Covered

Thank you for reading.

I need to tell you

That it's not going to lighten up.

But it won't go on forever.

This collection,

In case you haven't guessed,

Is on death and anxiety (a one-woman comedy by ginna hoben!)

Welcome.

Or welcome back.

Would you please scroll down and become a follower?

-- -- --

I cannot get on top of my shit.

So it feels.

In the midst of pandemic life

Recouping/recharging

At my parents' home in Ohio

Before a return to New York.

Distracted, 

I can’t keep to a schedule,

My dinners don’t taste as good,

And I’ve always forgotten at least one thing

When I return from the store.

At bedtime,

I am plagued by any bad 

That my brain quickly spins into the unbearable.

(You know this about me, already, I think.

If not,

Hi, I'm Ginna,

I have a wicked imagination

and I suffer from anxiety.

I'm also currently out of work

and have a host of anxiety-related physical symptoms

including a pear-sized rash on my right butt cheek.

How's that for all those mommy bloggers out there 

who keep telling me they are "keepin' it real"?

Do you ladies have eczema on your asses, too?

Oh.

Cool, cool, I understand:

keep it real and leave out the ass-rash.  Got it.)

... So when my five-year-old daughter 

Complains about nightmares

Before she has even fallen asleep,

I can relate.

Even if she is perhaps,

Exaggerating...

THIS nighttime

Katie Lu can't sleep.

Katie Lu claims she can't sleep.

Katie Lu is having nightmares.

But Katie Lu hasn't even fallen asleep yet.

I am the more sympathetic parent in these instances.

Sheffield classifies these stay-up-later tactics as

Dilly-dallying.

While he is surely identifying some 

Legit procrastination,

I am identifying Waking Nightmares,

to which I am no stranger,

and it is my instinct to comfort.

I can’t get on top of my own shit

But I’ll spin some into gold

To help my girl.

And then I will have done

one 

tiny 

thing

To counter my otherwise

Failing daily assessment

Before I close my eyes

So, THIS nighttime, it is I 

Who walks her back to her bed

Pats her back

Rubs circles between her small (so small!) shoulder blades

Sings offkey (which she has yet to notice)

And repeats the steps above

Until she is calm.

Until I have led her 

To lead herself 

To believe

That all is right in her world.

This, I’m convinced,

Is what she wants

What I want

What lots of us want

When we are left alone

At the end of another day.

Some tiny assurance...

Please tell me it’s okay.

Please tell me we're safe.

Please tell me nothing will come in the night and take you from me

Or me from you.

(I know I am not keeping it real

When I claim it doesn’t matter if it’s accurate,

It only matters that we think so.)

But when we get ourselves close enough to believing it,

I leave her room.

But (so) first, she has a question.

This is her most classic dilly-dalliation.

Often, 

Before I make it out of the room,

I hear:

"How can people see through glass?"

“Why do you still have breasts if the breast milk is gone?”

"Who made God?"

Yes, the shrewd parent knows she or he is being manipulated.

The shrewd parent responds, 

"We'll have time to discuss that in the morning."

But I am rarely shrewd

And mostly tired and gooey at bedtime.

And so, 

After explaining 

In five-year-old terms

Why I still have breasts

But no baby,

I feel good about the bonding time we had 

And I think,

Well.

I'm glad we got that covered.

My girl does not fear hard questions.

If the child gets wind of a death

From a movie (thank you Paddington Bear;

you were the first, but not the last)

Or the news,

Or from us,

The child wants to know.

And the child will ask.

Once, at 18 months, my daughter strayed too close to the curb

And when I pulled her back and explained

That it is my job to keep her safe

And I don't want a car to hurt her,

She said,

"Because then I would get died-ed?"

I was more than stunned.

Who told you that?

She did not answer,

She picked up a pebble

Giggled a bit

And toddle-galloped a few paces onward.

Okay.  Sure.

Lots of babies know what death is.

What?!

I asked Sheffield if he had explained death to her.

"What?  No.  What?!"

I asked my mom.

