We all begin the year with hope and high expectations. January is a month of promise, the time when we forget the past and resolve to look forward. It was certainly that way for me, I and my family had had such an extraordinarily painful 2019 with the loss of my father, and it felt as if we were slowly putting things back together. I had fought with my brother, so that was not a positive, but it seems that we were on the mend after we hugged on Thanksgiving. We were ready to forgive, and my brother and sister-in-law and a few other relatives came to spend the evening with us as we got ready to welcome 2020. My brother even wished me well. There was no way to know how bad things would get again.
There were these rumblings of a disease that was ravaging Wuhan, China. They picked up in early 2020, and we didn't quite know what to make of it. On the other front, things got worse with my brother again. Superbowl Sunday was awful, he came (alone) to the house ready to fight, and within five minutes was yelling at my sister's husband, and causing a tremendous ruckus. My mom had to ask him to leave, angry and with tears in her eyes. He left and sent us all a mocking text message saying he was deleting all our phone numbers. He felt he had been snubbed, and that we really didn't want him there, so that was why he came with an urge to fight.
It was getting worse and worse with the news overseas. I started noticing Asian students wearing facemasks, and I thought they were taking it too far. I always associated facemasks with people who had just had an operation and had a compromised immune system, but there were groups of Asians, and they couldn't all have the same problem. They were taking measures that they saw that the people in China were taking, and we were also worried because of the perception of the growing severity. Wuhan had been locked down, and while the death toll didn't seem high (and we don't know what the truth will be, because the Chinese authorities will suppress these totals), it was worrying. We pondered what kind of announcements we would have to make to our students, to ask them to seek treatment if they had any symptoms. By then, early February, a few Asian Lunar New Year events in the southland had been cancelled. The reports were that the vendors backed out because they didn't feel it was safe to participate in events with big turnouts. There went the Alhambra Lunar New Year festival that I looked forward to year after year, but we rationalized. Maybe it was better safe than sorry, but we were also blinded by hubris. We might have a malevolent, ignorant, lazy and racist president, but surely America was stronger than that, and we had to have protocols that would protect us. We were supposed to be the technological leaders, we would be able to survive the virus if it hit our shores.
March started out in a dreary way. We had my mom's birthday, and of course, my brother and I fought when he came to drop off a give. It was terrible, and my mom was in pain. It was partly my fault, but I couldn't handle his attitude. I was withdrawing though, by then. I determined to just take shelter and retreat whenever my brother came. Hopefully we would get back to the spirit of reconciliation we had seemingly had in late 2019.
Well, worse came to worse, and reports out of Europe were alarming. Italy and Spain were having major outbreaks of the virus, and they were in lockdown. In mid March we did the same, and the news came that we should shelter in place. That felt like Armaggedon, like the horsemen of the Apocalypse were riding free on American soil. It was unimaginable and dreamlike. We were told at school that we would be suspending live, in-person classes, and we should start making plans for virtual classes. We all hunkered down, and the order left many people stranded, not least of which was my aunt Socorro, who we knew wanted to spend more time at our house, and who was so sick, but who we couldn't risk inviting back because we were supposed to avoid contact with other households. Who knew how contagious the virus could be? Maybe it was present even in the surfaces we touched, and some were disinfecting the soles of their shoes when they stepped out of their houses. We were wiping our groceries with clothes drenched in soap, and we were now forced to wear masks. I was also wearing a scarf, and I was the one going to the store to make purchases, because one thing was certain, we couldn't risk my mom catching the infection. And the news became terrible, especially out of New York, with about a thousand people dying a day. It was still unbelievable.
So we entered the period of crisis that came with the knowledge that we were in the year of the pandemic, the year of Covid-19. It was this insidious enemy, hiding in the air, on surfaces, in enclosed spaces, ready to attack our lungs and suffocate us slowly. It was almost biblical in a way, and I say this with reserve, because I am not religious, and I furthermore don't respect institutionalized religion, especially Christianity, not after they way they supported with such abandon a malevolent, lying, ignorant and incompetent Trump. They made so many excuses from it, but somehow, they portrayed themselves as following a religion of love. And, they professed not to see the contradictions. Let Jesus sort it out, as long as they have a champion to smite liberals.
Covid was terrifying, and it was smiting everyone. The early spring was terrifying, and suddenly, the government woke up to the fact that they had to do something, not just follow along with Trump in saying this would somehow disappear. They passed a stimulus bill and all working (and even some retired people such as my mom) received $1,200 stimulus checks, and they passed extended unemployment benefits, and they passed legislation that incorporated eviction moratoriums. The economy tanked, and we knew we were in trouble, and were hoping for some change.
Summer came, and the death toll fell, and suddenly we were all talking about the election. That was another disaster in the making, given all the reprehensible moves being made by the president and his collaborators to repress turnout. There was talk even about eliminating the ability to vote by mail. Of course, if it was eliminated, then people would not want to show up in person to voting stations, and so, voilá, repression of the vote. Also, Trump attacked the post office, and we needed to post office to be able to process those mail-in votes. That and just the sheer malevolence of an ignorant, shameless, lying president who so weakened the moral authority of the office that it will involve a major effort by president-elect Biden to rehabilitate it. The world shook its collective head, as they had been doing so since Trump came to office. He was a nightmare only Fox News could have imagined and imposed on us. They and the Russians, of course.
