Category: Reflection

It is the summer solstice and, at this latitude, there are 16 hours of daylight today. With the trees bursting with green leaves and the blue sky without clouds, we quickly forget that the dark, wet winter days are what put the shimmering snow we now see on the distant mountains.

As we pour outside in our shorts, tee shirts, and sunglasses, we don’t speak of desperation: The desperation during the winter solstice, when thousands of people in the US died each day from Covid-19, when mothers quivered from feelings of unfair guilt due to the impossible burdens of raising children and working, when poor people wondered if they could get work that day to buy enough food to feed their families. When there were only eight and a half hours of daylight, desperate tent cities popped up like mushrooms following a storm. Desperate women smoked stimulant drugs like methamphetamine to stay awake through the night to decrease the chance that someone would rape them. Desperate young people took their own lives, unable to foresee how their circumstances could ever improve.

The cool breeze from the Salish Sea on this glorious summer day doesn’t sweep away the desperation: Emergency departments, hospitals, and clinics don’t have enough staff[1. Who and where are the people taking care of the health care workers?] to care for the desperate people seeking help. Institutions struggle with race and racism: Why did the white supervisor enter the Black person’s office and remove the “Black Lives Matter” sign that was adorned with the institution’s logo? Sirens[2. Who and where are the people taking care of first responders?] continue to wail through the streets at all hours, past the tent cities that persist outside of boarded up storefronts, under freeways, and in patches of public land overrun with dandelions.

Though we don’t speak of desperation, we feel it and then grasp with greed: Let me witness the shaking of the leaves as the breeze moves through the trees. Let me listen to the arboreal applause. Let me squint at the sunlight and find the moon during the day. Let me watch the clouds, let me witness how they change, let me remember that clouds always change, that they are always with us even when they disappear from view. Let me recognize what the clouds are trying to teach me.

I survived. The pandemic has been with us for over a year and I was lucky enough to live. I never got infected, I never got sick. I was not one of the 601,000+ people in this country who died. Don’t I have some obligation to make the most of my time here because I lived?

The antidote to desperation is gratitude, though even my gratitude feels desperate. There are so many people to thank and prayers of gratitude to utter. I want to hold this summer day in my hands, to feel the texture of the evening breeze, to see how the sky changes colors as the earth rotates away from the sun tonight.

Over a year had passed since my father, a Chinese American in his 70s, had eaten a meal with another person.

Prior to the pandemic, he set out from his apartment every weekday morning to walk through downtown Seattle. He enjoyed disappearing into the crowds that provided him with anonymity and safety. The concrete hills provided a physical challenge and the fresh air rejuvenated his spirits.

When the Covid-19 pandemic arrived, my father, a reluctant senior citizen, cloistered himself in his apartment. He left his home only to buy groceries, as he wanted to choose his own bunches of baby bok choy, sacks of rice, and cloves of garlic. Though he and I met every Sunday to walk together, he declined to meet: His fears of getting sick were greater than his desire to walk outside. He learned how to make video calls and paced in his apartment.

With the summer weather and declining Covid-19 case counts, along with coaxing from his daughter about the mental health benefits of walking, my father resumed his routine strolls. The commuter crowds had vanished. A face mask provided him with anonymity and safety, though only boarded windows and people with nowhere else to sleep other than the sidewalk witnessed him walking up and down the concrete hills.

Neither the cooler weather nor autumnal rains discouraged him from walking outside. However, when he learned that a few people had shoved elderly Asian Americans to the ground, he paused. “I am a senior citizen,” he murmured, “and I can’t move fast. That could be me.”

When someone knocked a young Asian American woman unconscious in Chinatown, he gave up his morning walks. With a chuckle, he explained, “It’s okay! Walking in my apartment is just as good as walking outside.” He and I both knew that this is untrue. He then tried an alternative explanation: “It’s because I haven’t gotten the Covid vaccine yet.” Then, after he got his vaccination? “There’s still anti-Asian sentiment. Walking in my apartment is just as good as walking outside.”

My father immigrated to the US before Congress proclaimed the first ten days of May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week. He knew that some Americans would view him with condescension: Though fluent in English, he speaks with a Chinese accent. He grew up in a different culture marked by poverty, military rule, and limited opportunities. He recognized that he did not look, think, or act like “real” Americans who were corn-fed with blue eyes and blonde hair. However, he never thought that America would stray so far from its expressed ideals, that white supremacy would declare itself without shame, that everyday people might assault him because of these differences.

This is the paralyzing toxicity of racism. Most people will not push an elderly Chinese American man to the ground. However, when a few individuals scream racial slurs at people who sound like you and slash faces that look like yours, you wonder how much anonymity and safety you actually have. It doesn’t matter that my father worked in computer programming before it was cool at companies like McDonnell Douglas and Boeing. It doesn’t matter that he protested against the government of China after the Tiananmen Square massacre. It doesn’t matter that he loves America because of the ideals of democracy, freedom, and justice.

When you don’t know when you should be worried, you always worry.

Recently, my father and I were finally able to share a meal in his apartment. In those quiet moments, we enjoyed freedom from worry: We had health, safety, and peace. The US now dedicates the entire month of May as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Asian Americans continue to wonder if others will ever accept the “American” part of that label. When we can stop worrying?