. I just don't have the energy for that right now. I've looked out my window too many times today.
A year (or much more) from now if we have more available and better tests, better ways to treat people who get sick, lots of PPE for the doctors and nurses and janitors and maybe even a vaccine will this anger and hatred go away? I'm not sure.
Maybe I should have taken second hand smoke in public spaces more seriously. I've just felt that we need to be have some tolerance and patience in public space. We need to know that we might accidentally kick someone's bowl and we need to have a ready sense of humor. We need to understand that we all have semipermeable boundaries and we may be a bit damaged being in the world with other people.
Now. I'm not sure.
There's a difference between being annoyed and being threatened. 
At the moment I don't feel threatened. I'm in my nest with a bird's eye view. Oak street on a Saturday in May would usually be more crowded. I would glance out now and then and see people walking around. I wouldn't have many thoughts about them. Now I stew.

INDD

My friend Pattie wrote a Facebook post for INDD (International No Diet Day) in which she very kindly mentioned me as someone who was part of her process as she moved away from dieting. Pattie is one of those people. I feel like she's an old friend and a close friend but we've only actually been in "person" for a short time in SF once. I feel like my blogging friends are proof that you can have deep and significant relationships that are build through communication.
I forgot about INDD. Pattie's post sent me into a deep reverie about my fat life.
I stopped dieting to lose weight when I was 16 or 17. There were a lot of influences in that decision not the least of which was my (fat) maternal grandma who thought dieting was idiotic and never let anyone disparage my body. Also (and maybe just a bit more fun) was Frank Zappa. He sang: there will come a time when you won't even be ashamed if you are fat.
What?
Seriously?
Nah.
Really?
The choice to quit trying to lose weight was a choice to not be ashamed of my body. They were two roots that wound together in my identity.
That choice was made at a time when I was also a hippie chick. I was making granola and brown rice and baking whole wheat everything. And I was also wanting to have a restaurant. Because Alice (Alice's Restaurant) did. I had her cook book. I made manicotti  following her recipe, including the sauce. The kitchen was a mess.
I believed in real food. Real. Food.
My first jobs in restaurants weren't high end. I worked at a counter in a drug store. A chain (mostly) hamburger place. A small (French) cafe in a hotel. A diner. A cafe in an old house. I began to learn about cooking and what made a plate of food good. I continued to push my self to work in higher end places. I didn't really have the skills but I worked hard.
I have really strong feelings about what makes food good and what's crap. Domino's. Crap. The pub down the street where they make the dough and the toppings are all fresh. Good. I'd eat  Domino's. But not if I have a choice.
My ideas about food are my ideas. They aren't universal truths. After all these years and the evolution of all my ideas the thing I feel is close to a universal truth is that people should eat the food that makes them happy. David Chang, famous chef, cook books, television, awards. He likes Domino's.
Diet mentality is pernicious because it makes some foods the enemy. It's just not a useful way to think.
I was talking to a friend the other day about knowing that I can't digest food like I did when I was younger. If I eat a large quantity I suffer. For hours. The next day I ate too much pizza. It was fresh. It was there. It was good. I was full but I kept eating. And I was so miserable the rest of the night. In pain. When I was younger I could eat an entire large pizza and feel fine. At one I time I ate a lot of Domino's.
I have two thoughts. Seemingly opposite. (Happens all the time.)
How we eat is a diet. We are all on a diet.
Fat people can't really think about it like that.
How we eat and what ever shame we may feel about our bodies are wound together. Deeply rooted in our history.
So we have a no diet day. We ask for a break from food panic. We try to take a break from the constant yammering about the new best way to live happily ever after as soon as you lose weight. Fuck that shit.
I want to write about how deadly the bad ideas about fat bodies are. I wrote about it a few weeks ago. I'm still hearing about the Covid 15. I'm still read my friend's joke about how much they're going to weigh when they are able to go out side again. I'm still hearing health experts say that obesity is a factor in Covid. I'm in a constant state of hurt, frustration and rage. I feel like nothing I have ever said or written has made a difference. My feelings are too muddled to write clearly.
But then Pattie acknowledged me. I remembered that there are other warriors in the cause of owning our right to not feel shame. To eat food. To unwind those roots. I had a hard time taking it in. And then I smiled.

