Into the Wild...and back home again

I spent most of the day checking in on the teachers I work with and trying to figure out what my work is actually going to look like in the coming weeks or months, while Ruby tried to chew up all my things (her new favorite pastime is to raid my laundry basket and spread my unmentionables across the yard--little pervert).

I decide to head out of the city to find a trail to do with Ruby to get some of her pent up energy out and to give myself a little exercise (after all, I need to start strengthening my lungs). So we got in the car, masked up (I have a cloth mask with little N99 filters left over from the fires last summer), and headed to Ancil Hoffman Park on the American River.

It was such a good move. The whole park only had a smattering of cars in it, mostly young families, so there was no chance of me breathing someone else's air. I put Ruby on the retractable and she had an absolute blast smelling all the smells, and only ripped my arm out of its socket once.  I realized that I need to get out more into the nature-y bits of Sacramento. I get so sick of the city (I'm definitely a country mouse) and have this idea that Sacramento is just an endless sprawl of suburb, but that's not true.

Something about the smell of damp dirt and the big old-growth oaks surrounded by grass and bramble, reminded me of walking around in Richmond Park, just Southwest of London.  It was a similar kind of retreat from the hustle and bustle (and grime) of the city. It made me miss those days back in 2016 when I was living in Kingston-on-Thames. I'd leave the archives early, hop off the bus at Ham House on the outskirts of Richmond Park, and wonder through the fields and parkland to the garden house I was staying in.

I've been feeling so wistful for that time in my life when I was traveling more often than not. I've been in contact with a friend currently doing research in Australia, even at the same repository I worked in, The Mitchell Library, and who, like me, made a side trip up to Northern Queensland to do the Great Barrier Reef and rainforests up there. And I just felt this incredible sense of longing. During those long research trips, I was so exhilarated and so lonely, but I kind of normalized it in my mind. And now I mourn the loss of that time, or the hope of that time again. I wish I had paid more attention. I wish I had chronicled my time more methodically. I wish that I had researched less and adventured more!

I still find myself so torn between the life I had as an academic (the cliched "life of the mind" and the life of constant novelty and intense flexibility, as well as the constant and toxic uncertainty around self, place, work, and future) and the more settled, more connected life I have now. But it's a false sense of tornness, because that first life can't be mine again. I'm not just being fatalistic--once you leave academia, you can't go back again. Not anymore. That still feels devastating to me.

And that's what I was thinking about as I was walking down by the river, that is until Ruby stopped, squatted, pooped, and then danced around while I tried to pull an entire latex glove out of her asshole. There is nothing like a puppy to ground a person. All in all, though, I felt better afterwards. I walked 2.5 miles. Ruby walked about 15 miles. (Y'all dog owners know how this is possible).

I've tried to avoid the news today, particularly after my sister sent along an article about the vulnerability of young babies to the virus. I love my niece and nephew more than anything in the world, and to think of them sick or in critical care is just too awful. I remember those long few days, watching them working so hard to breathe or eat in the NICU. Anxiety is catching, and I didn't know what to say. We are doing everything we know to do. And we have shit data.

I read the headlines "US coronavirus cases soar past 8,500" and I'm like, that number is such a small percentage of people infected now, and growing smaller by the day. They still aren't even testing anyone, regardless, of symptoms, if they haven't been traveling overseas. We are past that point. Community transmission is the new normal. This isn't the fucking "China virus." It never was. Sacramento County says that it can test 40 people per day, no more. Until we get real numbers, people are not going to take this seriously. And, of course, I can't do shit about it.