At first, all was well…er, normal. January and February, my work was ramping up. There was my 75 minute commute to LA twice a week for creative meetings, my daughter’s Color Guard competitions, Girl Scout meetings, Football Booster meetings, veterinary appointments for the dogs and cats, driving 15 year olds to and from school and to and from friends’ houses, lunches with my friends on the days I worked from home. There was a family calendar so full, we had to scribble in the margins and add sticky notes. I directed a play in a small theatre, to good reviews and great response. One of my actors had a “real job” in risk management, and she was concerned about this virus that was shutting down China, but I wasn’t worried. We were busy and there was so much to do.
Stay at Home – Virtual Vision
And then, in the middle of March, things started to change. I started working from home full time. Suddenly, I had three hours back, two days a week! I bought new books – one electronic, one paper – and I finished them. My dogs were ecstatic to have me home all the time. I washed my hands a lot, took Airborne every day, and insisted that my kids do the same. My colleagues asked if I was worried about sending my teens to school and I shrugged off – nah, they’re healthy and hearty and besides, somebody really has to cough on you to get it. And then… they shut down the school.
Someone asked me if I thought Disneyland would shut down – the bright beacon of hope and happiness, right here in Southern California. Nah, I shrugged again. Disneyland had had anthrax scares, visitors with measles and Legionnaires’ Disease, and a rigorous, dedicated custodial crew. Midway through the month, though, my wife was told not to come to work after a certain date, because her place of employment – Disneyland – would not be open the following week. The Disneyland Resort had not kept the gates closed since September 11, 2001. The Disneyland Resort is one of the largest employers in Orange County, and thousands of cast members were suddenly being asked to work from home. It’s really hard to operate an attraction, perform in a show, or sell Disney churros from home, so most of those cast members went home saying “see ya real soon.” A very few stayed on to keep things maintained and to plan for reopening.
A former cast member of mine, who now worked for the LAPD, tested positive for the virus and recorded her journey on social media. There was no more shrugging it off, this was real, but we were still busy. Wash your hands, stay home, masks optional.
I’d worked from home for the better part of a year, only going up to the LA office twice or three times a week. Now all of a sudden, in the first quarter of 2020, my twin teenagers were doing their sophomore year from the house, using their phones, one iPad, and the shared desktop computer. I learned things about the Bolsheviks that I’d never heard before. The Girl Scout meetings went virtual, and the attendance was actually higher than when we met in person. The Color Guard competitions were devastatingly cancelled. My awesome wife started knocking through the “Honey Do” list – you know, those little repairs around the house you never have time for. She even hung pictures on newly painted walls. I sat through five hours of video meetings every day, shushing the dogs and the kids and the hammering. We created an office upstairs for me. We played card games online with friends around the country, we checked in with dear ones in New York, Seattle, and DC. As restaurants closed, we cooked dinner and played board games with the kids. We watched Broadway shows and concerts online, visited museums across the world. And then my meetings stopped.
Furlough – Lack of Vision
Shortly afterward, the work stopped. My work stopped, that is. With no reopening date in sight, The Walt Disney Company furloughed thousands of employees, across the country. My meetings, full of brilliant, creative people and incredible vision, would go on without me. I felt like I was going on maternity leave. Truly! I was handing over my parts of the projects for others to carry forward while I was “away.” Actually – a story for another day – this was easier than awhen I went on maternity leave, because I have full confidence the projects are well supported, and that I’ll be able to pick up where I left off, in the near future.