The Day

Some times in the evening I sort of forget about what's happening. Chris and Rachel are over at 7PM. I am usually in the front of the nest. I head back to my little library and read or watch (not news)TV. I'm in the world of another story. I am comfortable. Fed. Not terribly worried about money. I let the story suck me in and I sort of forget. It's the way I've spent evenings before the virus.
Even when I first wake up I'm not quite aware. I struggle to remember what day it is. I remember that I don't need to get ready to swim. I remember why. I listen to NPR while I'm eating breakfast. Do a quick check in with Facebook and Twitter. Listen to a Podcast while I do the yoga/bikewheel/shower/dress thing. Make coffee and settle in to read for awhile If I'm in a book I'm back to the shelter of the story. Yesterday I was catching up on New Yorkers. I read about a much loved door man now dead. He was coughing and a little tired when he went to the hospital, joking with everyone.
I never had a door man in NYC but there was a guy who sat in a room near the entrance of my building. You could pick up your mail there. I never got much. When I passed him in the evening I'd smile and nod. He was a surly guy. Very rarely I'd get a tiny nod.
One night I was being followed. I picked up my pace, blasted through the door and headed to the elevator. The guy following me came in behind me. My not-a-door-man came out of the little room and when I turned around in the elevator, just before the door closed, I saw him sending my stalker out the front door. He probably saved me from some kind of unpleasantness. The guys at the door are a big deal in New York.
There was a story about a doctor in an ER. It ended with him holding a cell phone so that his patient's family could say goodbye.
There was a story about a guy who is making a profit during this time of need.
It was not a restful out of touch reading time. My eyes tightened.
Around 11 or noon I turn on MSNBC and the computer. Some times I turn it all off quickly, or mute the TV. I write email and sometimes a blog post. (Hi!) I make note of the numbers, which seem to be higher and higher faster and faster. Cable news is insanely repetitive and these days it's like getting hit by a hammer over and over. My heart starts to ache. My brow knits. There are days when I just hear it and don't react. I wonder if those are days when I am deeply checked out, numb but don't quite know it.
My right knee has been hurting little more than usual. I think it's because I'm not swimming. All the active things I would do (water plants, clean, cook) aren't getting done. More reading. Some times a not-news TV show. Get a meal together. Watch Chris and Rachel. And then I'm back to my little room of books.
It's always been a thing. Balancing wanting to stay informed and needing to have some peace. It serves no one for me to be overwhelmed by the overwhelming situation in which we are all living. It is essential that know the stories of doormen and doctors and allow the tears that fall from tense eyes. I find the times when I forget what's happening troubling. I'm confused by my comfort. I'm grateful for it but it does confuse me. Red alert has been called and I'm drifting through the day with no organizing demands. 

Month of Borges

National Poetry Month ends today. My daily Borges post turned out to be really interesting and even fun. I never tried to find a line that connected to the pandemic but time and again the line that jumped out fit in some way. I took a line from a poem about a card game. One was from a poem about looking in the mirror. One was from a poem about a general, which I could hardly read (not interested in military stuff) but had a line about his people following him on the day we were hearing about all the protests to open different states. Uncanny. If a true Borges scholar read these fragments they might hate where I began and ended the fragment. There were times when I had a hard time keeping it short.
I got some likes and shares and comments. Thank you. As it turned out I stayed connected to the project because it was just so easy to find the fragment.
I was reading The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks. The title came form Borges. A sweet little synchronicity
My mood has been all over the place. Which, actually, isn't exactly new. It has been even more erratic than usual. Having this poem project has been something of a stabilizer. I keep trying to think about something profound to say about how poetry responds to all moments and the meaning become personal. But. Ya know. Profound things start to sound kinda dumb. 
Borges is back on the shelf, close enough to reach in an emergency.
This is the third year of me doing this.
And what a weird year.

Line cook.

