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We Need a Moratorium on #NYTough
New York City has a bad a** reputation.
Those of us who came of age in the 90s have been known to substitute “Crooklyn” for Brooklyn while wearing a “New York F**king City” shirt. We hold Cardi B in the highest regard for identifying as a “Bronx B**tch”.
Grit is all of New York’s shared experience–the social glue that transcends class, ethnicity, and borough of origin.
But I, for one, am growing tired of this image. Alienated and exhausted from 20+ years of tough guy adjectives, I’ve reached the end of my rope. Yes, New Yorkers are #strong and New Yorkers are #tough.
But New Yorkers are human beings and that means we are other things too.
I spent 48 hours this week working from the Financial District–a dramatically different place after COVID. I was often alone on my midday walks and this led me to question the emotional utility of proclaiming #NYTough qualities again and again and again.
Why? Partly because of the law of diminishing returns: overuse has led to a weakening of its power.
But more importantly, I’m troubled by the substance. Toughness may be the armor we don but pain is the path we tread. One cannot separate the two and come up with a slogan for the ages. And so, #NYTough feels empty because it fails to recognize the foundational source of our strength: #NYPain.
Taking in a largely deserted Financial District for the first time, something I’ve never seen in my 20 years in New York, I was struck by the radically different quality radiating from Wall Street’s buildings and sidewalks.
#Fragile best describes it. Achingly fragile, in fact.
This time when I walked down Wall Street, instead of thinking of the New York Stock Exchange, I thought of actual New Yorkers; you and me, still sheepish after the compounded pain of multiple tragedies.
In the evenings, I gazed down from the elevated terrace of my hotel at the wound inflicted on 9/11. What’s been built in the space left from the World Trade Center’s destruction is beautiful because it tells the whole story. The Memorial is a poignant symbol of gaping loss and the Freedom Tower embodies human resilience.
I thought about how our collective understanding of pain and trauma has advanced in the years since 9/11. Awareness of grievous harm done to women, Black people and marginalized communities in general has told us not to approach pain with a fatherly slap on the back. In the language of trauma, an admonition to “stay STRONG!” is problematic; it fails to confer comfort and risks further suffering with the implication that sadness, depression and anxiety are human experiences best crushed by blunt force.
Hopefully movements like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter have taught us some humility with the knowledge that meaningful comfort involves stepping into another’s loss, bearing witness to their grief and providing companionship in such space.
Words like “weak”, “soft”, and their counterparts “strong” and “tough” do not belong here. They negate, oversimplify, and dismiss when our job is to hear, affirm and accept.
I believe New York possesses all the strength it needs to rise back up: it’s always been there and always will be.
I also know where it comes from. That pain is long overdue for some air time.
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The Big Return by Elsie Ramsey
For those of us who are newly vaccinated, I’m curious to know how you feel now that we are returning to physical interaction?
I am living in an unprecedented emotional state, new to my mental health repertoire. It is as if I am a high school senior about to graduate—filled to the brim with naive excitement for the plentiful pleasures of adult life. “Let me loose on the world so I can make my mark!” describes the sentiment well.
I never had the experience of crossing the threshold from being your parent’s child to adult(ish) autonomy that we see so perfectly distilled in the act of leaving home for college. I left high school early for professional reasons and the transition felt unceremonious and disappointing. For this reason, I became convinced that only through the rituals of graduation and moving could one experience the (sacred) gravity of beginning adulthood. The shift in identity depended on an academic transition. Such a literal perspective was typical of my 17 year old way of understanding the world.
Now I know life is littered with crossings; adulthood isn’t something we ever fully achieve. It’s a life long unspooling of opportunities for growth. The big life events society tells us are most impactful—becoming a parent, getting married, meeting the interpersonal challenges that come with those roles—may not, in fact, be impactful at all.
We all know people who are parents but remain developmentally stunted, sometimes more so than their children. Half of marriages fail because the flexibility, honesty and continuous evolution required to meet the challenges of long term coupling are not achievable by many.
The “post-pandemic return to community” crossing is upon us. I’d like to make the argument that this one promises high grade meaning of the magnitude society assigns marriage. We are being presented the opportunity to become radically different, stronger, and less selfish human beings. The new way of being we choose will not be a temporary phase either: it will remain with us for the rest of our lives. Whether you revert to the status quo or summon the bravery to embrace vulnerability over self protection, we are about to graduate to a more advanced phase of adulthood.
It’s easy for me to chose the latter option because I was unhappy before COVID. Even though I was extremely eager to get back to normal for the first 6 months of lockdown, the life I’d been leading was absent the conditions many cling to for feelings of safety and well-being. My incentive to push our societal life in a different direction is therefore strong.
