Room for the Small

By Bertha Gutierrez

The Saturday before quarantine started in Nevada, a few friends gathered to celebrate my birthday at a picnic area in Red Rock Canyon. There weren’t any masks in sight—the thought of them still foreign to us—and we all shared the cake after I blew out the candles on it. My friends talk about my birthday being the last normal thing we did together, but I don’t think it was. All I remember about that afternoon is everyone talking about the coronavirus: who would be able to work from home and who still had to go into their workplace, who was afraid and who wasn’t, who thought we were blowing things out of proportion and who had already bought enough groceries and toilet paper for a whole month, and the March 2020 memes. There was a lot of anxiety in the air that day, and it was also the last time I got to hug my friends. It seems like that birthday picnic was more than just eight months ago. It feels like years have passed. Things are so different now. Every birthday and celebration after that day has been through a screen, involved waiving from my car window, or been something creative and slightly uncomfortable in person, like the lovely, speed-dating inspired baby shower for my friends where we visited for 10 minutes from six feet away before having to leave so the next person could come wish them well. And I have definitely not eaten, or intend to eat, any cake after someone has blown out the birthday candles with what I can only imagine is breath full of coronavirus-ridden air droplets. And there have been no more hugs.

But I know those are the minor inconveniences, the easy things to talk about, the minor losses. They are nothing compared to the entirely too many lives taken by the virus and the pain and hardship that stays with those families. It felt wrong to me to mourn those tiny losses, because after all, I was one of the privileged ones who still had a job that allowed me to work from home, health insurance, and no kids to figure out school schedules for. I was thankful. I am thankful, but my heart was breaking for both the minor losses in my life and the major losses others were experiencing. The climbing number of positive cases and deaths I read about in the news were leaving me with a heavy heart and a void I couldn’t figure out.

And then at the end of July the virus got closer. My aunt, my mom’s older sister, got sick in El Salvador. The pandemic has looked a lot different in El Salvador, where I’m from, than it has in the States. There was a country-wide lockdown that lasted over a month and testing wasn’t available as far as anyone knew. My aunt had just gone back to work after the lockdown was lifted, and about two weeks later she was dealing with coronavirus symptoms. Because of the lack of testing, there’s not a positive COVID-19 test result that could confirm my aunt had the coronavirus, but she couldn’t breathe. The air in her lungs was so scarce that she couldn’t talk and walking around her house was too difficult, so she stayed in bed. Our worlds were shaken with fears of what could come. I was constantly texting with family, getting updates on her health. There was nothing to do, but wait for what the next hour, the next night, the next morning would bring for her. Apart from contributing money for her treatments and the lost income her family was dealing with, there was nothing anyone in my family could do. Especially from so far away.

Unlike so many others, my aunt recovered. But the experience left me feeling powerless and useless. The same feelings and thoughts that had been haunting me since the start of the pandemic got so overwhelming when the virus came close to my family. I couldn’t do more for my aunt, than I could for those affected by the virus in New York, California, Arizona, at the ICE detention centers, and all around me in Nevada. How could I help the world, when I couldn’t even help my aunt? I’ve been carrying those same feelings for years, feeling powerless against racial and economic oppression. That was the heaviness, the void I was feeling in my heart.

The pandemic had slowed everything down enough to force me to confront those feelings. There was no escaping laying all that out on the table, when all the trips, concerts, work travel, movie nights, birthdays, and gatherings were crossed out on the calendar. There was time to hold that discomfort, and I was longing for guidance. It was during those days when I was listening carefully to what wise ones had to say, when, through adrienne maree brown, I came across Grace Lee Boggs’ words “To transform the world, you have to transform yourself.” Brown follows that in her Emergent Strategy book by saying “this doesn’t mean to get lost in the self, but rather to see our own lives and work and relationships as a front line, a first place we can practice justice, liberation, and alignment with each other and the planet.” I must have read that page of the book 10 times. There’s a little exclamation point on the margin of that page, next to the sentence “What we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system.” I had to start with the small, the most basic. I had to start with me and with those closest to me, allowing myself and my friends to mourn our tiny losses along the big ones without shame. All those feelings are what makes me human, capable of empathizing with my friends and neighbors, able to connect to others, and able to work and hope for a better reality, not only for myself but for all us. Allowing myself to mourn the tiny losses also allows me to mourn the big losses outside of myself (my siblings’s losses, and those of my neighbors, my colleagues, and strangers). But it takes being fully present, feeling what needs to be felt to move forward with love and compassion into the actions needed for a better reality. Starting with the small. Starting with kindness for myself and for others. These days, the small is wearing a mask and being patient with things moving slower at the grocery store check out. The small is taking the time to talk to my neighbor and ask how her kitten is. The small is listening to others. The small is patience, kindness, forgiveness, and presence. For myself and for those around me.

I’ve been tracking the light coming through my bedroom window since the pandemic has kept me home. The way it has slowly shifted from touching my ankles in the morning during the spring and early summer, to almost reaching my eyes in the past few weeks. This light shift has caught me by surprise in previous years, bringing the sudden sorrow that comes with the realization of time gone and seasons changing. The light shifted without the sudden sorrow this year. Or rather, I was here to witness it, still, more aware, present, paying attention to the journey the light traveled through the room.

I don’t want to guess what my next birthday celebration will look like, but I hope we never go back to the normal that was to rush through life. I hope we make room for stillness and presence. I hope we make room for the small.

Originally from El Salvador, Bertha Gutierrez moved to Las Vegas from northwest Arkansas at the end of 2016. She is an artist and nature lover. Her interest in the outdoors and civic engagement led to her current work at Conservation Lands Foundation. Bertha has a B.A. in Journalism and Art from the University of Arkansas. She has 16 niblings and lives with her cat Dwayne. She enjoys hiking, star gazing, camping in the desert, drawing and painting. She’s part of the team bringing Wild & Free: A Battleborn Podcast to the community in Nevada. You can find her on Twitter at @begt or on Instagram at @begutierrezart and @mochusss.

NOTES
Nibling is a gender-neutral term used to refer to a child of one's sibling as a replacement for "niece" or "nephew".

The writer adrienne maree brown does not capitalize her name. I’ve chosen to honor her preference in the essay.

Thank you for visiting Humanities Heart to Heart, a program of Nevada Humanities. Any views or opinions represented in posts or content on the Humanities Heart to Heart webpage are personal and belong solely to the author or contributor and do not represent those of Nevada Humanities, its staff, or any donor, partner, or affiliated organization, unless explicitly stated. At no time are these posts understood to promote particular political, religious, or ideological points of view; advocate for a particular program or social or political action; or support specific public policies or legislation on behalf of Nevada Humanities, its staff, any donor, partner, or affiliated organization. Omissions, errors, or mistakes are entirely unintentional. Nevada Humanities makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on these posts or found by following any link embedded in these posts. Nevada Humanities reserves the right to alter, update, or remove content on the Humanities Heart to Heart webpage at any time.

Kathleen KuoNovember 16, 2020D1 Comment