The Distance Between Bodies
Photos/MJ Ubando.
By MJ Ubando
February
I signed up for a 5K. I didn’t tell anyone about it, because it’s not a thing I do. I am not a marathoner, an athlete, or even a jogger. Really, I am not that coordinated at all. In most aspects of my life I am a control freak, but my body has always been something I have difficulty managing. I avoid activities with risk: skiing, snowboarding, roller coasters, white water rafting, swimming, skateboarding— anything where an element beyond me has leverage over my body. This is probably why I always find my way back to running, despite all my hiatuses. Even if I am bad at it, I appreciate the mechanics of nothing but my limbs pumping and pulling me forward. When I run, I like that the only thing I have to control is myself.
That’s difficult enough sometimes. Though I plan to run five times a week, I only garner enough willpower to make it once every week. My stamina and self-possession only last a couple of minutes before I start walking again. And I’ve always been bad at breathing. I inhale too quickly and too often, sounding like a panting dog in the summer heat.
Still, I begin running enough to remember that I can. On weekends, I run in the morning; on weekdays, in the evening. I am the kind of runner who tries to acknowledge other runners who pass me, even when they literally pass me. I smile or nod and enjoy the camaraderie of bodies in motion, even if mine is moving slower. I begin imagining the upcoming race and a sea of bodies surrounding me, all of us propelling forward like a school of fish. I am terrified and thrilled that most will be strangers. I’m nervous to not have a familiar face beside me, but I expect to be awed by a collective synergy. I am comforted by the notion that even if they do not know me, we are still doing this together.
But before my body can relearn how to run a mile, the Reno Connector 5K Run is cancelled. In my lists of risks, I never thought to add a global pandemic. Of course, I openly worry about coughing and other symptoms, toilet paper shortages, my mother’s asthma and diabetes, and my father’s job as a grocer. But quietly, on my own, I mourn the chance to show myself and everyone else what my body can do. Logically, I know I can keep running but don’t want to. Everything feels unreal and everyone feels like they are holding their breaths. I join the world in quarantining, returning my body to its usual state of stillness.
March
At the top of the stairs, I pause to catch my breath. On both sides of my arms, I balance overloaded bags of groceries like Lady Justice’s scales. I drop the bags onto the red bench on my balcony and feel the blood course back into my veins. Before I get a chance to rummage through my purse to find my keys, I hear a sweet voice cut through the rustling of an oak tree.
“Hi.”
I spin around searching the street and lawns beneath me, hunting for the voice’s owner. Finally I spot her. My neighbor’s daughter is laying on her stomach in their driveway underneath her parents’ Ford Explorer. Snuggled up to its front tire that looks almost as big as she is, the little girl twirls her wispy, hay colored hair. I estimate she is around seven or eight. To her right, I watch her little brother press the side of his body into hers, clearly anxious that she started a conversation with someone they don’t know.
“Hi,” I smile and wave.
She doesn’t wave back but tilts her head slightly, “What are you doing?”
“Oh nothing. I just picked up some groceries,” I point to my bags, eager for her approval. “What are you guys doing?”
Her gaze is somewhere else now, looking at a stick or some other thing taking up space in the grass across from her.
“We’re just hiding. . . from strangers.” She answers in a tone that is sharp and bored, like she is regretting starting this conversation in the first place. Her brother shuffles even closer to her.
The little girl’s comment is the most sensible thing I’ve heard in awhile. Truly, that’s what all of us have been doing so far in this pandemic: just hiding from strangers.
At the grocery store, COVID is still new enough for people to be afraid and to keep their distance. Lines are long and spread out. In the aisles, people park their grocery carts to the side and wait for someone to finish reaching for something on a shelf before they grab what they need. Pre-pandemic, grocery shopping used to be one of my favorite errands to run. I enjoy sauntering through aisles, trying to recall what we need at home, then inevitably picking up things that we could probably do without. Sometimes, I make a private game of peeking into other people’s carts and trying to guess from the contents what they are cooking or what their life is like.
Now, shopping feels apocalyptic, like that one scene in every zombie movie when the characters break into a store and desperately try to grab everything they need before the undead rip their faces off in the frozen food section. COVID has created tension and drama in the most mundane places. Everyone watches their space, looks over the shoulders, examines hands and fingers. If someone coughs, heads snap to attention and leer, trying to assess if it’s a fluke or a foul.
