My Backpack Saved My Life

18 months later I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve started to write this story. It’s the story of how in March of 2020 my backpack saved my life and prevented me from getting Covid on the New York subway. 

The week we were in Detroit we heard the news about this new virus that was mostly in Seattle and the West Coast and honestly didn’t think much about it. As the week progressed, the outbreak in Italy took over the news and got our attention. If it was in Europe, it was probably in New York. By the end of the week mini outbreaks were reported in New York but nothing too severe yet. 

After a week in the Detroit area (serious unintentional  foreshadowing) taking care of some business that Jess had to deal with about her dad’s estate and the house she inherited we got back to New York later than originally planned and were exhausted. Sunday was a catch up day doing errands, grocery shopping, and laundry. Before I knew it, it was 1am and I had to be up at 6:30 to get ready and leave so I could get to work by 8 so I could leave at 4 because the nanny had to leave 5 for class by 5. Lots of moving parts. 

Because Sunday had been so busy, I never took the time to repacked my backpack for work so when I woke up Monday morning and started getting ready I noticed it was still packed for travel. Being not fully awake and news of Covid starting to make a bigger footprint in New York, I called an audible and emailed my boss to ask if I could work from home that day. 

I was genuinely concerned about my health since I’m immunocompromised and I knew it would take about an hour to unpack and repack my backpack before I could leave. My boss replied about 20 minutes later and said sure, no problem. The news on how Covid was spreading in New York developed hourly. Later in the day on Monday I emailed my boss again and asked if I could work from home the rest of the week because I was increasingly concerned about my safety. Again, she replied quickly and said sure and she wasn’t sure what the plan for the rest of the office would be. Two days later, I got the email that said everyone could work from home for the foreseeable future.

It didn’t get better and it’s still not. 

Considering how much about Covid and transmission was unknown in early March 2020 I don’t think it’s too far or hyperbolic to say that the fact I was delayed in getting  out the door and ultimately didn’t go into the office because my backpack wasn’t packed for the workweek saved  my life. Every day the rest of that week and for the next few weeks we were in New York before moving to Michigan the news got worse and the case numbers went up. We lived 3 blocks from Elmhurst Hospital and there were sirens every 20 minutes 24 hours a day for weeks. With a (at the time) 10 month old who loved going to the park and story time at the library it was tough to suddenly never go outside until the day we got in a rental minivan and drove 637 miles west to Ferndale, Michigan. 

I don’t know 100% for sure that I definitely would have gotten sick if I had gone into the office that day but with the benefit of hindsight and history, I think it’s more likely than not that I would have and I don’t want to follow that thought down any rabbit holes. 

I’m here, I’m happy, I’m vaccinated, and I will continue to wash my hands, wear a mask, and steer clear of the creepers. 

Christmas 1989

Retail therapy can help heal the past.

Rei Momo, the album by former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne is one of the few specific Christmas gifts I remember getting from my dad. 

Growing up, my mom and the extended family I lived with were pretty religious about some things but not everything. “Secular” music was evil, most popular toys were inspired by satan and came directly from the pits of hell, and books that were not written by explicitly christian authors were frowned upon. There’s a whole other story about a book called “Turmoil In The Toybox” and the time my mother insisted I get rid of all my Lord of the Rings books because they were full of wizardry and witchcraft only to get something from a local christian college about the virtues of J.R.R. Tolkien a few weeks later. Yeah, it was a mess and I have spent more time and money than I care to admit repurchasing some items that were unnecessarily discarded. 

[SIDE NOTE: I bet if I were to ask my mother about the LotR books incident today she would claim to not remember.]

My dad left before I was old enough to have memories of him and before I was old enough to know that there were supposed to be two parents. I guess he did me a favor by leaving before I was old enough to know he was supposed to be there. I would see him every other weekend (when he remembered or lived close enough to make the trip to see me) and we’d listen to all sorts of music that was considered secular and evil by the home folks. He listened to Talking Heads and I liked the music too. He made copies of tapes and taped some of his records and I would listen to them on the school bus or when what I was listening to wasn’t being monitored. You know, the whole “evil secular music” thing.

Rei Momo came out in October of 1989. My dad had it on cassette and we’d listen to it if he remembered to come pick me up to stay overnight on a Friday night. I liked the album. I was sure it wasn’t the same old rock music that my peers at school listened to. No, I was the only one who knew about this and I felt special. In the know. I remember opening the album in a dingy, smoky apartment in Aurora, Illinois on Christmas Eve 1989 and even as I was opening it, I knew it would be tricky to get it in the house unnoticed. That’s a pretty shitty feeling for a kid to have after getting a record they like for Christmas, but it was my shitty reality. 

After I was dropped off back at home the joy of owning my very own copy of Rei Momo lasted all of 15 minutes before my busybody aunt who was the bane of my existence growing up and has faithfully continued to fulfill that role to this day. 

Religion can bring out the worst in people.

He dropped me off probably later than the agreed upon time and I went inside with my overnight bag and gifts. I don’t remember anything else I got that year but I remember that record. 

You know how some memories from childhood stick with you even though they only be traumatic to you personally, not traumatic on a tangibly measurable scale or anything, well, what happened next falls on the first part of that scape - personally traumatic. 

I walked in, said hello to my mother and whoever else was there, and began recount my hours away and what I had gotten for Christmas. Before I knew what happened, Carol grabbed the bag of presents and start to go to the second floor to review them before giving her opinion on them (which to this day I still have no idea why it was so important that she had a say on every fucking thing I did). I heard her walk up the first couple steps and sit down around the corner before starting to rifle through the few presents in the bag. In the time it took me to realize what was happening and what was about to happen I turned the corner to see Carol looking at the liner notes and lyrics and then yell to my mother in the other room, “hey Deb, this isn’t good, it should go out to the can tonight.” And just like that, the busybody struck again and my mother who has a long (and disturbing) history of going along with whatever is the easiest and is the least resistance complied and my brand fucking new record went out to the trash and I was crushed. And betrayed. 

Betrayal is a theme I started noticing the more I started writing these cathartic pieces. 

The same relative responsible for the unnecessary disposal of my original copy of Rei Momo has been problematic for as long as I can remember. It seems odd that a relative who was approximately 18 years older than me would feel the need to be not only antagonistic but also strangely competitive with me. I am only now as I try to put these experiences into words discovering how truly fucked up my family and childhood was. Definitely not normal stuff. 

She’s always been a busy body - injecting herself into social situations and making it deeply awkward by not reading the room - or worse, not caring for anything but her own fleeting feelings. This is the same person that was the reason I had to stay in a hotel for my last week in Chicago before moving to New York in 2016. After having years to do something, she decided one afternoon to talk to a flipper and sell the house and I had a matter of hours to pack and ship my stuff. I didn’t have the opportunity to say goodbye to some Chicago friends because she threw a fit that hijacked the rest of my last weekend before moving and once again, my mother sat idly by, head in hands, and did nothing to stand up for me or intervene. 

The “best” part about religious family members is that even when they treat you horribly or do really fucked up stuff their default is “I don’t remember” or “I pray you can forgive me” or some equally milquetoast response. 

All that to say I found a copy of the album on eBay and picked it up for a decent price and that acts of second-hand retail therapy has become a common practice in working through and healing from my past.