The Calculus of Risk
I write this from an in-person residency of one of the MFA programs I teach for, the first since 2019. Yes, I flew my vaccinated and masked self up and out of the cocoon of at-home life and back into a gentle version of the fray—a scenic college campus before the regular school year begins, with lots of inviting outdoor space and a climate that allows for open windows and doors.
Did I have a moment of hesitation as the delta variant surged? Of course. It felt fleeting, though, and I managed not to get sucked into anxiety. As I keep saying to friends and family, “I don’t have any irrational fears right now, only rational ones.” There are plenty of rational fears to entertain; why pile on?
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My oldest aunt passed away on August 1st at the age of 94. Betty Lou and her connection to my writing deserve a whole newsletter of their own, which I’ll write soon. Her funeral is in a couple of weeks in North Carolina. My mom, 85, has had to figure out whether or not to try to go. How do you do that math? Variant + age + exposure ÷ masks + vaccines x family + love + time left on earth…
These are the decisions people have been having to grapple with for nearly a year and a half now. It feels unfair to still have to weigh that out, when we’re in a country rich enough and powerful enough to have vaccines available for everyone and a too-large percentage of that “everyone” refuse them.
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I decided the math was enough in my favor for coming to this residency, but who knows. I could be sick before the week is out, or I could be fine. Meanwhile, the human connection has been dramatically welcome, even for this introvert with borderline hermit tendencies.
The sights and sounds of friends, colleagues, and students; getting to see the nuances of a facial expression or tone of voice unmediated by zoom; laughter that isn't an emoji; hearing a fellow writer read their work without having to remind them they’re still on mute… it is good.
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Assuming I stay physically healthy, there is much mental and emotional recovery yet to do, even while so many things are still so wrong. Being here among writers has reminded me I have writing recovery to do, too, as I try and try to remember that my business is the world and living in it, not always hiding from it in the various ways I want to hide.
And the calculation of risk won’t ever end. The world (obviously) isn’t safe. The specific ways it isn’t safe change from season to season, decade to decade, and are also dependent on your privileges and advantages and contexts. Knowing how to reckon and calibrate it all can be daunting because unlike in a math equation, the answers aren’t absolute or even measurable. This is all much more like a story than an equation; we draft and revise our way through.