patience, please

It was because of the backpack that I felt anything today, so far. I’m writing while both my children have a Zoom playdate, which, to my eye, is really just one kid showing the other the various toys in their room while laying on bunkbeds. This particular friend has a Barbie house; this has been the talk of our apartment for weeks now.

Let’s see the couch!, one is demanding now.

I’ve been talking too, on my smaller screen, to my sister, my friend, to the cats, to the crying kid on the floor, crying hysterically because she didn’t want to clean up the pile of clean laundry she’d scattered across the floor during her Zoom playdate, ostensibly a fashion show.

Here is my pet turtle., the kid in the screen is saying. He’s not real.

I am feeling the laundry peace today. The peace that passeth all understanding. The laundry is done. Fortuitously, my parents’ apartment building has a single washer and dryer in its basement which is how we’re doing it these days, our regular laundromat and it’s owner, Shirley, have closed up shop for now. I am deeply grateful.

Because my hands were full, my shoulders heavy with the Ikea bag of laundry, sheets and all, I needed a bag that wasn’t a tote. I needed my backpack. My backpack, an artifact, frozen in time and shoved in the front closet with the door that doesn’t close. My backpack, a relic from the long eight weeks ago, back when I was walking hospital halls, teaching in classrooms, just beginning to distance and laughing a little at how surreal it was to not be able to hug one another, all while still riding the subway, carefully. My backpack, my first aid kit, inside it a small zippered bag that holds essentials like hand sanitizer, a phone charger, Ibuprophen, dry shampoo, a travel brush. In the top pocket of my backpack, an errant Macrobar, a grocery list that calls for “chips of all sorts,” gum, a pen. This backpack, a piece of technology that I used to use every single day of my life, has been rendered useless until today. Today, I needed to carry more than my hands could.

I am longing to use something other than my hands. Hands on dishes, hands on screens, hands on bodies scratching backs gently before bed, hands on tabletops, hands petting the cats, hands using disinfectant wipes, hands washing one another. I want to carry more on my back, to be able to take on more. To make a decision or a plan and move towards it, bag packed and ready to go.