by Zibby Owens
While the people of Panem actively fight their class divide and oppression, it has taken a combination of a global pandemic, a racial reckoning, and the Trump Administration for many in America to finally acknowledge the systemic injustices that exist in our world.
With nowhere else to go or look, life-and-death stakes have forced us to see what we are so we may evolve.
We live with an infrastructure that rewards people for being white, murders people for being black, and depends upon and exploits essential workers. Dystopian literature like The Hunger Games reflects our current realities because our reality is dystopian. It always has been. What is new is our enforced physical and spiritual quarantine; with nowhere else to go or look, life-and-death stakes have forced us to see what we are so we may evolve.
With dystopian literature, the reader looks within and around with boldness and curiosity. We enter a pact with the author that says, “I’m not hiding anything. This is what we may become should we continue in our current manner.” It’s why memoir and dystopian literature are a perfectly compatible couple residing in my home. When Atwood describes June’s entrapment in The Handmaid’s Tale, or Collins voices Katniss’s rage over a corrupt government, they channel thoughts I’ve had, sentences I’ve spoken.
I turn to them now for wisdom amid the madness. Through quarantine, Atwood reminds me that even in the barest of rooms and direst of circumstances, a woman has her resilience. In fact, Katniss adds, it is the bareness of the room, the direness of the earth, that stokes the fire within.
Reema Zaman is an award-winning speaker, actress, and the author of the debut memoir I Am Yours.
The Books Getting Me through Quarantine
EILENE ZIMMERMAN
The titles I turn to when things fall apart.
I live in New York City’s West Harlem neighborhood, and I’m likely going to be here for the duration of this pandemic. My kids are three thousand miles away on the West Coast, and even if—in my panic and fear and motherly anxiety—I wanted to rush to them, I really can’t. There are few flights now, for one thing. Driving my ten-year-old Ford Fiesta across the country is not a realistic option, and my kids have small apartments and roommates. And anyway, it would be irresponsible to bring whatever I have or have not been exposed to in New York City out of state during a public health crisis.
Instead, I’m holed up in my apartment, trying to promote my book Smacked as best as I can, finishing graduate school, and spending too much time on Twitter. I am trying to meditate each day, in order to get my mind to stop spinning out scenario after scenario (none of them good), to refocus on the fact that I’m here and healthy and loved—and that’s something. Really, that’s everything.
I’m also constantly reminding myself that control is an illusion. Sure, we can control how we react to things. We can don masks and gloves and plan out a trip to the pharmacy or supermarket; we can put in new rules for kids at home trying to do schoolwork remotely. We can cram a table into a corner and call it a home office, for now. These are things we do to put some order and structure into our lives, but that’s not the same as control. And that lack of control, the not knowing, is what is creating anxiety and despair for so many of us—I should know.
. . . you can plan and plan and plan and then life happens the way it happens . . .
My memoir is about many things, and one of them is that although we think we have a pretty good idea of how things will unfold in our lives, we’re usually wrong. My ex-husband and the father of my children died in a way I never anticipated, never in a million years. He was only fifty-one years old, incredibly smart and successful, financially well-off, a partner in a sexy, Silicon Valley law firm, supremely capable. And yet . . . he died on his bathroom floor, an intravenous drug addict.
I was on the phone with my son the other day, a newly minted college graduate now facing a collapsing job market, trying to adjust his expectations of both the near future and the world in general. We were talking about how nothing is turning out the way we thought it would. And I said, “We should know this, we should know this because of what happened to Dad.” We reminded each other that yes, you can plan and plan and plan and then life happens the way it happens and the only control we have is in our reaction.
My reaction to the current crisis, as a writer and reader, is a turn toward books—reading and listening to them. I’m reading in two ways. One that lets me escape—books about invented worlds of Greek gods and mythical wars, like Circe by Madeline Miller and The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. I read The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love by Kristin Kimball, so I could immerse myself in Kimball’s experience of moving from New York City to start a farm on five hundred acres near Lake Champlain. I read—again—my friend Adrienne Brodeur’s luscious memoir Wild Game, with its mouth-watering descriptions of food and Cape Cod, and I even downloaded the audio book of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I mean, why not?
I’m also finishing up a graduate degree in social work and perhaps because of that, or because I was the one to find my ex-husband Peter dead on his bathroom floor, I’m also drawn to books about fear, about death, about grief, and about being present and bearing witness to all of it. I have read and am reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through The Storm, Kerry Egan’s beautiful book On Living, Joan Halifax’s Being with Dying and Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself, by the Buddhist psychiatrist Mark Epstein.
We can use books to help us make sense of things as they are today, and also to help us imagine a brighter future.
