The Literary Review: Issue 10
FICTION Page 45
From Life in the Time of Covid
by Susan Weiman
Zoom Therapy March 12, 2020
The first two sessions I had phone therapy. At the third session, I asked if we could use Zoom. It took a few adjustments. One time it took twenty-five minutes to connect. We texted, left the meeting and re-entered. Later both my therapist and I admitted that we were both anxious and worried that this could happen again. It didn’t.
I found it difficult to look at myself on Zoom and used speaker view. After a few sessions, I chose gallery view so I was in the box next to my therapist.
During my sessions, I agonized over the evils of Republican party and Trump, expressed my feelings of frustration and isolation about the Pandemic and endlessly discussed my relationship with Nick.
Eventually, I became used to seeing my face and realized that I smiled a lot, that I was a happy person and had experienced a Zoom “self-actualization.”
Father’s Day
My sister set up a Father’s Day zoom so we could wish my brother-in-law who is in a nursing home and my brothers a Happy Father’s Day. Constant chatter. My brother and my sister took the centerstage. It was difficult to get a word in. “May I say something?” I raised my hand. They spoke over me. It was just like being at home.
New Year’s Eve December 31, 2020
That evening, I picked up ensalada con frutas and the paella del mar for two from La Rioja, a Spanish restaurant in my neighborhood.
After our sumptuous meal, Nick and I attended the first of the two zoom New Year’s Eve parties. Nick was the only male. We enjoyed the all-female impromptu drumming circle, but the cross talk and giggling was not our thing. We left the first party to resume our original plans.
We played old records Meet the Beatles, Beatles 65 and Revolver and danced and sang along to the songs that we remembered. We felt young again and loved every moment. At 11:30PM we attended the other party. We chatted across our zoom boxes, watched the ball drop at Times Square and sang Auld Lang Sine, participated in a heated discussion about the Covid vaccine and happily marched into 2021.
Swimming Home
Due to COVID, the gyms were closed in March 2020. Swimming, both my exercise of choice and a deep meditative relaxation, came to a halt. My ritual, to surface dive, swim along the bottom of the pool and break the surface with the breast stroke, was over. No more swimmer’s high.
When the swimming pools reopened, in January 2021, I returned to the West Side Y in Manhattan, where I had been a member for over twenty years. The Y had two swimming pools, the Pompeiian and the Small Spanish pool with Italian tiles donated by King Alphonso XIII of Spain. I swam two or three times a week. I’d swim all year long, rain or snow, unless the pool was closed. Most people thought I was nuts to swim in Manhattan when I lived in Queens.
The Y wasn’t only a gym, but a community center. I would go out to dinner with Sarah who I met in my aqua aerobics class. I knew the locker room attendants, lifeguards, and managers, and made numerous friends and a few new clients including a philosophy professor. The talk in the women’s locker room was often about politics and culture. I was never afraid to express my disdain for Trump.
The Y began using a mobile app to reserve lanes, forty-eight hours in advance of each session. To swim at 4:00PM, one had to drop everything at 3:59PM, open the app to the day and time, hover a finger over a digital listing and then tap exactly on the 4:00PM session. This system required WiFi access.
During the first two weeks I was able to secure a lane. After that, it was impossible. Then I learned that the Long Island City Y that was closer to my home, accepted Silver Sneakers, a free gym membership offered by my health insurance policy for people sixty-five and over. Although the pool is large and the water warm, it is located in an unappealing industrial area surrounded by warehouses, scaffolding, car washes and graffiti. I don’t know what this pool was like before the pandemic, but for now it’s a swim, shower and go home situation.
After months of anguish, I gave up my West Side Y membership and switched to the Long Island City Y. How long will it be before I can return to my beloved pool and friends at the West Side Y? When will this be over?
***
In the fall of 2021, due to Covid, there has been a national lifeguard shortage. The West Side Y has limited its swimming days and hours.
Luckily, I have my free membership at the Long Island City Y.
The Regulars
Prior to the pandemic, Sarah and I would eat at Francesco’s every Wednesday night after our aqua-aerobics class at the Y. It had become a ritual. The manager lived in Astoria and I’d occasionally bump into him and his son in the neighborhood.
I became friendly with Nina, the waitress, and the men who worked behind the counter. When I’d walk in Bennie, the pizza guy, would shout out, “Hey Susan, do you want spinach on your slice?”
Saturday night as Nick and I entered the pizzeria for the first time since March 2020, we were greeted by Nina, Bennie and the others. I was happy to see everyone. Then it hit me. These were not friends, but the everyday people who had made up the fabric of my life.
That night I cried as I realized how the fabric of my life had been torn by the Pandemic. I felt the pain from the tear, and also the possibility of being woven back together.