Lived to Tell The Tale
It is 2021 and we are still in the pandemic.
Welcome to my first substack. Soundtrack to this post: Brown Musical Montage.
The thing about having the virus that has killed 400,000 Americans in the past year in a global pandemic is that it’s really difficult to not think about having the virus that is killing hundreds of thousands of people when you know you have the virus inside you.
In my brain, I knew it was a public health tactic. The more that coronavirus deaths were discussed on the news, the more that people would be scared straight into quarantining. I knew that that thousands of people were surviving the virus. But the nightly news wasn’t talking about how many survived and how they survived. That wasn’t information that was being floated to the top.
When I got the text message that said I was COVID-19 positive, it didn’t register. It took a second to realize the text didn’t look like all the other ones I had received over the past year of periodic testing. Surely, getting news of something so deadly wouldn’t be delivered over a cellular phone text message. I thought my life had more value than to receive it’s pandemic illness over a generic text. Surely, false positive was a thing, wasn’t it? Curative was inaccurate now, didn’t the LA Times say? My heart beat out of my chest, so much so, I got the oxometer to check. 133 beats per minute. Maybe my oxometer was racist because I had melanin skin and I read somewhere that lasers were biased, but it felt accurate, the way my blood churned. I continued checking – temperature at 97.5 Fahrenheit and oxygen at 99%. Surely, I was fine otherwise.
I was safe. I know everyone says they are safe even when they aren’t safe because safe is a relative term, but me, I was safe. I wore masks, I socially distanced, I would only socialize with friends on walks outside with masks, and even then, sporadically so. I was too scared of the outside and the viral load. I had a small pod of friends I would see very infrequently. Except. Except in early December I needed emergency dental work for a crown that had decided it didn’t want to be in my mouth anymore. I had avoided the dentist and all optional medical check-ups all year – but a tooth had fallen out of my mouth so I had to risk it. I got coronavirus tested as habit every few weeks – I was getting tested after every potential exposure or before meeting up with people. I had been working from home for four years already – my life was already pretty quarantined. Nine days after the dentist checked the hole in my mouth, I got tested. It was a quick visit too – no longer than 10 minutes, 2 minutes unmasked, just to tell me I was healing fine.
LA Public Health sends you a text message of information of things to do when you get COVID-19. They say to wash your hands, stay home, and clean surfaces. Isolate yourself from other people in your household. They don’t say anything on how to heal yourself of this virus – they just don’t want you to spread it. I live alone and had been staying home. When the official called from LA Public County – she once again reiterated washing hands and staying home. I told her I lived alone and she continued reading her script of how I needed to isolate. She didn’t bother asking me where I thought I got the virus from or who I might have exposed. I gave her the information anyways. I’m pretty sure she didn’t write it down. She said if I needed support or help to call 311. That is it. That is the extent of America’s contact tracing and pandemic prevention. As a society we are screwed.
Rest a lot. Take vitamin c, vitamin d, and multivitamins. Take zinc, but only at onset. Take melatonin to help you sleep. Take B12. Take Claritin, just in case this is allergies. Take a weird concoction of herbs that you got when you were healing your womb. Don’t take reishi mushrooms. Do take things with elderberry. Take shots of apple cider vinegar, or just eat two ACV gummies a day. Eat kalunji seeds twice a day, but don’t go to the Indian market to buy it if you don’t have any. Take Chinese herbs called xiao chai hu tang and qing fei pai du san to help move your qi energy and sweat it out. Don’t take Advil, but do take Tylenol, but maybe alternate between the two, but don’t take them if fever isn’t high because the fever means your body is working. Take aspirin, but the baby kind, because your blood might turn to sludge because covid does that. Take lots of turmeric for anti-inflammation properties. Make a tea with the turmeric and ginger and honey. Tulsi tea is good. And green tea. Take lots of fluids with electrolyte, but Gatorade has too much sugar, so add electrolytes to your water and drink coconut water, nature’s electrolyte. The meme from Bangladeshi Whatsapp says to put drops of olive oil in your nose daily, but don’t. Steam your face, breathe in through your nose and out your mouth, but whatever you do, don’t let the air go to your lungs. Use a humidifier. Use an air filter with a fresh HEPA filter. Open your windows, unless your neighbor has the Rona too. Get sunlight but don’t get in your apartment’s elevator to get said sunlight. See what your blood type is because if it is O positive you have less chance of severity. Eat foods high in protein and high in iron, but don’t eat eggs because they feed viruses. Sleep on your chest, don’t lean back in your sofa, walk around and don’t let fluid rest in your chest. But do nap. You will be tired for a long time.