Maybe I’ll soon tire of pursuing connection with those around me and become weary from committing to personal vulnerability every morning. But for now, I’m full of pure enthusiasm.
As I enjoy my first Spring in Philadelphia, you can find me walking down the street with an unprovoked grin and bounce in my step. It has occurred to me that maybe the universe has granted me the sensation of childlike optimism for what lies ahead, along with the deep pride of finishing something long and difficult that I’ve always associated with graduations. At the age of 40, I welcome it.
The question remains how others will approach the return. It’s hard to know if any significant block of people share my dedication to change.
I’m about to find out.
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The Devil We Know by Elsie Ramsey
In the early months of Joe Biden’s Presidency, I often pause to imagine his administration’s capacity for solving even one of the existential crises in full bloom right now. It’s not that I don’t believe President Biden has the best intentions: when he professes virulent opposition to horrors like police brutality towards black Americans, I get no taste of hollow rhetorical flourish.
My musings on feasibility have more to do with the enormity of the issues; wounds and schisms neglected for either decades or centuries now heavy enough to force collapse. A country either not willing or able to take a look in the mirror for so long calcifies into a dystopian wind tunnel.
It took the election and following four years of unspeakable brutality at the hands of Donald J. Trump to expose just how ill this country is. John Fugelsang, a comedian and activist I enjoy on Twitter calls Trump “the stripper pole for broken white men”. And what a show it’s been.
If you accept the fact that America’s prognosis for survival is at best 50/50, you may have the same concerns I do. A radical overhaul of any one of these foundational evils would put Biden in FDR’s league of excellence: Criminal Justice, the Wealth Gap, Student Loan Debt, Healthcare, or Racial Equity.
I could go on but I don’t want to get back in bed after writing this. Notice Climate Change and the Pandemic are missing to soften despair.
The fact is that even before Trump and Corona, Americans lived a life of collective malaise. Whether you realized it or not, our way of life was subverting your true, genuine happiness.
Our leaders made choices. Those choices made us financially vulnerable, isolated and fearful.
It was an America with one core belief: Rugged Individualism. Or put another way “You’re On Your Own”.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is a poster boy for this approach to governing. In the midst of a humanitarian crisis unfolding among his constituents, this guy took his family to Cancun for a little sunshine and pampering. Who other than a statesmen popularly elected based on a record of political expedience, anti-government intervention, and libertarian sound bites would even consider such a flagrantly callous move?
It’s not that Individualism as a value is without merit. But America’s near erotic embrace of private ownership, self advancement and lack of concern for the vulnerable has given way to a form of capitalism too manic to survive.
Let’s imagine America was given a report card right now, in March of 2021. We wouldn’t even pull out a “C”. The richest country in the world would get a D or F depending on if we’re graded on a curve. Multiple basic quality of life indicators are totally absent and the rest of the first world feels pity.
Today is St. Patrick’s Day. Tomorrow or Friday could bring about the following tragedies and the public would not bat an eye.
You could get shot. This isn’t a nation under the thumb of narcotics cartels. Our taxes pay police salaries, yet with absurdly tragic frequency we host mass shootings in schools, public spaces, places of worship and movie theaters. During lockdown we’ve seen the longest period of time without a mass shooting in years.
You could be completely wiped out financially by a health crisis or death in the family. In no other developed country is the healthcare infrastructure so dysfunctional. Look no further than our COVID response for irrefutable evidence.
Are you black? You or a loved one may die or be seriously injured at the hands of the police. That cop will likely pay no price. We all witnessed DC police step softly as a whisper during the white insurrection on the Capitol, and we all saw the National Guard in all their military glory occupying streets full of peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters. No counter argument can be taken seriously.
Again, this is a very abbreviated list.
What’s our path forward? If we’re all vaccinated by the holidays and begin returning to communal life, will we find anything noticeably different than it was in March of 2020?
We must think about what we’re going back to clearly and objectively in the midst of what I expect will be an unspeakably joyful return to one another’s company. The grace period has ended: falling back into the old, miserable routines will assure American destruction.
This time, one unlike any other in history, is our last chance to go for broke. To rebuild, not modify.
Let’s begin.
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Putting Deacon King Kong on Repeat by Elsie Ramsey
In the whisper of borrowed time that was early March 2020, I went to a reading at the Philadelphia Public Library. Clearly it was fate; my favorite living author, James McBride, appeared clutching his masterful novel like a visiting angel. “May God hold you in the palm of His hand”, say the members of Five Ends Baptist, the little ‘nothing’ church at the novel’s moral center. They are saying it to me. But again and again I don’t hear.
