#newsamehope / 4.21.20
What is new in the last 24 hours?
Two men awaiting trial at Cook County Jail died at Stroger over the weekend due to COVID. We have now lost 6 people incarcerated at CCJ, as well as at least one correctional officer.
Starting April 23rd, Evanston will require a face mask or covering for individuals entering an essential business.
Cal State Fullerton announces that its fall semester will held online.
What is the same?
I’ll be damned if a baked sweet potato isn’t the best dish 49 cents can buy you.
What is the hope?
I haven’t had a regular exercise practice since I was at NTI in 2008, sooo...it’s been a minute. I’ve done yoga every single day for more than a week, and that feels like a really big deal. In the past, I’ve justified not working out because I waited tables for so many years (and believe me, that is definitely a workout). Paying attention to my body and committing to a regime aren’t things I ever thought I’d actually do. It’s not that I didn’t know that it’s a good idea to exercise and to make your muscles move. I just...didn’t do it. After ten minutes of sun salutations yesterday, my new virtual friend Adriene told me to rest my thumbs on my chest, and I felt my heart beating with the ferocity that accompanies exercise. It made me cry a little, feeling my heart beat faster and knowing that my heart is capable of speeding up like that. Knowing that I’m alive and that this little beating heart keeps me going. That I’m alive and that I’ve missed out on noticing the beating of my heart. I thought of Joyce Piven and her incorporation of sun salutations at the top of rehearsals. How that meant we had a room full of quickened pulses. How everyone’s hearts sped up together, to pump out blood to the same rhythm for the same reason.
Little hearts everywhere, beating madly, working their hardest. Until they don’t. Grateful for the time and space that I have to be grateful for my heart. And to really feel that gratitude. Not just pay it lip service in a “thank you, heart, for beating and thank you, sun, for shining, and thank you, LaCroix, for creating the Pamplemousse flavor” kind of way. Thank you, little heart, for going and going and going and for loving and yearning and for doing your best to give me clues when I’m onto something good.
Photo: The view of the Chicago skyline from a patch of rocks near Montrose Harbor, next to the golf course that I always forget about. Fall 2019.
