This is not my actual basement, but it gets the point across real well!
I’ve got a mold issue in my crawl space and have been ignoring it for like a year or two.
I had been planning to do something about it for a while now and even bought some of the things I needed to take care of it, but alas, I put it off.
Last week I finally went down there and decided to get in to it. I saw all the mold I’d been ignoring and it gave me a lot of anxiety. I sprayed it with bleach water and thought about it all night, instead of sleeping. The next morning, I wake up groggy but ready to get to it. I go down to the crawlspace and start removing all my shit – including my kayak, which is quite long. In the process, I brake off my water heater drain and the thing starts draining 55 gallons of hot water into the crawlspace. Funny, right?!
Well once I figured out what happened I call a friend and talk to my dad and watch a YouTube video. We head to Home Depot gloved and masked and buy a hacksaw, a hose bib, and an attachment. We put it back together about an hour. Phew. My friend? A life saver.
Then I get back to the basement. I decide I’m going to clear out all the trash that has been sitting there since maybe before the foundation was built (1968) and lay down a plastic barrier. In the back corners, I find Nehi soda bottles (my mom says they are from the 50’s) and lots of coal. I find shoes, rusty tools and car parts, fake pearls, coke bottles, and fabric. I start pulling it out and making piles. Here I am - I’m in it. I don’t know when I would have done this project. And if I ignored it, my crawlspace would continue to get moldy and I might have a big issue on my hands.
A few days later and I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m committed. It’s a big project and I am taking time to do research and garner the right supplies. I will need patience for this and a sense of hope, that all this work will help, that I’ll do it well, and that I’ll be able to breath deeply when it is done.
Is this not an uncanny metaphor? It is! The underpinnings of our society are in need of serious repair. We have ignored our foundational systems for so long, and now we are here - the ground laid bare, the smell of mold growing, the trash sitting there. It’s clear we need to do something different-and it’s clear this will take some time and ingenuity and grit; a clearing out, a cleaning up- some care and attention.
I don’t know what the aftermath of the Coronavirus will look like. I want to believe that we will become stronger and more connected because of it. My hope is not only that we’ll we uncover the inequities in our social systems but we will do something about them.
Strangely, while our entire world is connected by this pandemic, my life is becoming more and more localized. I am walking my neighborhood regularly and saying hello to my neighbors. I am visiting the same grocery store. I am listening to the local radio station. I am walking the nearby trail, I am planning my garden. I am cleaning out my basement.
My focus has gone from a spotlight to a flashlight. I am wondering how I can benefit my neighborhood, my city. I am wondering how I might be a part of the restructuring that can happen as a result of this pandemic. I am wondering how we might all pay closer attention to the state of our underlying structures; how we might learn to see clearly, dig in and do something different.