I didn’t purchase the book until weeks later when my lockdown depression was loosening and I could read again. I should say listen because audio books are my new discovery and it’s through Dominic Hoffman’s reading that I live. Deacon King Kong’s been on such heavy rotation for months that I’m on the verge of committing passages to memory. I paused today to consider why this particular book has kept me through the violence and psychosis of America during COVID. I’ve done lots of reading but this has been the one to keep me.
It’s 1969. Heroin has arrived in Red Hook. South Brooklyn is still a heterogeneous mix of Italians, blacks, and Latinos who live side by side. Racial tensions simmer but never boil over into violence. The thematic content deals with fate, and resilience in the face of bitter disappointment. McBride shows us life on the socioeconomic margins; his characters find deep, cross-cultural connections based on shared experiences of pain. They fight against the brokenness born of failed marriages, parental neglect and institutions not “concerned with our health” (the mafia or a criminally dysfunctional housing authority, depending on the character’s ethnic origins). And we witness rebirth following millions of small deaths, none of which claim ultimate victory.
How apropos for a time that’s forced us all to the margins!
McBride’s fully drawn human beings shoulder burdens handed down like a penance to the innocent. Generational trauma is mentioned all throughout the novel but equally central are surrogates (church, “chosen family”) that have life saving power.
Our protagonists are good guys who live principled lives in spite of institutional disregard. Potts, an Irish policeman has been demoted for trying to be a “super cop” during a time of flagrant police corruption in New York City. Our hero, the elderly drunkard Deacon “Sportcoat” is hunted by those same cops for firing a protest shot (literally) against heroin’s looming threat of annihilation.
The narrative is full of dizzying digressions that are not digressions at all. Inside the tangential flights, McBride’s message finds its purest expression:
“…while in Manhattan the buses ran on time, the lights never went out, the death of a single white child in a traffic accident was a page one story, while phony versions of black and Latino life ruled the Broadway roost, making white writers rich—West Side Story, Porgy & Bess, Purlie Victorious—and on it went, the whole business of the white man’s reality lumping together like a giant, lopsided snowball, the Great American Myth, the Big Apple, the Big Kahuna, the City That Never Sleeps, while the blacks and Latinos who cleaned the apartments and dragged out the trash and made the music and filled the jails with sorrow slept the sleep of the invisible and functioned as local color”.
Tremendous compassion for human weakness does not preclude the searing indictments of a New York City collapsing under the weight of its own greed. But the bigger picture emphasizes abundance, excessive and ever present. The treasure we seek, McBride suggests, hides in the invisible and ordinary places.
“If all you can remember are the useless things, maybe those aren’t really the useless things” thinks 19 year old drug dealer Deems, preoccupied during recovery from a gunshot wound to his ear, by the memory of giant ants that march through the projects every year.
Those big red ants, carried back inadvertently by a resident returning from a trip to his native Columbia, defy death administered in countless, imaginative ways by a young Deems and friends. They elude study by graduate students sent out from the City College of New York and NYU, institutions “desperately jockeying for public respectability” adds McBride, beginning another digression that’s NOT A DIGRESSION.
With a drug war looming, the 19 year old’s associates and childhood co-conspirators await instructions from their leader, the most “ruthless drug dealer the Cause Houses had ever seen”.
“Watch for the ants” he tells his crew.
Again, he’s talking to me. And this message comes through loud and clear so I look for the important things masquerading as ordinary.
I urge you to read or listen now, before life resumes its normal routines. McBride’s masterpiece is big enough to occupy all the empty space we feel most acutely from the margins.
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Films, Sanity and Black by Elsie Ramsey
Every night, with a small handful of exceptions, I’ve watched a movie in lockdown. I discovered the Criterion Channel and my first, truest love (books) are feeling threatened.
It’s been a deep, magical dive into the visual realm. My heart, intellect and spirit have been calmed, awakened, challenged, shattered and rebuilt by cinema’s look at the human struggle.
Two genres have captured my imagination with unparalleled force; film noir and what I’ll call simply “1970s New York City Realism”.
Noir speaks to me about the nature of female power as understood by men. Truly fertile ground for psychoanalytic musings. Women are:
Duplicitous
Spectacular
Corrupting
Fickle
Brilliant
Let the psychobabble flow…!
Then there are the trips back in time to a New York flooded with muggings, police corruption, Andy Warhol inspired loft parties and sex acts in midtown movie theaters. Each of these films will stay with me for the rest of my life:
Find them — stream them — be changed by them.