I don't identify as a chef. I'm not suggesting that I'm not a good cook. I can cook. I'm just not a chef. I don't think like chef. I admire the way they think. I find it interesting. But I don't aspire to it.
In some ways I think like a chef. I think about cooking. I get excited when I learn about a new ingredient or method. I just don't care that much about newness. Or creative expression. I care about making food that is beautiful (eye) aromatic (nose) flavorful (mouth) and satisfying (heart). I never refer to food as my food. It's not my accomplishment. It's dinner.
A friend of mine wondered why anyone would make marshmallow when it was so easy to buy. That's not something you can explain. A chef asks the opposite question. Why buy it when you can figure out how to make it. My friend Debbie is a pastry chef in SF. She makes her own marshmallow. I don't even like marshmallow but I like her's.
I was watching Ugly Delicious the other night. In the middle of the second episode I had to turn it off. It was hurting me. Watching people so sincerely and lovingly trying to learn about a kind of food that they love so that they can share it was hurting me. I was having trouble breathing because it hurt so much.
Gabrielle Hamilton wrote a heart breaking column in the NYT about the future of her restaurant: Prune. I read her memoir and have the Prune cook book. I've watched The Mind of a Chef. I really like her. I would like to have eaten at Prune. I probably could never have because it was very small. Lots of tables scrunched together. I would not have fit. I still loved the idea of it and her. I heard that Chris Hayes and Ta-Nehisi Coates had a meal there. I would have loved to be sitting next to that conversation.
She needed all those tables and she needed them to be full just to meet her bills. Little charming places that serve great food have always been a struggle for the owners and the staff. It's hard work and the reward is not economic. Most of the places where I worked were small places owned by women. Three or four people in the kitchen. I tried to work where I could learn. I wanted to be part of something.
I identify specifically as a line cook. I have managed, a small diner in Colorado and a large tourist place in SF. I feel like I became the manager because I was the one who would pick up the phone when it rang. Seriously. I scheduled and ordered and made sure equipment didn't break and things got done. But I loved being on the line. I loved those moments when the wheel is full of tickets and you have to figure out how you're going to get it all cooked. Quickly. It never seems possible and you do it day after day. I never made great money. I ruined my knees. I don't know why I chose such a rough job. I'm not even sure you do choose that job. When so many culinary schools opened and chefs became famous and cooking shows filled the screen being a cook changed. I worked with so many young people who expected to become a chef. A famous chef with their own place and their own food. Few of them were very good at cleaning up. Most of them went from one restaurant to another. 
I guess I did too. And I had other aspirations. (rock and roll) But I was a line cook.
Across from me on Oak Street is an Italian restaurant run by a family. They have one window rigged as a take out spot. They do family dinner specials, which they advertise on social media. Up the street is a deli. They always do rotisserie chicken. They have soups and salads and specials. They deliver now. I ordered soup, salads and chicken one day, which they brought to the patio below me. The sushi place around the corner has started doing these amazing pork buns on Saturday night. The Chinese restaurant where my friend Mandy worked closed for a few weeks but will reopen this weekend. Only carry out. There's pizza all over the place.
I admire all these places. I try to order from them a few times a week. I know how hard they are working and I wonder if they're making enough money to keep going.
Debbie wonders if she'll ever work again. Her work ethic and skill are both admirable but she's older. These days, not working, she has less joint pain. She should probably not do that kind of work any more. But she's been doing it since high school. It's all she's ever done. The place she was working at is a small neighborhood place with great food.  I don't know how all those charming little restaurants are going to come back. Is the future going to be full of chain restaurants? Fast food?
Last night I watched Cooked, the Netflix/Michael Pollan show. I forget that I had already watched it. It opens with aboriginal people setting little bush fires. Women catching a large lizard looking thing. Skinning it and cooking it. Something about those images calmed me.
Things will change. Food Trucks are already a way to have restaurant and not the expense of brick an mortar. Maybe there will be more of them. There are always ways and people who want to  ...  cook.
Or.
At least.
That's what I hope. 

