Summer Company (Assad)

After three months, we finally had a visitor at our house. 

Since mid-March, we had taken the concept of a quarantine bubble seriously: my husband and I agreed to see no one in-person except for our parents. We chose to see friends only on screens because then, at least, their faces could be within six feet of our own. We found less populated parks for exercise and avoided crowded places. We didn’t return to the gym even when it reopened.

In the midst of so much we couldn’t control, we chose low-risk daily routines that made us feel somewhat sheltered from the data spikes, the hospital images, the emerging research that showed this wasn’t just the flu, the in-memoriams, the predictions of what was yet to come. So much was being quantified or condensed into scrolling headlines. So much was unquantifiable or unspeakable.

In the early days, during the spring break that wasn’t, I’d shifted to high productivity mode. Armed with to-do lists and herbal tea, I woke up early and filled my days with checkmarks. When my university shifted to remote learning, I revised my curriculum, mastered digital learning technologies, and tried to assure my students that everything would be OK. I recorded lecture videos, provided feedback on student papers, and expanded Zoom office hours to allow for conversations on topics other than thesis statements. 

But how could I advise students who wanted to return home to their families in China, in the midst of travel restrictions and flight cancellations? How could I help them focus on their work when they had to move out of dorms that would be reserved for overflow hospital space? How could I pretend it was important to talk about APA style citation and verb structures?

I did my best because I didn’t know how to do anything else. I tried to stay positive. As finals approached, students found flights home or relocated to stay with friends in America. Daily news briefs showed Ohio was flattening the curve. 

An unused notebook became a hiking journal as I sought new paths to explore. My father joined me for several walks each week. I’d hear the crunching of his shoes on gravel in sync with the gentle tapping of his walking stick, a branch he’d found in the woods and refused to replace with a shiny store-bought version. My husband joined for other walks, his pace sometimes slowing so he could take photos of easily missed details: a grouping of mushrooms off to the side, a spiderweb visible only at a certain angle, a lone flower.

The trees that greeted me on my regular walks became fuller, muffling any street noise and amplifying the sounds of squirrels, birds, and buzzing insects. I started rescuing and releasing any insect that came into our house -- but not before admiring the color of its wings or noticing the subtle movements of its antennae. I once stopped to watch a millipede slide along a trail in the woods. It navigated twigs and stones, and I didn’t move away until I was sure it was safe from bike tires and runners’ strides. On another day, my mother and I stood together by a window, captivated by a nest full of baby birds. We watched a robin fly away and return, repeatedly, to the dance of expectant beaks. 

I shouldn’t have been surprised, therefore, by the arrival of this new visitor. During the first week of summer, a guest crossed the threshold and came into the living room, where our only other company included folded towels on the spare couch.

I’m not sure how he got here -- did he leap, unnoticed, inside my bag while I was in the woods? Did he jump into our car for the ride home and then exit with us, moving up our driveway and through the front door as if he’d crossed that path a thousand times before? Did he find his way from a local stream? For whatever reason, it felt like he wanted to be here, inside these walls. For a little while, at least, just long enough to say hello. No social distancing required.

He was so green and tiny and perfect, his front legs turned inward and his gold-flecked eyes alert. My husband moved him from the living room to the front stoop, where we guided him into a shallow container of water. From there, we transported him to the back garden and observed him, his stillness punctuated with sporadic jumps. Back inside, we could see him through our kitchen window until, several jumps later, we couldn’t anymore. 

So we keep moving forward, too. I prepare for my fall classes despite all that is unknown. My husband searches for jobs because he lost his, a week ago, due to more higher ed budget cuts. He’ll miss his students, and I’ll miss our routine of teaching at adjacent campuses, carpooling together before the morning rush, listening to the traffic report and taking the back roads. Sometimes I’d see his face at my office door midday, smiling as he held up a bag containing my favorite pastry from the nearby café. He knew I’d hold the pastry in one hand and type with the other, not willing to take an actual break.

I keep hand sanitizer in my car. I wipe down groceries just in case. I enjoy the solitude of a narrow, shaded trail until I hear the scampering of a squirrel nearby, and I turn to see that it’s not a squirrel but another walker. Five months ago, I would have said hello and started a conversation. Today, I pull up my mask and wave, pausing and stepping a few inches to the side. I feel a breeze wash over me. I let the sound of rustling trees mingle with my thoughts before taking another breath and another step.

Mary K. Assad earned her PhD in English from Case Western Reserve University, where she now teaches writing and serves as an advisor to international students.