This is a season of supposed to and would have. I was supposed to be in Japan right now. I would have been planning to visit my family in July or August. I was supposed to give several talks–in California, at a conference, in Denver.

Reading pandemic

We never live in unprecedented times, though. This is the tragicomedy of being a historian. Just as the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the insufficiency of the U.S. response became clear, I started reading The Murmur of Bees. The book unfolds in part against the backdrop of the 1918 flu pandemic. Realizing the extent of the danger, Francisco Morales retreats with his family and the workers who run his home and farm to the family’s older, less modern house. There they wait out the pandemic.

This is a story of death and magic and orange blossoms. While the family works to weather quarantine, Francisco’s wife Beatriz sews and sews and sews. In my basement, I sew, too. I have sewn, to date, more than 200 cloth masks, 50 sent to a local clinic, 50 to incarcerated people, more to community members, friends, family members. I have sewn a dozen scrunchies, as many or more headbands, three quilt tops. With a meter of cotton I bought in Japan, I sewed a dress for my daughter. When the buttonholer wouldn’t play nice on my machine, I hand stitched 6 careful button holes. I have time for that now.

Magic words

The sewing machine’s rhythm is a comfort. ch ch ch ch. Stop. Pivot. ch ch ch ch ch ch ch. Backstitch. whu whu whu. I stitch. Make mistakes. Rip them out. Stitch again. I think about my grandmother, sewing on the machine that is mine now. And, I think about Beatriz Morales, a fictional person sewing through a real pandemic. I feel fictional too these days.

Here and there, I do a bit of writing: a preface, a call for papers, this post. But, mostly, I sew, and I wait. Yesterday, I read that those of us taking this seriously are all living in an endless present tense. It’s too hard to plan, because there are too many unknowns. I don’t know if I’ll teach online or in person this fall, when I’ll be able to resume my research, or what these disruptions mean for me personally or professionally. The past feels bizarre and strange. I jokingly call it “the before times,” but I’m not joking anymore.

Time feels viscous. August is a thousand years away. Mostly, I grieve what this season should have been. I wait and see, and for now, final grades submitted, most deadlines met or suspended, that means I sew, and I read, and try to remember what day it is. Someday there will be after times.