tears in the rain
I woke up at 4 a.m. to a hiss of raindrops in the alley outside my window. Rainfall is unusual enough in Los Angeles that it usually disturbs my sleep when it comes at night. And, like a distant gunshot or the wail of a cat, it unsettles me until I can shake off my dreams enough to make sense of the sound.
The Stallion tells a story about the first time he took his young daughter back east to Buffalo to visit her extended family. She was barely putting sentences together, but she was profound. As they stepped outside together one morning, the child — whose California life experience had shown her only clear blue skies — froze, deeply concerned, and looked up at a gathering storm overhead. “Why is the sky broken, daddy?” she asked.
I’ve heard there’s a saying in prison that the days creep by but the months go down fast. It has been a month since this virus edged into my awareness and I barely recognize what my life looked like back then. I spent my last weekend pre-quarantine in Palm Springs with dozens of other women celebrating International Women’s Day with a racetrack takeover. The epicenter of the virus was overseas, and that felt very far away.
Today, the epicenter has shifted to the United States and the whole marble of the planet is in turmoil. This weekend, Vice Admiral Jerome Adams, the U.S. surgeon general, likened the crisis to the event that brought America into the Second World War. “This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment,” he told Fox News. “Only it’s not going to be localized.”
In New York, the dead are being loaded onto freezer trucks because morgues are at capacity. The mayor asked for a nationwide draft of medical personnel. Hospitals are modifying CPAP machines because there aren’t enough ventilators for the sick, and healthcare workers don’t have enough masks to keep themselves safe. Meanwhile, in the UK, the Queen delivered a rare address to the nation as the Prime Minister was admitted hospital, then transferred Monday to intensive care. Japan is preparing to declare a state of emergency in Tokyo as cases multiply. India, a country of 1.3 billion people, went on lockdown with just hours of notice, prompting migrant workers to surge desperately for their home villages.
In Los Angeles, I’m hearing of friends laid off from their jobs, and freelancers unsure how they’re going to pay this month’s rent. The city’s public health department Director Barbara Ferrer today urged residents to avoid leaving their homes this week even to shop for groceries. The CDC is advising everybody to wear masks.
Rain is significant in Los Angeles. It means something. It is pensive and sorrowful. The sky is broken today, and I’m feeling every bit of the rain.