Gone are the days of applying makeup half-asleep while the coffee steeps, of getting dressed in some state of darkness before jetting out the door. This is my new work-from-home reality: letting exfoliating scrubs and moisturizer work their magic while the shoddy internet connection and laptop blur my reddish nose and unplucked eyebrows. The bathroom mirror glimpses little more than my freckles, my teeth, frothy toothpaste and the top half of my outfit — optimized for camera readiness — on a daily basis.
Six months ago, I arrived at work in three dimensions. Now, I log on and am flat against the screen. Nothing but face, shoulders and background — except the background is my living room.
It is a privilege to work remotely — one I do not take for granted. I am not a frontline healthcare worker. I am not an agricultural laborer. I am not a pandemic hero. But I have become a creature of new habits, and one in particular — virtual communication — has shifted my sense of self and my sense of home.
“We all have a different persona we present to the world than the one that is within the confines of our home,” notes Robin Givhan, fashion critic for the Washington Post. If navigating those two selves weren’t strange enough, there’s also the unique experience of presenting yourself through pixels. In Google Meet, there’s no clink of coffee cups mingling, no strange perfume wafting about, no one typing furiously at your side. Instead, there are dishes in the kitchen sink, pets seeking a lap, people on the outside looking in. There are angles of your apartment to hide in and waist-up fashion choices to consider. Suddenly there is an art to telegraphing your professionalism through a square on a grid.
I am a fairly private person, and how I feel at home versus how I feel while being observed at home are two very different things. It’s not about being judged, though. It’s about a very intimate setting becoming part of your image. Sometimes it feels like my space — no matter how beautiful I think it is — is at the mercy of voyeurs, that my home self is being conflated with my work self, that a line has been crossed and will never be redrawn.
However, the alternative — to remain a floating voice, sans visual — is not an option. The pandemic has created a collective sense of hopelessness, loneliness, detachment, disconnection. And it’s why virtual meetings — whether with your co-workers, friends or family — are so important. Seeing one another reminds us that we are all here. We are all human. We are all going through it. And, despite my reservations, I refuse to remove any trace of my humanity for the sake of vanity or self-consciousness.
Instead, I find this no man’s land of public intimacy one worth exploring. It challenges the relevance of appearance, my identity in relation to place, how I interact with others. And maybe — just maybe — the vulnerability of video chat can give way to growth. If we linger in discomfort just long enough, maybe we can face it together, heads held high and with our cameras on.
Exterior Explorations
An edit of things to peruse instead of endlessly doomscrolling. 📱
Fact Checking Is the Core of Nonfiction Writing. Why Do So Many Publishers Refuse to Do It? by Emma Copley Eisenberg (Esquire)
Getting the facts straight is not as easy as it sounds. Many authors foot the bill for the fact-checking of their own books and bear the brunt of criticism for inaccuracies. Emma Copley Eisenberg argues that publishers should take accountability for printing the truth and make fact-checking a priority by financing it themselves. A longer read, but worth it.
Mary H.K. Choi on Working Through a Pandemic by Harling Ross (Repeller)
A pearl of wisdom for writers (and people who are afraid to kick-start something new) from Very Cool Human Mary H.K. Choi: “I’m a big believer in the vomit draft. The first version won’t be good. You’re not as good as the You you’ll become once you’ve written the thing. The better You will do the edits and that’s how it works.”
Drag Queens Deliver Dinner and a Show in San Francisco by Concepción de León (The New York Times)
The pandemic has left cities like San Francisco mourning the absence of their cultural hubs. If you’re missing the drag scene, however, Meals on Heels will take you to the club from the comfort of your doorstep.
Angela Y. Davis & Ibram X. Kendi in conversation with Jeff Chang, from City Arts & Lectures
I’m not really sure how I stumbled across this discussion from 2019, but I’m glad I did. I admit I’ve read a lot about Angela Davis and Ibram X. Kendi and a lot of praise for their work (Kendi’s books, as well as Davis’ books and activism), but I have not read any texts by them. This discussion really helped give me a primer of their intellectual arguments.
A few highlights:
Davis on how growing up in Birmingham, Alabama influenced her activism: Resistance was a part of our play, our games. And I’ve learned how to take pleasure in doing this work in the way we did as children. And I think that’s an important lesson, that resistances and struggle aren’t always only about sacrifice and the kind of seriousness that everyone assumes. It’s also about joy and also about pleasure.
Kendi on “racist progress”: Once you believe we’re in a post-racial society and that racism doesn’t exist, and you look out at all of these racial inequities, all of this poverty from people of color — then you say to yourself, why does this exist? It’s not because of racist policies, it’s not because of these structures, it must be because of the inferiorities of these people. And then you start developing racist ideas to explain the world to yourself so they don’t have to do it anymore.
Davis on what she considers Americans’ “lack of an internationalist consciousness”: Whoever told us that nations were the best forms of human community, as a matter of fact, we’re witnessing right now the fact that the nation has become so obsolete, you know, given the fact that there are people coming from Central America, people whose lives have been placed in jeopardy, largely as a result of the flow of capital from the US to Central America and other places. And then there are those who assume that somehow people in this country have a right to say that those who have been wronged by US capital cannot seek a better life on the other side of that border. And that’s just absolutely ridiculous. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
You know, as a matter of fact, we have to begin to imagine different kinds of communities and global citizenship rather than citizenship that’s, you know, based on papers that you are given by a nation.
Currently reading… 📚 I’m about halfway through Luster by Raven Leilani (which I won in a giveaway… thank you @parisperusing!) and am reserving any judgment until I’ve finished it. The non-spoilery synopsis in one sentence: Luster follows twenty-three-year-old Edie as she gets involved with an older man in an open marriage. Luster is so lyrical, and it came as no surprise to learn that Leilani is also a poet, and was the winner of Narrative’s Ninth Annual Poetry Contest and the Matt Clark Editors’ Choice Prize.
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Catch up on past installments of interior monologue: