Suffering Like 2020
A few days ago, I was walking down the street in downtown Shanghai on my regular route to get coffee, when a sudden breeze rushed up my flimsy coat, sending a shudder through my body. I clutched at the collar, trying to keep out the chill. Having experienced Vermont cold, I was convinced that a large puffer coat was superfluous in Shanghai, a place rarely graced by snowfall. Yet there I was, hands cupped around a hot cup of coffee, teeth clattering as I walked. Even without the blustery New England winter or even the presence of solid lakes, the coldness I felt in Shanghai was no less real than the coldness I experienced trudging heavily against the wind down the slope to Bi-Hall at Middlebury College in Vermont. In that moment, I was sent back to the snow-covered slopes of Vermont, where icicles on awnings and wet hair freezing instantly outside. From the absoluteness of my coldness in Shanghai, I understood 2020 a little better.
Zadie Smith’s quarantine essay, “Suffering Like Mel Gibson,” kept lingering in my mind. “Suffering has an absolute relation to the suffering individual — it cannot be easily mediated by a third term like ‘privilege,’” says Smith. Drawing upon the meme of Mel Gibson explaining his hardships to a disheveled Jesus Christ, Smith lyrically portrays that each of us suffer with the same bitter sensation regardless of our relative circumstances.
My initial instinct was to push back against Smith’s claim. Who am I to say that I have suffered? Reflecting back, my COVID experience was glazed by shameful privilege against the backdrop of real suffering in the world.
When we first received news of Middlebury College closing, my family, already in Shanghai, advised that I stay in New York City in hopes of returning to school. During a phone call with them, my mom assured me that the New York apartment was stocked with plenty of food, toilet paper, and other PPE, and if I was ever in need, she gave me a list of close family friends nearby. Still, I panicked. “I will die of loneliness,” I claimed tearfully. A week later, I was flown back to my childhood home in Shanghai to reunite with my family.
Meanwhile, I learned of peers who were struggling to find a place to stay or scrambling to put together money for overpriced plane tickets or forced to return to incomplete homes. People were dying at exponential rates. Andy, my favorite doorman in New York City, died from the virus. For the first time, we were so close to death, yet being young, healthy, and privileged made death a hyperbole. As I sat comfortably sheltered in my virus free home, I knew I was nowhere close to death.
In those days when the media characterized the experience as “collective grief,” when professors signed off emails with “hope you’re doing as well as anyone can right now,” and when John Krasinski aired “Some Good News” to say all other news was bad, I was in Shanghai where the impact of the virus was curbing, and normal life was welcomed back. I had dodged the worst of the virus, and instead of feeling thankful, I felt guilty.
I had to “struggle” to be like everyone else. So, instead of willingly taking my professors’ offer to watch recorded lectures or alternatively attend discussions, I was determined to “show up” to all my classes regardless of the time difference. For the remaining spring semester, my first class began at 10 p.m.. Finishing around midnight, I would make myself a snack and begin homework. My art history seminar began at 1:30 a.m., and afterwards I would take a nap until my political science class at 5:00 a.m. During class, I half-heartedly listened to the professor while watching the sunrise. At 7:00 a.m. with the sun fully in my face, I attempted to sleep.
Those few months I was constantly exhausted, I couldn’t concentrate let alone learn, and I threw regular tantrums at my family. When summer arrived, I piled on multiple internships and filled any crevice in my schedule with trips to the gym. My mood was volatile. Somehow all this made answering “how are you” that much easier, as I engaged in grief for normal life, expressed empathy with the other disadvantaged, and for once I was Christ and not Mel Gibson. Perhaps I was even suffering.
As the meme was artificial, so was the “suffering” I created for myself by piling on unnecessary stress. I suppressed all my emotions beneath the academics, work, and toll on my body. So, when I finally took a break and hit pause on my demanding schedule, I broke down, raw emotions flooding in. I missed my friends from college. I was scared for the uncertainty of the coming years, what will I do if the U.S and China go to war? Why won’t my dad just leave me alone? My anxieties were exposed like bruises on my body, and an evil bully was repeatedly pressing on sore spots to pain me where it hurt most.
This was my first lesson of 2020: I finally let go of the privilege and struggle I had constructed in my mind and gave myself the permission to soak in the emotions, like Smith advises, to allow yourself the admission of the reality of suffering. When I leaned in, I was liberated to feel all the ups and downs the endless COVID roller coaster had to offer.
A few weeks ago, I went to a print shop to print out photos for my friend’s birthday. When I got off the subway station, there were many emptied-out store fronts lining the sidewalk of this neighborhood. In front of the print shop, I hesitated before entering. The store was barren except for two large printers and stashes of supplies. Huddled in the back corner was the shop owner, sitting behind a computer screen with his winter coat on, puffing out white air. He printed my photos with the swiftness made possible only by repeated practice, meanwhile his eyes remained on the tiktok videos playing on his phone. He even chuckled out loud.
I couldn’t help but wonder how a print shop, an archaic concept in a time of digital media, could survive 2020. Then, an old man walked by the shop and he called out to the print guy.
“Hey, remember those forms you were talking about? Come by another time and I’ll print them out,” the print guy waved back.
Not soon after, a girl in school uniform came in the shop and tossed her backpack on the floor. The print guy smiled and greeted the girl, although his eyes were still glued to the tiktok.
“I need to print some stuff for math class,” she promptly opened her computer.
“Of course, and don’t forget to bring those home for your mom, I printed them this morning,” the print guy pointed towards a folder of paper on his desk.
I realized this was how the print shop survived: it’s filled with neighborhood love, the kind of love a community knits together. The print guy cares for the people who come by, and his love made the print shop an essential part to their lives. Like the other small businesses in the neighborhood, the print shop no doubt suffered during COVID but what kept it afloat was the love it was filled with.
On the last day of 2020 I read an article by Barry Lopez where he wrote about the importance of love in a time filled with crises, and one line stuck with me; “It is more important now to be in love than to be in power.” For Lopez, the love he felt immersed in nature prompted him into a career as a writer to encourage others to do the same. For him, love is the path to surviving the bleakness of climate change, a reality we feel powerless confronting.
This is what I learned: love is the answer to suffering. On those really bad days when I felt like my world was crashing down on me, it was the love from my friends that held me up. Looking into 2021, I still feel powerless and doubtful that everything will be smooth sailing, but 2020 equipped me with the tools and the people to ride out the waves even when it’s choppy. Like suffering, love is an absolute too, and to have love is the greatest privilege.
