Little Town

 Wednesday, April 8

My sister and I had to drive to our dad’s house in northfield to pick up his mail and send it out to him in California. The weather was it’s usual Chicago spring, the sky flickering between a bright Tiffany blue and a dark stormy gray. Coming from Des Plaines, I could see the normal bustle of people in the streets: kids playing, people biking, senior citizens hobbling alone. As we were driving closer and closer to my dads house all of a sudden a flood of people were on the streets. There was an overwhelming amount even though they were all fairly spaced out. I wasn’t used to seeing the small town of Northfield crowded with people on the streets. In a sense I am thankful for the disease bringing back life into the streets. The large amount of people being seen out in the open the small town of 1000 people felt like it was so much more. There were so many faces I’ve never seen before, not even at the grocery store or the local church, the world felt like it expanded. In the sky you can see the sun fade from Miss Bright sapphire blue into a blazing orange pink and it seemed out of otherworldly.in the sky you could see the sun fade from its bright sapphire blue into a blazing orange pink and it seemed otherworldly. Laughter, warm sun, and the buzz of the town had this gravitational pull and I wanted to lay in my yard and stay in that moment. Self isolation, but not. We were all together, but separate, going through this time together. We all were in the same world, yet each if still has our own story to tell.

Vincent & Wind Song

She’s Missing Home

                 

                I felt this restlessness and void from the lack of traveling to go see home or family members. For the past four years I’ve always traveled somewhere to go see family members I can’t normally see. Whether it was the Philippines or California, the trips always satiated my desire to see people who are important to me. I think the biggest devastation that I have felt because of this virus is the fact that I wasn’t able to travel. For the past year my father and I have been discussing a chance for my sister and I to either see him in California or go back home to the Philippines to see my grandma during spring break. We dreamed about plans of walking on the beach and seeing palm trees towering above gumamela flowers. In the horizon you can see “balay balay” and Filipino boats floating gently above vibrant coral forests. Just as we were trying to finalize plans and make our dreams into reality Covid-19 hit us. I could see the vast ocean slowly fade into the dark brown flooring of my room and the wide open landscape shrink to the confinement’s of my room. We are stuck. My dad is trapped in California for the next three months, working the front line defense against Corona, ICU ward in a hospital. He will miss my birthday and I will miss dreaming with him for the meantime.

               The restlessness of my family’s company has not abandoned my body, unlike my hopes. Staring at the ukulele in the corner of my room I picked up three Bottles of acrylic kids paint and two paintbrushes and got to work. The world my father and I discussed slowly appeared on the body of the ukulele and all my anxiety and restlessness left mine. Although this wasn’t a ticket to the arms of my loved ones, it gave me cement to fill this void I felt. Time of distress and distraction I’m glad that there are such things as creation and joy.