Pandemic

And suddenly, the world has turned upside down.

The waves of the present situation began lapping at the shores in late February / early March. We started to think about physical contact and viral spreading at the yoga studio; over time we promoted hand washing and sanitizing, worked to launder / clean props more regularly, went to a rental plan (with all props washed between use), forbid teachers to touch students, reduced room heat....

We kept it going as long as we could, but on March 13th, West Hartford Yoga closed it's doors for in-studio operation.

It did not take me long to shift into crisis mode. After a weekend of stunned silence and regrouping we started to live stream yoga classes the following Monday, and have continued to stream 1, sometimes 2 classes per day via Facebook ever since. We archived the classes on Facebook as well as YouTube - pulling all but the most recent back on June 1, reserved for Supporting and Sustaining Members, vital revenue to help the studio ride through this crisis.

Coincident with that, we started to hold a limited schedule of live interactive classes using the Zoom platform. Numbers have been limited (15 is a big class) but these are folks paying for yoga, and at this time and place, that's a big deal. We're also contemplating opening up (June 17th we're permitted with fairly stringent requirements for social distancing, although we're not planning to open until later). We're also looking into outdoor classes this summer.

But Jude (you say) what about you personally?

We'll, truth be told, I was kinda of built for pandemic. I live alone, and I'm used to spending a lot of time alone. From a social perspective, I barely notice the change. If anything, being so active up at the studio has meant MORE social interaction (albeit socially distanced) than pre-pandemic. And so many of the things that have been cancelled are things I've been somewhat burned out on anyway - teaching yoga, making music, Falcon Ridge. All in all it's been a nice break.

A more cynical perspective - it's my personal hell. Now everyone is living in it. Misery loves company.

And in a lot of ways, I'm thriving. Keeping the yoga studio alive has become my mission, playing to my strengths (tech, A/V geekery, organization, willingness to do stupidly daunting tasks) and keeping me engaged.

• Emptied out a 10'x10' Storage Locker the studio filled up during the move from Jansen Court to Brook Street (nearly a decade ago)
• Cleaned out the storage shed behind the building which had become the place to put things instead of actually dealing with them
• Sorted through 60 boxes full of papers, records, ephemera, resulting in 22 full banker's boxes for the mobile shredder. 
• Free-cycled a ton of stuff - fans, fixtures, mannequins, etc.
• Set up a special cart (complete with flat screen video) to enable zoom yoga classes
• Set up a completely new product line (virtual / online classes)

Financially, not doing too badly either. While my checkered past with the IRS precludes me from any sort of stimulus and I've not bothered to file for unemployment* (figuring that would open some cans of worms best left unopened), the studio applied for and received a Payroll Protection Plan load / grant so I've gotten paid through this mess. I was sitting on a pile of cash from Tom's estate when all this started, and the last check came through a few weeks back. And while my engineering work hit the skids, the last month pre-pandemic was pretty solid and things are starting to revive there as well. And, let's face it, I live pretty close to the bone.

Black Lives Matter

Allow me a little bit of navel gazing as the winds of change and protest swirl around this country, triggered by the murder (the correct term, I assure you) of Mr. Floyd George by Minneapolis police officers, and fueled by decades of police violence and abuse against persons of color, specific acts of racism and exclusion, and an overall culture / climate of racism in which we all play a part.

First, most assuredly, Black Lives Matter. No IFs, ANDs, or BUTs. No "All Lives Matter" bullshit. I do not have any qualms about that.

Where I struggle is in the where and how that I, living intersectionally as both a privileged white person and as a less privileged trans person, should step into this particular struggle. So much of that I am seeing online and in person right now feels a little like jumping on the bandwagon. White people do so like to talk, do so like to take up space, do so like to suck all the oxygen from the room. And I'm seeing a lot of space being taken up by white people this week as they try to outdo themselves personally, individually, through organizations and businesses, to demonstrate just how much Black Lives Matter.

Relationship Status: It's Complicated
  
While I'm not particularly christian these days, the christian texts do contain wisdom, and I am reminded of this, courtesy of Matthew 23:

² The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law are experts in the Law of Moses. ³ So obey everything they teach you, but don’t do as they do. After all, they say one thing and do something else.
⁴ They pile heavy burdens on people’s shoulders and won’t lift a finger to help. ⁵ Everything they do is just to show off in front of others. They even make a big show of wearing Scripture verses on their foreheads and arms, and they wear big tassels^[a] for everyone to see. ⁶ They love the best seats at banquets and the front seats in the meeting places. ⁷ And when they are in the market, they like to have people greet them as their teachers.

