Sequestered, and with my son away camping with his father, I've had the house to myself. My iPhone and the skin of my palm have nearly sealed together. The day's rhythms have nothing to do with me. 3 am is the new 11 pm. I’m dating online in the midst of Covid-19 and the uprising against police brutality/growing fascism in the wake of public lynching of George Floyd. The usual loneliness and yearning have taken a new shape.
Welcome to The National Park of Helplessness. There’s no map and no signs to orient visitors, so I don’t know whether I am near, or miles from, an exit. It’s possible that there is only one exit, and there is no point in looking for it. There are a thousand entrances. The park has been blanched of color. Everything appears in shades of muted blues and greys. I walk along a very narrow path buttressed by glass walls. The only thing there is to touch beyond my own body is the cool, flat wall. It is windy on the other side, yet nothing stirs. I look for cracks. In the distance, the usual structures—the visitor’s center, food court, bathrooms—are boarded up. One mouse, the only thing that moves in this park and the only other sentient being, scurries outside the food court. There is nothing left for it to find. The mouse does not know that it is doomed.
Jordana Jacobs, 48
Brooklyn, NY
This story is a selection from National Parks of Emotion, an evolving participatory art project documenting people’s emotional experience during the Covid-19 pandemic. Writing edited by David Goldstein, photos edited by Mindy Stricke.