Images inspired by the women of noir.
Makeup/Hair by Sadiq Trusty
Model: Me
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Fragile as a Child by Elsie Ramsey
Today I left the house to do two errands. It was eventful in contrast with the past weeks of what feel like dress rehearsals for an uncertain future. I will remember nothing of such days in a year or two.
Errands in the car are exciting. I look forward to light brushes with strangers, delighting in eye contact and banal conversation. It’s not an overstatement to say these breaks from the bubble wrap of confinement are life sustaining.
The meaningless rituals of life’s movement to center stage gives the people populating such encounters great power. Connection through plexiglass strikes me as a lovely affirmation of humanity’s virtues, a feeling I savor for hours.
The opposite feels just as true. Today, 2 hostile interactions pushed me to the brink of tears that could be described as both absurd and warranted.
The first was a Sephora employee’s stern scolding that by touching a Jo Malone bottle, I’d ruined it. No sampling is currently allowed! Now she couldn’t sell it (not true at all). “Are you buying this?” was asked rhetorically like I’d broken a piece of art. I was stunned by the animosity in her voice and outraged by the suggestion of purchasing a pricey fragrance in response to being shamed. As I left, I saw her disinfecting the bottle and returning it to the shelf.
Licking my wounds back in the car, I drove to my 2nd errand—a small, specialty grocer. Leaving the car across the street with the blinkers on, I ran in to buy a steak and some bacon. It’s an upscale place so you order from a butcher who lovingly selects and cuts your meat. It was far too loving and I fought back a request to hurry. Before I turned around to pay, I realized my mask wasn’t even on. Pulling it up, I turned to place my meat, beautifully tied in twine, on the counter while digging for a credit card. The young man about to ring me up said “Hi”.
Too distracted by the prospect of a ticket for pleasantries, I remained silent. Then came the infliction of grievous emotional harm.
“You’re not going to say hi OR wear your mask properly?”. A hot stare followed.
It was surreal to find myself standing in deeply wounded silence for the 2nd time in under 90 minutes.
I mumbled something about being distracted because of my parking choice. He looked contrite and issued a genuine sounding apology.
It’s been hours since this happened and I STILL feel wounded. I’m sitting at home in posture of pity.
Honest to God, I don’t think I’ve been so fragile since childhood, when a classmate could shatter my world with a mildly offensive reference to a shortcoming. Or an unfavorable comparison of my dog’s behavior with theirs (our black lab once ran onto the field during a school baseball game and resisted capture for an eternity. I’m not sure I’ve felt so embarrassed since).
COVID has done this to me. I’m like a babe with no emotional armor and I must put an end to it.
I’m a grown woman. With good qualities. For one thing, I’m nice.
One of mid-adulthood’s best features is the falling away of those delicate sensibilities that bring so much misery to youth. The violent ups and downs are now far milder hills and flat terrain. Misunderstandings that used to turn into complete, existential crises, are just misunderstandings.
If you’ve seen Gigi, Maurice Chevalier’s “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore” expresses the sentiment quite well:
“The Fountain of Youth is dull as paint
Methuselah is my patron saint
I’ve never been so comfortable before
Oh, I’m so glad that I’m not young anymore”
Tomorrow I’ll dust myself off and return to being a 40 year old who doesn’t stare at the ground when spoken to sharply.
Adulthood has its merits.
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The New Way by Elsie Ramsey
On the East Coast, we’ve now been living in phases of quarantine for half a year.
The finish line is still not in view.
Let’s take a moment to pause and think about the miracle of MAKING IT THROUGH SIX MONTHS.
Sure, it’s taken me two tele-therapy sessions a week, additional medication and YouTube energy cleansing content that sounds chimes through the apartment.
And yes, it’s been a cage match against a bitter foe–the sleepless night.
But we haven’t lost our minds.
Me and the lovely people I know who live with mood disorders meet every week virtually. No one is babbling incoherently. Everyone is showering. Our personalities remain recognizable.
There’s only one word that comes to mind in accounting for this victory.
Grace.
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Pandemic Life Earthquakes By Jennifer Scott
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major life changes for people across the world, whether it’s learning to live in isolation for long stretches of time or facing economic hardship due to the loss of a job or closing of a business. Regardless of the life change, there are short- and long-term challenges as well as benefits.
Coping with Losing a Job
If your major life change was losing your job, you’re not alone. Unemployment rates are at historic highs, and many Americans will be facing economic hardship for some time to come. While this can initially feel devastating, there are ways to cope. If you were laid off because you work in an industry that’s unable to operate during the pandemic, it might be a good time to shift gears and find a new career direction.