I pretended the furlough was only two weeks. I enjoyed a full “staycation” at my house during that time, sleeping in, reading, watching movies and drinking in the middle of the day. The nearby riverbed and local regional park allowed me some bird-watching and forest-bathing while I walked, listened to TED talks and personal stories. My wife took a break from repairs and switched to creative endeavors, like building a set of hanging shelves for the backyard. The family calendar was empty. [See my article “List-less” on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/list-less-wendy-ruth/] Orange County had managed to “flatten the curve” so there wasn’t tremendous fear in our neighborhood, just inconvenience, like waiting in line to go into the grocery store and not finding what you needed. A friend reached out to connect and commiserate about menopause, and I welcomed the conversation and distraction. Without a full family schedule and the entire Internet at my disposal, I read and researched so many things. I began to look into alternate career paths, just in case the theatrical and theme park industries that I had been doing all of my life didn’t come back the way we expected. My nighttime dreams stayed vividly in my mind well into the morning, so I started to write them down. I felt a fog clearing.
No Justice, No Peace – Clearer Vision
The world began to see disturbing videos of Black men being killed before our eyes. Two months after the incident, the video of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder in Georgia was seen across social media and then the news. Two months after the incident, because of public pressure, arrests were made. On May 25th, viewers saw a police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, because bystanders filmed the action while begging the officer to stop. People took to the streets in protest. They were not interested in staying Safer at Home, not when it was so clear that COVID-19 wasn’t the only real danger.
The week before George Floyd’s murder, people gathered (against CDC recommendation) to protest that their rights were being violated. They shouldn’t be forced to stay home, they should be allowed to eat in restaurants and get their hair cut, they wanted people to go back to work to serve them, as was their American right. They were tired of being oppressed, they said. Overwhelmingly, the people at those rallies were carrying American flags, wearing red, white, and blue, shouting at police. Overwhelmingly, they were white. There were no reports of police pushing, arresting, or tear gassing any of these protestors.
I took my teenagers to a small protest in our neighborhood. There was too much risk, between the virus (still with us!) and the rubber bullets and the opportunistic looting and burning to take my kids to downtown LA. Plus, I wanted to stand with the people who lived near us, to show our neighbors that we as a community were united in this fight against real oppression. A different kind of fog was lifting, even in Orange County. My daughter groans about my “lectures,” but my son and my daughter both chose to watch the movie Selma with me one night. I talk to my Polish/Irish son about privilege. As I look at the kids’ yearbooks, I am reminded that their high school is very diverse. Slurs and microaggressions are laughed off as “jokes,” my son says, in his casual white-boy nonchalance. He’s treated to one of my “lectures” about putting himself into another person’s shoes, and reminded that it’s up to him to be aware and to stop those actions. We all have work to do.
Division, Revision, Decision
As summer arrives and school ends, protests continue, restaurants and stores open, and COVID-19 cases rise. The officers charged with George Floyd’s murder await trial. Voters in Georgia wait over five hours for the ability to cast their vote. Kids in Orange County begin (or continue to) hang out at their friends’ houses. People can get haircuts but they shouldn’t sit on the beach. There will be no Pride parades, and the government is turning back the clock on LGBTQIA+ rights. I was working in downtown Los Angeles, less than a mile from City Hall, when the verdict was read in the Rodney King case. By the time I left work, the palm trees in the middle of the freeway had been set on fire and the crowd near City Hall was furious and violent. I’m hoping the Missouri verdicts will come down on the right side of law and of humanity, but a quick scroll of social media still makes me worry. Oh, and there’s an announcement that the Disneyland Resort is planning some dates for reopening.
I’m flipping through my son’s unsigned high school yearbook and noticing that there’s absolutely no mention of the fact that the last three months of the year were not spent on campus. There are sunny and weirdly nostalgic articles about cheering for school teams (all athletics were cancelled mid-March, and the football team celebrated two whole wins this year), and the spring school musical (which was also cancelled). I have no doubt that my kids won’t forget the strangeness of the end of their sophomore year, but it’s clear the yearbook won’t help them remember it. The events of this year will still make an impact on them – we’re not done yet. And I wonder how clear this 2020 vision will be.
Me, I started a blog. This is how I will remember what happened in 2020.
As my hormones rage and wane, as I wait to be called back to work – or not, as the planets turn retrograde and the world turns upside down, I have a place to process. I hope you’ll join me.
