Update on Margie

Margie is well and strong, and we continue our visits once a week, though she has not been out of her apartment for two months. Her younger son is a physician with a specialty in infectious diseases, and early in the pandemic he laid down the law: Margie must shelter in place till he gives her the all-clear. His practice is in New York City, but he is 65, so he only sees patients by video, and if he feels they need hands-on care, he sends them to places where they can get it. He takes exercise walks around Manhattan, often taking Margie with him on video so she can see what he sees. Very few people out walking, no need for social distancing. New York, and empty streets. Until now, unimaginable.

We’ve shifted from Monday morning coffee to Tuesday afternoon video chats, but we still talk about what we’re reading and thinking; we muse about the meanings of things. She’s currently reading Toni Morrison’s novel, Song of Solomon, and she says if you love books, you are never really confined. “Through this novel, I get to be in places I have never been, among people who allow me to be intimate with them, to travel with them, to learn what they know and to eavesdrop on their most private conversations. It’s an opportunity I could never have in the flesh, and it’s a privilege.” 

We spoke affectionately of a mutual friend who is an extrovert and is having a hard time. “Actually,” Margie confided, “I’m fine with this—what shall we call it?—confinement. I listen to New York Governor Cuomo every morning. Now there’s a person who is Presidential, who has some humanity, who speaks clearly and with intelligence, who shows us what leadership looks like. Not like the one in the White House.”

I’m reading the posthumously-published book of my old friend Gloria Anzaldúa. Her book, Light in the Dark, is a marvelous weaving of philosophy, Mexican-American cultural understanding, and poetry. She writes, “My job as an artist is to bear witness to what haunts us.” She died in 2004. If she had made it to 2020, she’d have plenty of ground for bearing witness. She’s gone, so we all have to do the best we can.