While finding a new job or career path is important, also find other ways to cope with your sudden life change, whether it’s adopting a new pet, starting a compost bin in your backyard, or learning to cut your own hair. Find creative outlets to help balance the logistic-heavy thought patterns of job searching, and be sure to reach out to family and friends for emotional support.
Caring for Your Emotional and Physical Health
The pandemic has been stressful, as we’ve all had to put our lives on hold for an uncertain amount of time. While it’s common to become absorbed in the news, do what you can to take breaks: go for a walk, read a book, and get plenty of sleep. Dealing with major life changes requires a period of adjustment, so be patient and take care of your mental and physical health as you adapt to your new reality, especially if you suffer from depression.
Adjust Your Plans If You Can
Some life changes can’t wait, even in the midst of a pandemic. For example, if you’re having a baby, entering a hospital might seem like the last thing you want right now. However, hospitals are taking extra precautions for labor and delivery wards.
If you rent your home and your lease is up, you might be forced to move into a new house as the pandemic still looms. If you can’t renew your lease in your current rental, see if it’s possible to tour new homes or apartments virtually.
Or, if you must buy a new home right now, there are ways to make it happen. Redfin notes that real estate companies are turning to virtual showings, and agents can offer video-chat tours to prospective buyers. By browsing new homes virtually, you’ll be able to narrow down your list from the comfort of your home without compromising your health and safety.
When it comes time to view a home in person, be sure to check that the real estate agent is following the proper health precautions, such as physically distanced showings and sanitizing the home between prospective buyers.
Our New ‘Normal’
While some areas of the country are moving out of lockdown, things won’t go back to normal overnight. It may be safe to go back to your favorite restaurant, but there are some big changes that will remain in place for some time to come. Each state will reopen with its own set of guidelines, so be sure to check local government websites to understand what to expect. People will be eager to get back to life, but it will look quite different from what we once knew.
An upshot: you’ve likely gone through some big changes during this pandemic, so chances are you’ll be more prepared to adjust to the new way of living when the lockdown lifts in your area. Whether you’re still on the job hunt or haven’t yet found a new home, don’t forget to maintain your mental and physical health as you adapt to a shifting way of life.
Find more about Jennifer and her website here.
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The Silence is Deafening by Elsie Ramsey
We’re in the midst of a global pandemic. America is shut down. Captains of industry, elected officials and journalists are feverishly communicating their concerns in print and over the air waves. Many have noted that it feels similar to a dystopian novel–our social and political structures failing spectacularly. And day after day, hour after hour, I hear almost nothing about the mentally ill; arguably the most vulnerable population in the world.
There are some notable exceptions. They stand out like signal flares against the backdrop of a dark sky.
One such exception is the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. On Saturday he noted to reporters the “truly significant” psychological toll the virus has taken on human beings: “People are struggling with the emotions as much as they are struggling with the economics,” he said. “This state wants to start to address that.” He asked psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists willing to volunteer to contact the state to help set up a network to provide mental-health assistance for people who are anxious or isolated.
God bless him.
Mentally ill people are used to being invisible. Until a mood disorder precipitates a tragedy–shooting, suicide, or general act of violence–society isn’t interested. Once the tragedy occurs, society’s disinterest turns to naked disgust. So these are the two polarities American opinion pivots between; loathing and callousness.
But shouldn’t the extraordinary circumstances of a pandemic and mass isolation shake loose some concern for this constituency? You’d think. I mean, maybe right?
Or maybe not. At least not in the volume afforded to other vulnerable groups.
So allow me to share why this virus, and the panic, social distancing and sheltering in place, is potentially lethal (in the emotional sense) to those living with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depressive disorder.
I’ll focus on the depressed group, of which I am a card carrying member.
Even in times of relative social and political functionality, I tend to feel isolated. This feeling is so detrimental to my wellbeing and so pervasive that over the years I’ve developed aggressive measures to contain it. The centerpiece–most critical!–to my approach, is being in public. In the company of others. Even if we’re simply co-working and not communicating.
It’s simple but non-negotiable if I don’t want to stew in my own depressive juices.
Now I’m home. All day. Every day. Fortunately I don’t live alone because that would put me in a full on danger zone. I change rooms and go for walks. There is no timetable for how long this will last. I go hour by hour; limping through the days.
Oh how nice it would be to feel acknowledged. I’m desperate to see some cable news coverage that includes mental health experts discussing this emergency. Or our elected officials. Or anyone with a substantial platform.
I’ll keep waiting, everyone, while sending up my little signal flares.
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