"What?  No... ?"

This was before the child was exposed to screen time, 

So I decided she is experiencing reincarnation

And I should stay calm and listen for upcoming clues about her past life.

. . . and death?

. . . I guess?

As she got older,

Her questions became more pointed,

And as "the coronavirus" became

A household term,

Her questions centered there.

awesomenotawesome.

I am careful not to give her answers

That I may contradict someday.

(I have already gotten myself into a bind about angels...)

And a lot of the time

I tell her "I don't know."

or

"Nobody knows for sure."

Sometimes, if the hour is right, I say,

"What do you think?"

A question

For her question.

THIS nighttime,

She makes please tell me it’s okay sound easy

when she asks,

"How do I get the bad thoughts out of my head?"

. . . I mean, 

I know it's not okay to tell her, 

"Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro, and Celexa."

But...

We're keeping it real, right?

--  --   --

when I was growing up,

there was a real thing

among us three sisters

about sharing rooms.

as teens, I was so unbearable a roommate

that I scored myself my own room 

for four years instead of the allotted two

in the scheduled rotation.

but as a smaller child, 

I mainly shared a room 

with my older sister, Katie,

as we were closer in age,

and Kelly, our younger sister,

was in a separate room.

Katie, the older sister and I

were placed in adjacent twin beds in an upstairs room,

which my mom thought made perfect sense.

until every night

we were put to bed

only

to lie on our sides facing each other

and giggle

and giggle

and then outright laugh,

smother our laughter,

and giggle some more.

this drove my mother crazy.

night after night,

she would stand at the foot of the stairs and yell up,

"roll over and be quiet!"

which only made us laugh harder.

because she couldn't see us,

so why would she think we'd actually roll over?

for a while we had a game of rolling 

a plastic glow-in-the-dark ball

-probably from a Happy Meal or birthday party-

between our beds in the dark.

we thought it was hilarious

and genius:

we are playing after bedtime!

and she has no idea!!

because the lights are out!!!

hahahahahahahaha!

and when the game 

ceased to be hilarious

or Mom's tone grew too angry,

we would finally agree that it was time to sleep.

but we still didn't roll over.

we had a nightly ritual,

four phrases that we repeated to one another

to pledge our love

in case we died in the night.

(perhaps the weight of anxiety

already had me anchored

at the ripe age of six.)

four phrases that provided 

the security we craved:

good night I love you see you in the morning don't forget to say your prayers

it never mattered who rattled it off first-

two little girls

six and eight

then seven and nine

eight and ten,

and so on.

and the mantra remained.

after a while, the older sister condensed the phrases 

into the single word "roll,"

as in, "this is our evening roll call"

of safeties-in-place

in the event of disaster.

we taught the phrases to the youngest sister.

we three said these things nightly

a signal that we would never go to bed angry at one another.

and that

we were covered.

clean-hearted.

correct in one tiny way.

this memorized material

made its way with us through high school

(I remember,

after a day of bickering, my older sister 

standing angrily in the doorway:

"roll!"  she repeatedly slung at me,

until I, in the thick of my terrible teens

finally, begrudgingly repeated back: roll.)

and when she went off to her college,

and shortly after I went off to mine,

our letters (yes, the kind on paper and enclosed in a stamped envelope)

often ended 

with the single word

as the last word

before the signature.

and when the day came

--two of us in college

one still in high school--

that the eldest sister

was snatched

prematurely

from our lives

from our days

from our fucking futures

and the safeties-in-place

went the way of her windshield

we,

at least,

had said our goodnights.

-- -- --

My girl,

My Katie

Questions-at-night Katie

Questions-that-keep-them-close Katie

Questions-that-fill-a-spot-of don’t-leave-me-alone Katie

My Katie Lu,

A namesake

Distinguished from her deceased aunt 

By a middle name attached to the first,

Developed all on her own,

A bedtime script.

It is more of a call-and-response

Than what my sisters and I used,

But comfortingly the same (to me)

And comforting to say (for her.)