I’m also listening to podcasts where authors talk about books and tell stories. Yesterday I was listening to the podcast Everything Happens hosted by Kate Bowler, author of Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved (which I just ordered from the adorable shop Skylark Books in Columbia, MO). Bowler was speaking with Sister Helen Prejean, a nun who works with inmates on death row in Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. Prejean’s well-known book-turned-movie, Dead Man Walking, is the story of Patrick Sonnier, an inmate who Prejaen befriended and accompanied on his journey to the electric chair, both physically and spiritually. She recalled for Bowler being the only person permitted to be with Sonnier when he was electrocuted. Sonnier wanted her to leave, didn’t want to subject the nun to something so traumatic. But Prejean told Bowler, “All I knew was there’s no way this man is going to be electrocuted to death by the state . . . every face looking at him wants to see him die. And I said, ‘Pat, I don’t know what it’s going to do to me, but you look at my face when they do this, and I’ll be the face of love for you.’”
In all that beauty I felt such sadness. For the world right now, for the world my kids are inheriting, for my city, and, on a very personal level, for Peter, my ex-husband and friend. He died alone, and I truly believe he so needed that face of love at the end.
Like all good stories, Prejean’s is inspirational as well as aspirational. We can use books and stories to help us make sense of things as they are today, and also to help us connect with our higher selves and imagine a brighter future. My reading is helping me understand, every day, the importance of calling friends, seeing them virtually, taking food to my elderly mother and reading to her, making sure everyone in my life knows they are loved. And in turn, knowing I am loved. Because, really, what else is there?
Eilene Zimmerman is the author of Smacked: A Story of White-Collar Ambition, Addiction, and Tragedy. She has been a journalist for three decades, covering business, technology, and social issues for national magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, where she was a columnist for many years.
What My Father Taught Me
ELLIOT ACKERMAN
He never held my baggy pants and bad attitude against me.
Everybody knew the color of my boxer shorts, much to my father’s chagrin. As a teenager, skateboarding was my passion and sagging pants was the style. Every morning I’d shuffle down to breakfast before school, my bel
t cinched at an impossible angle around my hips, the backs of my jeans frayed like some tattered battle flag. Taking my seat at the table, I’d wordlessly spoon up my cereal and slurp the sugary milk from the bowl. My parents’ redline for academics was no Cs on your report card. I brought home mostly B-minuses. An exception was a D in PE. The teacher noted that I fell asleep in meditation exercises and refused to pull up my gym shorts.
I wasn’t a bad teen. I just didn’t care. Most of my friends in high school were a year or two older. They dabbled in drugs. They had parties. At the time it felt edgy; in retrospect it was typical kid stuff.
My brother was quite different. He was two years older, but three years ahead of me in school. A mathematical prodigy, he’d skipped a grade and had gone on to study at Harvard where he also wrestled. To my parents’ credit, never once did it occur to me that they might be prouder of their Harvard-enrolled collegiate wrestling son than their B-minus-delivering skateboarding son. Toward the end of my junior year, my mother was sorting mail at the kitchen table. Each night I usually received one or two promotional materials from colleges. One had arrived from the US Air Force Academy. She showed it to me and threw it in a pile to be trashed with the others. “Wait,” I said. “Let’s keep that one.” She set it off to the side, but not before offering a concerned look.
My father could have easily pointed out that I was hardly a prime candidate for one of the highly competitive service academies. Instead, he simply listened.
When my father asked me about it in my room a couple of days later, I told him I was interested in the military, though admittedly I didn’t really know what that meant. He could have easily pointed out that my grades weren’t great and that I’d never played a single sport. I was hardly a prime candidate for one of the highly competitive service academies. Instead, he didn’t hold my saggy pants against me, or my hair, or anything I’d done up until this moment. He simply listened and said, “We should probably get started.”
Each of the service academies had a physical fitness test for applicants. I printed it out. I put on my gym shorts (pulling them up to the appropriate place, this time) and went to the local park with my father to see how I scored. Push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups were part of the test. I had two minutes to do as many of each as I could. My father had brought a stopwatch, but he wouldn’t need it. I couldn’t last two minutes at anything. That day in the park, I did eight push-ups, about twenty sit-ups, and couldn’t manage a single pull-up.
I brooded over my dinner that night and didn’t say much. The following morning, my father had drawn up an exercise routine on a yellow legal pad. He left it by my door.
That summer between my junior and senior year, I followed the instructions on that legal pad religiously. Each day, my father would ask me: “Did you get your workout in?” He wasn’t being pushy; he was simply letting me know he cared. Some days we took jogs together, on others he drove me to the gym, but mostly he gave me my space. By the fall, my older group of friends was off at college, and I was singularly focused on heading into the military. By Thanksgiving, when those same friends returned home for the holiday, I was unrecognizable.
That year I lettered in two varsity sports and wound up acing the physical fitness test for the service academies. My transformation was dramatic and complete by the spring, when I was on my way into an officer-commissioning program for the Marines.
Each day, my father would ask me: “Did you get your workout in?” He wasn’t being pushy; he was simply letting me know he cared.
I went on to serve eight years in the military in two wars. Today, I’m a father of young children, and when people meet me, I imagine my identity as a veteran is probably what they see first. But it wasn’t always there; in fact, my journey was an improbable one. Had my father not seen what so few could, it’s a journey I likely wouldn’t have made.