My household is a household divided. I am still not reconciled with my brother, who was emitting threat after threat against me and my sister during this time. He wanted us evicted, and he was yelling at my mom, and he wouldn't stop his violent tirades. And, Trump was engaged in his own regular tirades, always with his malevolent, Reich-like gatherings, where he would malign, denounce and demonize others, while also blustering about his own infallibility. And of course, he had been impeached earlier this year, but of course, a House impeachment would have to be supported by a super-majority in the Senate in order to remove him, and the Senate, with his toadies (McConnell and Lindsay Graham and so many other Republicans) would never allow that. So we had an incomplete impeachment, but he was impeached, and it all revolved around his soliciting help from other governments (the Ukraine) to dig up "dirt" on Biden.
And the virus was still boiling under the surface, although it seemed as if we were making progress. Deaths totals were not what we had seen in early spring in New York, and we were congratulating ourselves in California for being enlightened, while at the same time, the anti-maskers were angrily refusing to comply with health statutes. And should I mention that Black Lives Matter protest after the killing of George Floyd in a brutal way by police officers? We were a household divided and a nation divided, and no one could bring us together, certainly not the miscreant-in-chief who could not recognize the injustice of racial profiling and who tweeted that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts", an invitation to the killing of protestors that would then be carried out by the arrival of white supremacists to Black Lives Matter protests with an excuse (and overwhelming desire) to kill minorities.
Things were spiraling downwards, and we began the virtual semester, and it felt so depressing, like we were all incarcerated. I started posting to this blog in August because it was so bad, and I was resolved to at least go out to open spaces, to gardens, to the mountains, to empty roads, and take photos. I needed to do something, and I did, I took tons of photos with my cameras, almost all of them with film, not digital. My Nikon D500 sat in my photo backpack, untouched. I didn't want to use digital photography, I wanted a craftsman's approach, I wanted to take photos with my 4x5 camera and develop them (if they were black and white), and I needed a sense of mission. I felt to powerless otherwise.
The sun was with us, bathing us in heat, and the indexes for exposure to Covid decreased. We felt we were on the right path, although not out of danger yet. The anti-maskers and the white radicals were feeding off Trumps hate and attacking us, and there was video of plenty of confrontations. The white radicals say they are defending liberty, but they see no commitment to helping communities, only themselves. We became lax, unfortunately, and the virus was just waiting to come roaring back.
And roaring back it did. But first, the election in November. It was gut-wrenching, although something inside me told me that we would win. It wasn't like the election in 2016 when my inner-voice told me to expect the worst, it was a sense that the country couldn't possibly elect the incompetent buffoon again. He had divided us like no others, and we all knew he would not concede. He still has not conceded as I write this on Dec. 31st, and he has allies in the Senate, specifically, a senator from Missouri, but no doubt others as well, who will contest the electoral vote count. But it won't succeed, he lost the election and he knows it. We all know it.
So here we are in December, and we end it on a low note, both on a personal level but also from the perspective not only of the community but of the nation. I grieve for my tía Socorro, she died on December 26th, supposedly of tuberculosis, but we can't be sure. It is so depressing for me, and I wake up at night and I feel I will cry. I need to turn on the reading lamp to have some illumination, because I am afraid of the dark, and I think, with her loss, my dad has really gone. She remembered when my dad had been born, she had known all the people of the preceding generation, she had so many memories and stories about their lives and history, and I was hoping to spend time with her and record her, but it was not to be. She took all that personal history with her, and we lost a loving family member who helped me to cope with the loss of my father in 2019, even as she entered a period of extreme illness. She is due to be cremated any day now. And, as a state, we are losing a person every ten minutes in California, and the death toll is skyrocketing as a whole. (The death toll in Texas is higher, which makes me wonder why that doesn't receive more press coverage.) And, we are waiting, waiting, waiting for the vaccines to be distributed. They have approved two, the Pfizer-Biogen and the Moderna vaccines, but they are way behind schedule. And the anti-maskers are building a vast reservoir of hate to direct against Biden. We can see and feel it.
This is the last day of an awful year. There were good things, too. I think I had more success as a teacher. I think I helped to protect my family. I think we made repairs to the house that were needed, such as removing asbestos from the attic. I think we have calmed mom now, even though she is upset at my tía's death, and at the struggles with Covid of my niece Angelica, who is suffering, and the struggles of my cousins in Mexico. We have lost family members, but we made it through, limping but still, hopefully, breathing. But it was difficult, and it will remain difficult tomorrow, because things do not change abruptly from one hour to the next (except for sudden tragedy, but I beg to be protected from that). My dad will always be missed, and now, my aunt, the last remainder of his childhood family, his one and only sister who he idolized. And we struggle to continue.
Outside, we hear an occasional firecracker. There will be no Rose Parade tomorrow, so I am sleeping in. The gunshots will begin at 11:50 p.m., they always do on New Year's Eve, because Mexicans bring their customs from the old country and they won't change them here. But we have survived, and I pray we continue to survive.
I won't write any clichés about next year being better. All I will say is thank you, we survived. I can't rail against anybody because of our misfortunes, because we have been fortunate too. Hopefully the story will continue. (A cliché). I'm going to bed now. It is 10:08 p.m. and I am feeling sad. There is no raucous music being played by any neighbors, and I give thanks for that. It was a cold day today, with wind, but it was also a bright day. Time to rest.