"I love you, mommy,"

(Or "daddy" if he's the one in the room)

She says.

I love you too.

And the practiced follow up

"See you in the morning!"

See you in the morning.

And finally, signaling that this probably means the end of dilly-dallyhood:

"Good night!"

Good night, my love.

But here we are

THIS night with

"How do I get the bad thoughts out of my head, mommy?"

. . . Just that one tiny thing, mommy

. . . Before you go to bed, mommy

. . . Could you just help me figure out that one tiny thing

. . . Hmm, mommy

. . . You have an answer for everything, mommy

. . . Right, mommy?

I don’t

I haven't

I can’t even do it for myself, my love

Then my ass-rash flares at the mommy-blogger in me who's "keeping it real." It's not real.

Blogs are crafted; rashes are spontaneous.

And I can't becomes

I can fake it.

I can

play

the

role

I tell her to think about good things.
I tell her to give me the names of
Five favorite friends
Five great movies
Songs

Toys

Toys she doesn't own but wants to own

Ballerinas!

Tutus!

Tinkerbell!

Those silver shoes with the rhinestones

Rhinestones!

Cookie dough

Cake batter

Back-scratches

Pancakes and cartoons

And PJs for too long on Saturdays

Jumping in rain puddles

Wading in creeks

Wading

Wading

And as the grandfather clock

In my mom and dad's great room

Ticks and bongs and ticks

Below us,

My daughter calms

Her eyes get heavy

She says

"I love you, mommy".

I love you too.

"See you in the morning!"

See you in the morning.

"Good night!"

Good night, my love.

Well,

we got that one thing covered.

one

tiny

thing.

Thank you for reading.  Please follow L&BIQ.

hey, how's ohio?

I'm in Ohio now.

if you've been following,

and wondering if it's different here

than it was in Queens,

the answer is 

yes.

I just woke up from a 90-minute nap.

i've been doing this every day for the past fourteen days

if you're thinking "good for you!"

thanks,

but it's not really good.

For three months of lockdown in new york

i was barely sleeping at all

window art, astoria 2020

no naps

no successful naps, anyway

lots of lying on my back, yes

but little sleeping in said supination.

i was waking no later than 5 AM,

fixing my face and hair,

and recording fitness videos

with a well-rehearsed smile

for 45 minutes 

most mornings.

then i would busy myself with 

my daughter's remote learning agenda,

and the rest of the day was spent

worrying about money and hospitalization and death,

making three healthy budget-friendly meals,

and worrying some more.

then i would put my weary head down on the pillow

and worry

until i dreamt about

nothing

then waking

nothing

then waking

nothing

then waking

and in the short walk from bedroom to bathroom

seeing a future so bleak

i don't even want to write about it

(even i have boundaries--

thin ones they may be,

but they be.)

In Ohio,

i am no longer

an insomniac.

i am sleeping

in the comfort of my parents'

politely quietly tastefully

decorated guest room

as if i was at a bed & breakfast in Maine.

that is to say

like

a

bear

in

winter.

sleeping so hard at night 

i am having all the classic dreams--

If you were in my class between first and eighth grade

you've totally been in them.

if we have ever done a play together,

you are there, too,

helping me into a costume that doesn't fit

or searching for the script

of the play

to which

i have forgotten

the lines. 

Often you eighth graders and actors

have dream subplots together of your own,

as if you absolutely

belong in a Shakespeare play 

in plaid Catholic school uniforms

eating melting ice cream.

In Ohio,

i am sleeping so hard

my face has a new shape when i wake up.

the shape is not a pretty shape.

what my face-fat can transform into throughout the night

is nothing short of abstract art

except that I shouldn't dignify what i see in the mirror

in the mornings

as "art"

capes

We’ve been headed somewhere

Haven’t we?
We’ve been following
The mental trajectory
Of an overly prepared
Highly anxious
Midlife woman
In the epicenter
Of the epicenter
Of a global pandemic.