Do everything you can do to survive, but in the end, it is Russian Roulette. You don’t really know how your body will react and there is nothing you can do so just wash your hands and wear a mask and check your oxygen level and don’t you fucking cough. But do know which hospital to go to if things get bad. Do figure out which one of your friends would risk their lives for you to take you to the hospital if things got bad.
Don’t watch the new don’t watch the death toll don’t watch the news don’t watch the news.
I wonder about the inevitably of having this virus. My youngest sister said this at this beginning of the pandemic – we are all going to get the virus, eventually. She said it very nonchalant. A year into the pandemic, and 25% Angelenos have contracted the virus at some point. Aren’t you scared to be out in the open the way you are, I often wonder with people. But these people keep telling me that they feel secure because they wear masks, stay 6 feet apart. But the thing is I also wore a mask and stayed distance and didn’t see a human being for a long time and I got sick. It’s a false sense of security I’m trying to say. Not that that you shouldn’t wash your hands or wear a mask, just that those things are not going to keep you safe. The viral load is too great and our city is too packed.
Do a puzzle. Reading won’t really help you focus and you will quickly binge through everything on your T.V. You will have little energy for anything else. A puzzle will distract your brain from thinking of all the awful end of life things that might go through your head. Leaning forward doing a puzzle will also help with fluid from collecting in your lungs.
Nights were the worst. Cuz that is when my brain wandered the most. I live alone and am alone-alone in this box of an apartment where the sun doesn’t even shine. I am fine with solitude and the introvert in me thrives with the space, but the pandemic has challenged my loneliness. It is the box, I think, the inability to see time pass outside my window, that made this pandemic feel like being alone on Groundhog’s Day. I would sleep without the deadbolt, just in case, you know, someone needed to get in. I pulled out cards with the most healing names of Allah and put them on my nightstand, next to the bright orange citrine crystal. I’d doomscroll on twitter until I could make myself fall asleep.
Dare I say it wasn’t that bad? My fever never got above 99.1 degrees and it never really drifted down to my chest significantly. I never lost my sense of taste. Dare I say that of a virus that has killed so many? Dare I say it of a virus that hides in your brain and reappears when you least expect it? Dare I say that of a virus that is mutating uncontrollably?
What was bad was that the week before I got the text message, I was isolated by myself in my apartment, I quarantined by myself in my apartment through my illness, and I was still in my apartment after the 10 day quarantine ended. Last Sunday I got a rapid response test, and was told I was negative… to only go home and celebrate alone in my apartment. There is something so “if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it matter?” except replace the tree for COVID-19. How can we expect to have a meaningful life when we can live, breathe and die and not have anyone to witness this existence?
Maybe that is why I am starting a substack now. A pointless project of words hyper focused on being present. It will be purposeless, meandering, and mostly, a stream of consciousness through lists. Maybe I will have themes. I will not reminisce on the past or set goals of change for the future – I will focus on the present, the current. These thoughts will be of now. To remind me to be of now. And maybe so that my life in now can be witnessed.
I have always loved lists and was inspired to make this substack “list” focused after reading Bluets by Maggie Nelson, a gorgeous meandering set of short stacked prose on the color blue. I’ve dreamt often of how I would write a book of lists someday. It is not an original thought, there are so many prose list books out there. But my hope is to at least jot down these lists in prose once a month for the substack, and hopefully, it will spin my brain wheels to return to writing and keep my other creative ventures. 2020 was my first year not having a public platform on the internet since 2007 – I went from Sepia Mutiny, to Mishthi Music, to Radical Love, to Good Muslim Bad Muslim. So here, I am again, and out of my cocoon.
Anyways. I feel invincible. I watched the sunset over low tide while sitting on rocks dotted with California mussels. I am celebrating being alive by petting sea anemones in the intertidal zone. I am taking pictures on my phone and I miss taking pictures on my camera. I am listening to badass Brown female musicians I am reminding myself of things about the outside world that I loved about being alive. I hate to say that this solo trip was “treating myself” because honestly, remembering that you survived a virus in a global pandemic is so much more. I am alive. You are alive. Our bodies are magical. That is more than a treat.
Let me know what you think about this new project and what topics you’d like me to touch upon – frivolous and meandering topics only.
I’m watching: Search Party, Love Life, I May Destroy You, Bling Empire
I’m reading: The Pisces, Bluets, Big Friendship
I’m listening: Appearances Podcast
You can find me on: South Asian Writers Resist event, See Something Say Something’s Jinnthology episode, & buy 2021 #MuslimVDay cards here