What is Necessary?

It’s just a dream

In the dream, I’m running from my house—not my house, but a familiar house which is on fire, and I’m grabbing only what is necessary. I’m grabbing things in a mad rush. I stop running, I freeze, paralyzed. What do I take, what is it I can’t live without, and what do I really need? I have to decide now.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some version of this dream many times. Dreams in which I can’t reach my daughter who is being pulled away from me, or we’re separated at a crowded railway station. A dream where I must make an urgent decision, but my choices are unclear. These dreams seem to be my most vivid and jarring. I wake from them breathless, my heart pounding. Now it’s not a dream. I stay home, away from people, but out there the world is on fire.

Safe at home

Being inside I am able to pretend things are normal-ish. Sure, even after a month of this I haven’t settled into a routine, but I am home. My surroundings haven’t changed, my stuff is here, as is my daughter and my cats. We are all healthy. From my seat at the kitchen counter, the world looks relatively unchanged. I get messages from everywhere telling me to stay home and stay safe, and I comply.

Outside, the zombie apocalypse that my daughter and her friends prepared for has arrived. All over the place, people are getting sick and dying in terrifying numbers. In the squares, people are protesting the very actions that are keeping us safe. It’s happening out there, while my neighborhood blooms with the promise of spring. From the safety of my house, I am a stupefied spectator.

What is necessary?

I look around and redefine what is necessary for me now, and what will I do after this is over? I have the luxury of time to ponder these questions, and to do so with another human being in hugging distance, adequate unemployment benefits, a stocked pantry, and a roof over my head. The initial panic I felt when I was furloughed liberated from work has dissipated, but other fears still nag at me.

My daughter desperately wants to return to school, to the life she has built there. She misses her friends, her freedom, the closeness of a community and even the structure of her class schedule. I want her to return, to complete the process she started over a year ago of growing up and separating from me. At the same time, I want to keep her close and at home with me. As long as I am keeping watch over her I can protect her is possibly the most profound lie parents tell ourselves.

In contrast to my daughter, I am not especially eager to return to school/work. I would like to be making better use of my free time, but I’m grateful to have it. I am also grateful to have a job to return to at some point. It turns out that writing is necessary, as is enough sleep, staying in touch with friends and family, and reading. But so is money. When I’m called, I must return to work.

What’s next?

As we start to figure out what comes next and I try to envision what that means on a micro and macro level all I have is questions. Will colleges resume classes in the fall? And if they don’t, will I remain unemployed? Will social distancing remain in place indefinitely? When will there be either a vaccine to protect us or a palliative remedy to mitigate symptoms of a potentially lethal illness? What does ‘return to normal‘ even mean?

Last night I had another of those jarring dreams; a ‘pandemic dream’. I was separated from my physical body which lay somewhere alone and unnoticed, bleeding to death. My spirit was trying desperately to return to my corporeal self, as well as get anyone’s attention to save me and stop the bleeding. I woke suddenly wondering ‘how does this end’ and I wasn’t sure if I meant my dream or the world burning out there.