It’s been a wild ride
And loads of laughs,
But, let’s take a diversion
Let’s swerve the steering wheel,
Do a one-eighty,

Take a wild imagination
And flip it over.
Like a back handspring-
But one and a half times-
And land it on its head.

the victim is now the hero.

a hero who can do backflips!
and escape from fires
evade disease and illness
say the right thing at the right time
(and the thing is witty.)
she is 45, yes, and short
positively Napoleonic in response to the towering world around her
she has been called "small but mighty"
and she believes she lives 5 feet two inches up to the term.

you following?

it's me.
the hero is me
the short one
the insecure short one
who is 45 years old

yes,
after much debate with myself
and long consideration (roughly the duration of a shower)
I’ve decided to introduce another side of myself.

you have already met anxiety-me,
or as one reader put it:
“Dark Ginna”
–which I love, and expect to use to sign autographs if ever given the opportunity–

but “Dark Ginna” is merely the nemesis... or alter-ego...?
of the hero behind the mask
it's a mask that goes over the nose and mouth
and should be worn inside public places
the mask is pink
and was sewn by a powerful wise woman
whose identity remains hidden behind the name
 “nana.”
nana is fierce.
the mask is fierce.
it's pink and small and made by a grandma in Ohio
and it fucking saves lives.

long sleeves, high neck

I would like you to think just for a second and I mean this literally except the second part that I mean figuratively I want you to literally think for a figurative second about a difficult topic so you're gonna hafta brace yourself a little like if you thought you were going to read a funny post about how lockdown life has forced me to use Sheffield's old boxer briefs to clean the kitchen floor well you're just gonna hafta wait (that post could potentially exist) but for now you're gonna hafta set aside that hope and what you did before you were here and what you are planning to do afterwards okay? the dinner you had earlier, the workday you had, the drinks I'm hoping you had... set all that aside.  So for instance there might be a really amazing cocktail or an episode of The Wire in your future but I need you to just put that on mental-hold, got it?

and I want you to consider
the people you know
whose hair
you would style
after that person was dead
and embalmed
and cold

I'll wait.

world's borough

It could take a while for them to identify me 

my body

to connect it with a name, 

a New York resident. 

To die

with no one you know

with you

Is a pretty awful thought.

A nurse would be nice.

Nurses are nice

But there a not a lot of nurses to go around

It might be a nurse who speaks your language

But it might not

This is Queens, after all, home to roughly eight hundred languages. 

“The World’s Borough.”

If I could choose

If anyone could hear me through the respirator

I think I would request

Not my language

Any other language will do

Because in English it will all sound so cliche

Whatever end-of-life words are uttered

Speak to me in a Romance language

Speak to me in Czech

I bet in Arabic "it will be okay" sounds elegant.

Even lying in a hospital bed

Knowing it's coming

Or, worse, not knowing

But fearing.

no breath to make the sounds

to form the words

to connect your last thoughts

to the nice nurse

who will close your eyelids for you

So just looping thoughts of

who will tell them

who will take care of them

who will defrost the chicken

That's just torture.

No one should have to die like that

I think my death is preferable:

a don't-know-what-hit-me kind of

she-never-saw-it-coming type of

ignorance-is-bliss sort of death.

I prefer that kind; appealing by comparison.

No anticipation...

No looping worries.

Lucky me.

Always, when I biked the streets of Queens,

I tucked my New York ID in a pocket in the backpack I always wore.

---

My driver's license says Ohio and bears my parents’ address.

(auto insurance…

voting …

you understand)

It’s confusing, I know. 

But that's why, with biking, always the New York ID. 

The phone, too, I suppose

Could be helpful

They should be able to trace that.

I rarely have a job that would notice me missing,

dig up my employee contact sheet, and make some calls.

I'm a freelancer

When I am working, I am present.

If an actor doesn't show up to rehearsal,

no "emergency contact" is necessary, really,

the assumption is that she is dead.

When I am not working, no one notices what I do at all.

In this way, lockdown life is oddly familiar to me.

I don't have to force myself to take a shower

Or set some goals

I just do.

