Marvin&Company: Stories About Death And Entrepreneurship

Things I Write About Stuff

Category: Other Stuff

August 9, 2020

COVID-Grief

Grief is a whole-body experience. It’s different than sadness and depression. It bathes our brains in a unique chemical cocktail unlike anything else we’ll ever experienced. So even if we’re not necessarily feeling overwhelmingly sad, those feelings of “not quite right” can still be a manifestation of grief.

Maybe you wake up each morning with a vague sense of dread, unable to pinpoint the exact source of that fear. You feel fine sometimes; grateful, even, for the chance to slow down, spend time with family or hobbies or pets. You walk more, notice nature more, really pay attention to how much you enjoy toast and tea.

But it all feels off, somehow. Everything seems surreal. The events by which you’ve marked the passage of time throughout your adult life no longer exist. Sometimes you feel like you’ve got this – it’s only for now, everything is probably going to be fine. And sometimes deciding what shirt to wear today is just too much.

You have all of the emotions all at once. You’re inexplicably enraged over some things yet totally Zen about others; you cry when the cat doesn’t want to sit on your lap. You’re tired all the time and have trouble staying asleep.

Everything feels unsettling. Like you’re supposed to be doing something but keep remembering there’s nothing to do – nothing that feels like it matters. Most of us aren’t used to sitting still. It’s hard work for which we were entirely unprepared.

You can feel all of this, or none of it, and that’s okay*.

Grief changes us and acclimating is difficult, but this part really is only for now. Later we’ll talk about how we can learn to sit with and move through grief. Today please just know that you’re not alone and you’re not losing your mind.

*If you are having thoughts about harming yourself contact a mental health provider or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-271-8255.

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August 9, 2020

The Beginning of Everything

We’ve been friends for less than a year, and you’ve just quit your job. Well, sort of; you’ve told the executive director to perform an unlikely sexual act upon himself and stormed out.

I follow you, of course, like I will for the next fourteen years.

I know you’ll be at our project. It has walls now, and a floor, and we’re both wearing shoes this time, so things are already looking up. I find you pacing around the skeletal interior walls. You need to rant for awhile so I listen. For what it’s worth, the disagreement spinning out of control wasn’t your fault. We work for a temperamental man whose grandiose ideas aren’t always rational or legal. You pointed out the flaws in his latest shenanigans and it was not well received. He is an asshat. If you want to keep your job, though, you’ll need to apologize.

You pause the tirade to ask me what I think, so I say “are you ready to go?”. For a moment you think I mean are you done complaining, can we leave the building now, and the hurt look on your face shocks me. Your entire body deflates at the realization that I may not be on your side this time. Up to this point I still suspected you were just letting me follow you around because I typed fast and you felt sorry for me. I understand, finally, that this friendship was never about pity.

So I continue, explaining how you should not give our boss the satisfaction of quitting unless you are ready to leave on your own terms, sure of a brilliant and successful future. We aren’t quite there yet, so perhaps an insincere apology will buy you the time to plan what’s next. You smile, thank me for listening, and we leave.

Later, after an apology so sarcastic I still cannot believe it worked, we are downstairs in our little closet office. Sitting beside me you quietly say, “I can’t do this alone” and hand me a coffee stained business plan created on a typewriter in 1979. The cover says, simply, Marvin & Company.

This is the beginning of everything.

August 8, 2020

Navigating

We are arguing about a map. I’ve spent half a year completing a housing condition survey of the entire West side of Saratoga and now that the map is complete you don’t like where I’ve drawn the target area boundaries. A brilliant idea, I thought, a bit of gerrymandering to ensure a high score on the grant we’re about to submit. I’ve created a target area that includes the lowest income areas with the worst housing conditions and I’m too proud of my work to consider who that choice has left off the map.

You’re listing names now: all the people who need roofs and furnaces and accessible bathrooms, elderly ladies who make you cookies and tea, who you’ve told you would try your best to help. I’ve unintentionally excluded them in favor of statistics, and you are enraged. Your fists pound the table and your eyes are on fire. I’ve never seen you so upset – although this is nothing compared to our years of arguments to come.

Too angry and hurt to say anything, I walk out. Through the back door and down the street, headed toward the project we’re currently managing. It’s an abandoned building, torn apart with two walls and no roof, on its way to becoming three rent controlled senior apartments. While grinding my teeth and imagining witty comebacks, I’ve overlooked the fact that I walked down the street and onto an active construction site in a dress, with no shoes.

You follow me, of course, because you always do, and for the next decade you always will.

We’re calmer now, making tentative eye contact. You, a mountain man in a purple polo shirt, smiling in mild frustration. Me, blue silk skirt and bare feet, balanced precariously on a metal I-beam, surrounded by all the reasons I should have updated my tetanus shot. “Well…” you say, raising your eyebrows and spreading your hands. “Yeah” I respond. It’s as close as we’ll come to apologies today.

In two steps you’ve expertly traversing the space between us. You pick me up, flinging me over your shoulder with more force than I believe is truly necessary, and carry me back to the sidewalk. When I am back on the ground, you hand me my shoes.

I look up at you to say something, anything, to redeem myself, as this is clearly not my most professional moment. Before I can speak you say “They poured concrete this morning.” So we walk to the back of the building where a new concrete pad cures in the late afternoon sun. Without a word you take the pencil from behind your ear and write your initials, pass it to me so I can write mine. Somewhere on Washington Street in Saratoga, there is a utility room crawl space where MO & MRD is forever inscribed on the rear left corner of the concrete.

Later, we will revisit the map, add the missing data, give up a point or two so that a dozen more people are eligible for the grant program. I’ve learned the importance of valuing people over scoring criteria. Years from now you’ll tell me this was the day you knew ours was a friendship destined for longevity.