Lily of the Valley
06/04/20
By Heather Gabel
About two months into lockdown, I was taking a walk at dusk with my ten-year-old after a long day of home schooling. We went out, right after rain, to check on a spot where we thought a lily of the valley might finally have bloomed. We’ve walked together every day since school closed, and so we know when everything in the neighborhood is about to bloom. We find it all. It is incredible. Bloomed and blooming.
While we were looking over the fence into the yard, a little scrap of a guy with sparkly eyes came out on his back porch. He looks old and young. We’re in his alley, and he's yelling to us, but we can't understand each other through our masks or over the highway noise. I asked, "Is this your garden? Do you know these flowers?" He came down and told me it was his garden, but also it wasn't. He lived there, but he didn't plant them or anything. Actually, he said he'd never noticed them.
I said they were the first ones to bloom in the neighborhood, and the biggest I had ever seen. I made him smell them. He didn't get close enough at first, so I told him to really, like, get down in there. “Whoaaaaaah,” he said. “Wowww. Whoaaaah, wow. Thanks for making me smell them. Thank you.”
After that, we talked about 5G towers. We talked about meditating (he said he was working on being non-judgmental of people with other points of view). We talked about COVID and conspiracies, and COVID and poor people, and COVID and Black people. We talked about real shit right away. It was refreshing. He had ‘PRETTY’ tattooed on his neck. I was charmed, to be honest. While we kept talking, his neighbor came silently through her backyard gate and handed my daughter a small lily of the valley bouquet from her yard, for me. I was dazzled.
We went home. I felt. Everything already felt unreal, and now it was all very dreamlike. For days, the past couple of months and the smell of the flowers in my room all reminded me of the potential of everything, coupled with the fleeting nature of life.
After that, the days kind of rolled on. Same as before, same as the next. Too scared of my bank balance to check it. Trying to hustle, since I wasn't going to have any income soon. But also slowing down and being present, because the time with my daughter felt like a gift. When Ahmaud Arbery was murdered by two white men while jogging, I had conversations with her about white privilege, systemic violence, and the police. Then George Floyd was murdered. I talked to her about the responsibility we have as people who have privilege because of the systemic oppression of Black people.
She doesn't want to talk about it. It makes her feel bad. I tell her it's too important. We are going to talk about it. I tell her about how my family never talked to me about racism when I was a kid, and that I need to talk to her about it. She said "We DO talk about it." And she's right. I don't know what to say. I wrote her this haiku:
no one thought to share
this sickness is a privilege
we are not immune
She likes it better when I read to her from the fat slab of Russian poetry next to my bed, though.
A couple of nights later, while I was looking through the news, I saw, “Man in Joker mask charged with torching Chicago cop car faces at least 5 years in federal prison if convicted.” In the photo, I can clearly see it says PRETTY on his neck. Unbelievable. I was blown away by the small worldness of recognizing him from real life. I scribbled two hasty notes and rode my bike around the corner to put one in the mail slot of his house and one in his neighbor's. His neighbor called me the next day and filled me in on what was happening. She said we'd talk soon, and that everyone crosses our paths for a reason.
I haven't thought about the pandemic very much. I live in it; masked, mindful. The surge of vital energy mounting in the streets is a salve. In retrospect, I think quarantine might have been the catalyst some people needed to ready themselves for action and the work ahead. I am using my hands how I have always used my hands: to connect with others, in an effort to offer what help I can. The whisper of a feeling in my head says that systemic change is not only possible, but has begun.
Get to know about the Community Justice Exchange: https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org
To donate to Justice for Breonna Taylor: https://www.gofundme.com/f/9v4q2-justice-for-breonna-taylor
To donate to the George Floyd Memorial Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd
To donate to support Ahmaud Arbery’s mother and family: https://www.gofundme.com/f/i-run-with-maud
Heather Gabel is a Chicago-based visual artist, mother, and singer in the band HIDE. Gabel's work confronts ideas about gender, power dynamics, inclusion, and representation through collage, film and performance.