Structuring a day, without a boss over me

is kinda my thing.

Unemployment is not glamorous

The term "gig worker,"

so popular in the media,

is kind of gross.

The world loves its artists

But our country is not set up to value

The freelance worker.

You've likely seen the headlines stating

Gig-Workers Last to Receive Unemployment Benefits.

A quick Google Search brought up 7 such headlines

from within the last two days.

I am unsurprised.

It's easy for me to feel,

-global pandemic or not-

Much less than essential.

Still, I think there is something skillful and creative and satisfying

About structuring one's own productive day

One's own little life.

And after life, I just want to be identified

That feels like the tiniest effort I can make

To ease the inconvenience of my untimely death.

(I don't think it's conceited to assume it will be inconvenient.

Do you?

I didn't say devastating

I didn't suggest tragic

But inconvenient?

Yeah, lots of shit will not get done that day.)

So, as all overly prepared midlife women do,

I, of course, took the 90 seconds required to type in an I. C. E. contact.

In Case of Emergency  

At the time of my death,

Someone shouts “call 911.”  

It is probably not in English.  

It could be Spanish.  

Bengali.   

Japanese.

The World’s Borough.

Nueve Uno Uno 

Somehow it will be depressed or tapped on a phone, perhaps my own

And my accident will be the source of 1,000 curse words in almost as many languages all up and down 21st Street as sirens blare and an ambulance blocks traffic.

My husband will sleep through it all.   

At the instant of impact, 

the car hitting my bike, 

my body hitting the road, 

he will wake with a start,  sit up:  

“somethings off” 

“something’s wrong”

but as I’m usually gone in the early hours, he will flip his pillow over to the cool side, snuggle in, and go back to sleep. 

As for my daughter -five-  the disturbance will enter her dreams, but she will not remember it.  A chill will come over her, and she’ll roll over, sigh, forget to pull the blanket with her -a wrong  I usually right after my morning bike ride- and sleep right through my death. 

But the chill will be hard to shake all day.

I will be taken in an ambulance, unconscious, against my will.

Consciously, I'd have asked “is this covered by insurance?” 

As blood leaks out of my nose and ears.

“Let's get a quote on this first.” 

But wordlessly, I lie there, helpless,

Knowing that a painfully high bill is going to land on my husband's lap.

That, and our shared credit card bill.  Yipes.

Just two months ago, and one month before Covid-19 grimly reaped Queens and much of greater New York, my family's health insurance was in question.  (I could write a whole other post on that infuriating experience.  In fact, I have, but it is stranger than fiction and I don't think anyone will believe it.)  In short, I left a "stable" teaching job in May, and returned to a freelance life.  (I'm trying to avoid the "g-word.")  The health insurance that came with the teaching job ended on September first.  Which meant I -and my family- were technically covered for part of September:  That.  One.  Day.  (I'm already heating up as I revisit in my mind this enormous crock of horse shit.  I'm not kidding.  I'm hot like I just ate eight chili peppers.) So, because of That.  One.  Day. of coverage, we were ineligible for new coverage for the rest of the month.  That was September 2019.  I sent my daughter off to kindergarten.  I held my breath every day.  I didn't ride a bike.  The coverage eventually came through.  We have to reapply every couple of months, however, and when we reapplied in December we entered a maddening loop of submission, rejection, submission, rejection --because we are freelancers and no one at The NY Department of Health can wrap their minds around income that doesn't come from a single source--  which went on and on and on (see future blog post for the tedious details.  Except this one, I have to share this one detail:)   At one point, and I do not fictionalize, the DOH requested proof of income from our daughter.  "And how does Katherine contribute to the household income?"  When we coughed-laughed-gagged: "she's a kid, she's five."  The rep actually suggested that we write a letter stating that Katherine L. Chastain does not contribute to the household income because she is five.            . . .  I mean, I'll write that letter.  I can't wait to write that letter.  Straight-faced sarcasm is perhaps my favorite device.  But you think the DOH might wanna simply open the application and READ HER DATE OF BIRTH?  The upshot was that after four application submissions, we finally got coverage.  Except my daughter.  Who is five.  (This was a moment when I'd like to think my prayers have some effect.  That they carry the slightest weight on their way to the ears of my God.)  Who.  Who.  Who does not break their fucking back to make sure that the five year old is insured?  Can she have mine?  No.  Can we get some temporary coverage while you work through the paperwork?  No.  What if something happens?  No.  December: no  January:  no.  Mid-January: no.  February, I call lawyers:  still no.  She is granted health coverage on March first.  March 1, 2020.   We live in Queens.  Are you reading the news?  Schools closed on March 16.  Two week incubation period.  "Gig workers."  I gag on the word gig.  If I hear "gig" one more time during this crisis, I will punch a window.