Hate

I lived through two terms of George W Bush. My obsessive news consumption began then. I found that if I was talking to someone who had the same view as I did I could babble and rant. I could be sloppy. We finished each other's sentences. But if I was talking with someone with a different view I wanted to be clear and informed. All the television, radio, Internet, Sunday New York Times I consumed were an attempt to learn and gain perspective.
In the Bay Area there weren't many people who didn't have the same view. We vented. We made fun of his inability to articulate. I hated him.
That hatred pales in comparison to what I have felt for the last three years.
I don't like hating. It is an emotion I feel a need to push away from. There are people who have hurt me. I don't feel any compunction about saying I hate them. It just isn't very deep. It doesn't have roots. It's like the first flame from a match. All big and sparking and then smaller, softer and ... gone.
There is hate that I can tap into from old and deep injury but I neither try to go there nor avoid it. It comes up. I feel it. I move on.
I understand that hate is human.
I don't like it.
I have made (and continue to make) every effort not to hear or see the president. I do hear and see him. I watch much less news but I do watch some. I listen to some. I listen to Podcasts. Facebook. Twitter. He's there. The smallest amount of him ignites such hatred in me. I don't want him to have that much of me.
These days hate feels like it lives just under my skin. I do not like it. I am safe in my lovely little nest with a bunch of books and food and streams of art and music and so much. And I see people on Oak street. No masks. Not looking like they're related. I feel judgy. Suspicious.
I don't really know them. I don't really think they need a mask on a street where there are no others. Do I?
We have neighbors for whom their condo is a second home. We don't see them often. These days they're here on the weekend. Hood River has asked people to stay away but I guess they feel it doesn't mean them. I have never had any feelings about these people. Now. I hate them. I feel worried about being in the elevator with them. I wear a mask to take out the trash.
I.
Don't.
Want.
These.
Feelings.
There's a story about a monk who meditated in the mountains for years. He felt so peaceful. He assumed he had attained enlightenment. As he walked into a village he stubbed his toes on a beggar's bowl. He was filled with rage and began to kick the beggar. I've always liked that story. I feel like we are reactive. We can maybe change or mediate how we react but I'm not sure how much. Fear and uncertainty are prickly. We become agitated for no obvious reason.
I keep thinking back on the week before things started shutting down. My friend and I were getting ready to get in the pool. The class before us is mostly older women as well. We know most of them. We all laugh and tease. One of them was practicing elbow bumping. My friend walked up to her and pulled her into a hug. We all laughed. We weren't going to get carried away with fear. We were much too grounded for that. We had common sense. And. You know. We live in a very small city in a gorge. There were a few cases in Portland, which felt really far away then.
Oregon has done a great job of keeping things under control. Hood River has four cases. All were mild. None needed hospitalization.
I'm afraid of my mail.
I hate this.

And Then the Jokes.

Years ago (hard to remember how many) I went to NC to visit the mommie usually at the end of the year. One year she asked a friend to drive her to the airport to pick me up. She was always worried about driving. Later the friend told her that she didn't think much of me when she first saw me because ... I was so fat. After the long drive home she decided I was so well spoken and smart. The mommie thought this was so great. I had overcome the bad impression made by the size of my ass. I was furious. I doubt the experience with me changed that woman's reaction to fat people. She thought I was an anomaly.
I keep seeing jokes about the need to wear a mask at home so you don't eat too much. How hard it's going to be to get out of the sweat pants when this is over. One person, who I don't know well but have always had a good feeling about dropped one of those. Two people who I love and know love me have yammered about how much weight they're going to gain. One posted a really offensive video. I always wonder if they would say those things if I was standing there. And if so why?
I mean they're not talking about me, right? It's just a good natured little joke. Because ... gaining weight, being fat is ... always ... funny?
Really?
Why?
These are people who I have known for years. And, apparently, I have had no impact on. I am confident in their love. After all. I am so well spoken and smart. But they do not understand why making a fat joke is not OK. Not even a little OK.
 I am supposed to have a good spirit in the face of this bullshit. I am supposed to understand. I am supposed to know what people mean.
What do they mean?
The other morning there was a public health (cough) expert on NPR talking about why fat people are more at risk for the virus. She had one of those sing song voices that hurt my teeth and I couldn't hold onto what she went on to say. It really made no sense. Then she went onto talk about why people of color were more at risk and I turned it off.
People of color are at risk because of decades of White supremacy. Full stop. That cannot be soft peddled or understood or accepted.
You can't hurt me if you make a fat joke. You can't shame me. I know the story of my body and I am not ashamed. You can hurt me when I realize that you do not understand that you contribute to negative ideas about being fat. And the tacit acceptance of those ideas creates bias. Cultural bias.
Understand this. My body is considered diseased before I cough. My body is considered diseased before I have a fever.
None of the people who made the jokes are fat. I've never known them to be fat. I doubt they can get particularly fat. Although, clearly, I have no sense of what being fat actually looks like. I'm not that smart.