And well, the outpouring of Black Lives Matter in the media right now feels a little like an obligation, a desire to get something out there for the optics of it all. There's a piece circulating about how Blackout Tuesday and use of the Black Lives Matter hashtag (which I am purposely not using here) effectively "blacked out" the actual movement and silenced POC for a few days, as (mostly) white people took over the BLM hashtags and once more sucked all the air out of the room.

So yeah, that kind of stuff. I personally tend to avoid all social media movements (mass shootings, hate crimes, terrorist attacks, etc. and I'll touch on Trans Lives Matter in a bit) - finding them to be lip service, intent on making the writer feel better, soon and easily forgotten as the next thing comes along. So jumping in on this cause would feel a bit, I dunno, problematically exceptional. If my overall philosophy is "I don't do that stuff" and I step in here, it's weirdly racist in a different way.

So yeah, Trans Lives Matter. Hate it. It often is rooted in causes and legislation that (mostly) benefits the more privileged members of identity trans, and it mostly uses the images and deaths of the less privileged transfolk (mostly POC transwomen who make up the majority of the annual "Remembering our Dead" lists). And oh, by the way "Trans Lives Better" is derivative of and colonizing "Black Lives Matter". Just saying.

When cisgender acquaintances are all flying the trans flag in social media, those are the folks I stay the fuck away from. Because (in my experience) those are the folks who will out me, use my name and identity to score progressive identity points (referring to "my trans friend Jude" or "my trans yoga teacher Jude"), draw me into their social circles because they kinda need a trans friend to round out the diversity set. My story. My choice to disclose or not. So yeah, my opinions regarding "Trans Lives Matter" definitely impact my choices surrounding Black Lives Matter.

And, to be honest, one of my go to insights regarding trans positive legislation and civil rights has been "black folk have had those protections for 50 years....how's that working out?" Not sure that passing a law is always the pathway to equality and justice. 

But enough about me, enough about trans.

Yes, as a white person, raised in a very exclusive (by which I mean to say, cloistered rather than economically privileged) world, I've got race issues. We had exactly two black kids in our school - Luke died in primary school of leukemia, and Keith, who was the star of the Catholic grade school basketball team. Keith had come to a grade school birthday party; I had kept his card for many years. Protestants and Jews were also "other" in my childhood world, exotic and rare, and Muslims, Asians, Hispanics were completely off the map.

On the plus side, as an economically embattled person who has lived completely within city limits for the past 30+ years (Danbury, Waterbury, Hartford, New Britain), I've lived in more diverse neighborhood than most of my peers. As I make my way up and down the street picking up litter, I am smiling and saying hello to people of many races, many origins, many creeds. And....with each piece of little I pick up I am confronted with my own stereotypes and assumptions surrounding the type of trash, the persons who put it there, etc. It's part of my internal work to notice, to process, to deal with that.

So yeah, I'm not one to fly the flag - black, rainbow, national, etc. But please know that I am trying to do the work. I care deeply. Just find social media to be a tricky place for this sort of thing. 

And, a coda to this piece. I few years back, Netflix released a documentary called Hip Hop Evolution about the development of rap and hip-hop music. Somehow or the other I stumbled in to watch. I was contemporary with the start of this music, which kind of grew up in parallel to the New Wave / Punk music I engaged with. So even as I was peripherally aware of the genre, I knew very little about it.

Wanna know something - I love this series, have found an appreciation for this art form that I could never have imagined. It's become one of my go-to media binges, worthy of rewatching, dispelling so many musical and racial stereotypes, learning about DJs, emcees, producers who were innovators, creators, users of technology (turntables, samplers, drum machines). It is most wonderful that the filmmaker has been able to hunt down these artists, now in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s - mellowed, insightful, wistful as they remember the good old days. 

So yeah. Listening. Learning. Trying to beat down my own internal racism. Trying to leave open space for black faces to be seen, black voices to be heard.

Black Lives Matter.