So.

Here I am.  A dead gig worker in an ambulance.

A dead gig worker in an ambulance with questionable health insurance.

A thrifty dead gig worker in an ambulance with questionable insurance.

“I'm dead!” I want to holler. “We can skip expensive ambulance trip!”

But off we go.

Not thrifty anymore.

Just dead. 

I'm watching it all from an aerial point of view and I can see...

everything.

Past, present, future.

It's my past “flashing” as they say,

and intersecting with the paths of other people,

some I know and some I don't.

This guy who saw what happened...

this poor soul...

this witness. 

I see his dinner from the night before.

If he had cooked instead of eaten carry-out, he'd have gone to bed later. He'd have set his alarm for a little later, he'd have missed the sight of my death that he can now never forget. He thinks of his daughter and his son.

He prays that they are safe.

He prays they never learn to ride a bike.

Nueve Uno Uno 

Past, present, and future.

A future without me

is what I see

And it's okay. 

It's hers, mostly, my little girl’s,

sole carrier of my genes. 

Her future. 

My eyes and my cheeks.

Her motherless life. 

A knowledge of me based more on my Facebook posts then on reality:

Photos of the autumn trees in Central Park

Production shots of me in period costumes, mouth always torqued in mid-delivery

Flattering photos I posted of myself in which the forehead creases have been carefully and amateurly erased.

Phrases like “ha ha”

and

“i know, right?” 

I didn’t even bother to capitalize the “i” in “I know.” 

And now, this is how she’ll know me. 

She will spend years writing a lowercase “i”

as her first-person subject-pronoun. 

And, knowing omnisciently that it was my thoughtless influence, 

I,

Her writer mother

Will die.  

All. 

Over. 

Again.

I see her awkward high school days

Her first kiss.

College. 

A family.

And she's all right. 

(I mean, she’s smoking a lot of weed, but she’s all right.)

As an adult at parties, friends of mine tell her stories about me:

"Your mom was great!  We did a play together once." 

Or acquaintances:  "I knew your mom.  Gig-worker, right?"

But she has grown up

In The World's Borough

And she knows now

That income from several different sources

Is still income

That royalty checks

Built her college fund

And residuals

Bought pizza on Fridays

And "1099" vs. W-2

In any other language

Sounds kind of  pretty

Even elegant

as elegant

as the little life

it afforded

*A Note Regarding Last Post

Guys, thanks for reading my last post, a fine lie.  First of all, I have been misusing the term "quarantine," and I hate to misuse as much as I hate to misrepresent. We are not actually in quarantine; no one in my family was diagnosed with Covid-19. I'm sorry to have perpetuated the misuse. (But, c'mon, the rhyme in the title was too good to pass up.)

Also, here's what happened: the first line of a fine lie is "I don't want to talk about it," and what I got in response was five separate offers to talk about it.  And one observation that I turn to Jesus. I did turn to Jesus, but I still don't want to talk on the phone. Guys, I'm okay. I promise. That I am writing is your signal that I am okay.  And, game-changer: we got a clothes-rack (photo above.) The pandemic is bad. Am I anxious? Yes. Occasionally depressed? Yes. Do I sit here contemplating my death and my daughter's motherless life? Sure, but I was doing that anyway! (See today's post.)