i learned i was non-essential years ago. it was early 2014, and the government shut down because people couldn’t agree whether or not to make healthcare a human right. i had just begun my job half a year earlier, a job where orientations, handbooks, and the opening remarks of every program begins by elaborating on how our work at the smithsonian is absolutely crucial to society. until it isn’t.
today, as all non-essential entities are shut down, the smithsonian museums are closed but taco bell is open. i’m not appalled, just intrigued. i don’t think there’s anything particularly deep about the fact that in a moment like this if you were to ask the average person if they’d rather see abraham lincoln’s death mask or eat a chalupa, the answer would be that death masks don’t taste good with fire sauce.
i selfishly want my friends and family members who are still going to work everyday to just stay home, even if other people can’t. lovely’s entire family works in the healthcare ecosystem, and some nights the worry for them is so thick that all we can do is sigh heavily enough to sink us into slumber. the anxiety over other peoples’ disregard for my loved ones makes it feel like everyday is just the first day of the next two weeks. but we are also incredibly proud of them. they are the faces that first come to mind when i hear of how cities across the globe open their windows wide at sunset so that the streets can erupt in applause. they are essential.
the people working at the drive thru don’t get that same treatment. they are relegated to accepting commands through eroded intercoms, by customers who have become hangry while sitting in a queue that their craving for fries didn’t bargain for. the line of automobiles snaking out of the in-n-out on venice blvd is so enduring that it has become its own landmark. those tending the destination don’t get city-wide applause. they get crumpled dollar bills folded longways and passed like relay batons, and credit cards that are immediately sanitized when handed back. they transfer oil-stained paper bags to people who receive them with simultaneous anticipation for feeding their hunger, and repulsion that they have to eat something that someone else had to touch in order to make.
they too are essential, but in a fucked up way. they, like the grocery cashiers, delivery people, and others who don’t have the luxury i have of spending their days contemplating productivity – they exist in a twilight zone where they are essential in theory, but expendable in practice. none of us wants to admit to projecting such a horrid sentiment onto another, not in words. just in how we hold our breaths while receiving packages, how we keep our stares down while making transactions, like eye contact is a contagion. and how we’re glad that those other people aren’t our own loved ones. until they are.
on the days that i brave the outdoors to stock up on eggs and bananas, i do try to offer words of appreciation to the individuals at checkout, but i’m still guilty of acting like i’m walking amongst lepers. this period has made me keenly aware of all the things i do in the privacy of public space, the things i’m not proud of, how i act like everyone else is expendable. when i get flabbergasted by the people who are still approaching this outbreak with the spirit of “if i get it i get it,” without regard for all those who would be forced to carry them from if to then – i have to check myself.
i am enraged by their utter self-centeredness, until i think about all the messes i’ve made that i left for someone else to clean up, all the elevator doors i let close on people because i was in a hurry, all the restaurant workers who had to stay half an hour later because my dinner conversation was so important, all the traffic buttons and toilet flushers i’ve pushed with my shoe because who knows where everyone else’s fingers have been, all the ways i act like my own shit don’t stink.
i really miss being around other people. even the ones i’ll never know. i miss the time when we didn’t have to go out acting like everyone else is a scourge, and i regret the fact that we acted that way regardless. what a forlorn time the world is in right now. what a time to recognize that everyone is absolutely essential.