On Father’s Day, I say a little prayer of thanks to him. And I say a little prayer for myself: Through poor grades, saggy pants, and too long hair, may I always see my kids not only as they are, but as they might be.
Elliot Ackerman served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and is the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He is the author of five books, including the new novel Red Dress in Black & White.
Rowing into Midlife, One Stroke at a Time
KAREN DUKESS
In a single month, I quit my job, became an empty nester, and joined a community rowing team.
If I told you I’d never been on a team before, I’d be lying. I was on a team. For exactly one day in ninth grade. My mother—the same one who’d lovingly stitched me a needlepoint pillow of a snail saying “Don’t rush me”—convinced me to get moving and try out for the field hockey team. I was five-foot-two, more spherical than strapping, and during that one afternoon learned that thwacking a ball when running with a hockey stick is surprisingly difficult. Ever since, I’ve kept a respectable distance from group sports, sticking to my principle that there’s no me in team.
Until a year and a half ago. It wasn’t a midlife crisis, more a confluence of events in the river of life. In a single month, I’d sold my debut novel, quit my speechwriting job at the United Nations, become an empty nester, and read The Boys in the Boat. I suddenly had time—way too much time—in a quiet home office in a quieter suburb. In that context, a small ad for the community Learn to Row program, an ad I’d seen countless times over the past decade, called out to me. With my newfound freedom, the early—and I mean early—morning sessions were not out of the question. And with a great deal of willpower, I chose not to be intimidated by the photo of the strong female rowers in skimpy Lycra singlets.
What did it matter if I was the weakest, the heaviest, or the oldest? I enrolled.
With burning glutes, a pounding heart, and the sweatiest smile, I felt—for the first time in my life—like I was, maybe, sorta, kind of an athlete.
Just like that, I became a member of the Pelham Community Rowing Association. Four mornings a week, I’d report to the boathouse while the mist was still rising from the water. Together with three other newbie women, along with a few experienced rowers who were there to help out, we would carry the boats on our shoulders down to the dock. I learned how to get in the boat, which is not as easy as it sounds, and after a few weeks, managed to get out of the boat without rolling my body onto the dock like a sea lion. I learned the three phases of the rowing stroke—the catch, the drive, and the recovery—and how to avoid “catching a crab,” when the blade gets caught awkwardly in the water, sometimes so forcefully that the rower is catapulted from the boat.
With the careful instruction of our preternaturally patient coach, Chris, I learned to propel the boat with my legs and mirror the stroke of the rower in front of me without looking at her oars. Day after day, as Chris instructed us through a bullhorn from his launch boat, we learned to row together. Though we may not have become “a poem of motion, a symphony of swinging blades” like those boys in the boat, we sometimes found a rhythm, at least for a little while, and experienced the boat-bound thrill of slicing the lagoon like a knife.
I was in it for the outdoor season when I signed up. The indoor winter rowing machine workouts struck me as all the misery with none of the misty beauty. But by the time the season was over, I’d grown attached to my boat mates. And I wanted to continue to get stronger and better. I signed on for the winter season, and even started to like rowing on a stationary “erg,” probably because I was doing it as part of a team and with a coach.
I wasn’t having a midlife crisis, it was more of a confluence of events in the river of life.
About six weeks into our erg sessions, Chris started talking about the club’s annual indoor regatta, when rowers in various categories compete on ergs in a 2000-meter race, about 1.25 miles. Four of the other women signed up right away. I hesitated. There was an extremely good chance I’d be the slowest in the women-over-fifty category. Who wanted to volunteer to come in
last?
But the more I shared my fears with my teammates, the more I realized that no one cared about how fast I went except for me. It’s often said that women feel invisible when they get older, and that can be painful. But on the flip side, getting older can free you from worrying about what other people think. And the truth was, the more I got used to my plan, the more eager I became to see if I could execute it. Two days before the regatta, I signed up.
The morning of, I drove to a school gym in the Bronx, a trip I’d made countless times to watch my sons play basketball. Now, my palms were the sweaty ones. I hopped on an erg beside my rowing pals and together we warmed up and then made that middle-aged-female, last-minute dash to the restroom. When it was time for our bracket, we wished each other luck and went to our assigned ergs.
Two thousand meters is simultaneously an endurance event and a sprint. I never once glanced at the race board to check my standing. I kept my eyes focused on my erg’s computer screen, on pace with a 2.22 split, my goal of two minutes and twenty-two seconds per five hundred meters. I made my time, to the tenth of a second.
And I came in last. With burning glutes, a pounding heart, and the sweatiest smile, I felt—for the first time in my life—like I was, maybe, sorta, kind of an athlete.
The endorphins carried me through that week. And the next, when the talk back in the studio was all about the threat of a pandemic. And then, three weeks after the regatta, I finished a workout feeling chilled. The next day, I tested positive for the coronavirus. By the end of the week, our boathouse was off-limits. The park where it’s located was turned into a testing site. As I slowly recovered, self-quarantined, rowing wasn’t even on my radar.