A couple of weeks ago, a middle-aged woman and I walked towards each other in the canned food aisle. A moment before we crossed paths, I shuffled my feet as close as I could to the shelves next to me, doing my best not to knock anything over. My efforts were apparently subpar. As I passed her, the woman turned her whole body away from me, sliding her chest along jars of Prego and olives. I was both offended and sympathetic. Even though I believe I am making every effort to keep myself and everyone around me safe, she doesn’t know that. The pandemic is making each of us live out our own horror movies where we play both the heroes and the monsters.
Back on my balcony, I pick up my groceries and say goodbye to the little girl and her brother. They don’t seem very interested in me anymore, but I am grateful that they don’t think of me as a stranger. I wonder how they would treat me if they thought I was.
May
I try my best to only focus on the knee. I can’t bear to watch much more of George Floyd’s murder. Yet, the image of the officer’s knee pressed against the back of George’s neck stays with me. I realize it is the most touching between people I’ve seen in public in months. I cannot recall if either the officer or George were wearing masks. I wonder if six feet could have saved him. I question why distance suddenly doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe it never did.
I still didn’t run when Ahmaud Arbery couldn’t anymore. He was shot from a distance. So was Breonna Taylor. Of course their deaths are infuriating and tragic, just as much as all the other countless lives that have been lost in the same way.
But I wanted to believe that at the very least, COVID has reminded us of the power of our bodies. This random event has turned us into real life X-Men: our lungs, our fingertips, our breath now capable of super-human destruction. We are a force strong enough to shut down casinos, topple the economy, halt Hollywood. Still, it only took us a couple of months to forget something we always seem to need help remembering: with great power, comes great responsibility.
I watch long enough to hear George’s labored breath. I stop before I hear him cry out for his mother. I cry after I shut off my phone. After months of trying to control ourselves, the first contact we witness is this one. A waste of a touch. Another preventable death. A raw reminder of what one body can do to another.
June
I forget that other people actually live in Reno until my boyfriend and I attend the George Floyd vigil downtown. We arrive late, because we always arrive late, and because the city felt it necessary to block several freeway exits with snow plows.
As we walk towards the Believe statue, I see the city plaza spilling over with people. Initially, the sight dials up my anxiety. I thought it might be years before I would see a crowd again. I start to wonder if this is a mistake until, from a distance, I spot a few of City Hall’s boarded windows and two snipers stationed on the roof of the building next door. The sights remind me why we came, why we must stay.
We weave through the crowd and find an open spot next to the last metal “E.” The day is colder than I expected and so is the concrete, so I cuddle up next to my boyfriend trying to borrow warmth and create more space. Around me, pods of people are doing the same. I acknowledge that the distance between each group is probably not six feet. The urgency of the moment, of the movement, makes everyone shift and lean a little closer. We are fighting everyone’s gravity. Quarantine was lonely and even though I do not yet recognize those around me, I missed them. After months of solitude, we are eager to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.
For a moment, I forget that there is a pandemic going on until I see all the masks. Like flags or Facebook frames, many masks make a statement or reveal a personality. There are masks with different characters and colors: rainbows and polka dots, some that read “Let them breathe” or “Say their names.” Organizers of the event encouraged everyone to wear black, which makes each mask stand out more. From afar, we look like a mosaic of cloth and skin.
I start scanning the crowd trying to find a naked a face. I recognize that my impulse is unfair and aggressive, a muscle built up from months of pandemic paranoia and years of political division. I want to know who is against us. I need to spot an enemy. But as I crane my neck from side-to-side, I cannot find anyone to be angry at from where I sit. There is just a sea of bodies surrounding me— watching, listening, waiting together for whatever wave comes next to move us forward.
July
I start running again. The 5K is postponed for next year, but I am not running for it anymore. I am running, because the pandemic has made me aware of my body. Protests have made me thankful for it. In the months since COVID arrived on our shores and in my city, I have learned the power of my body and what it can do for myself and to, or for, others.
I run around the marina without stopping for the first time since probably college. As I slow down near the picnic bench where I like to stretch, I huff out a triumphant, “yes” loud enough that people stare. I stand straight and fold my arms over my head, gasping for air. With each breath, I inhale deeply and slowly, grateful that I can.
MJ Ubando is a Filipina-American who teaches English and Creative Writing at Sparks High School. She was raised in Reno and is adulting in Sparks. She graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno, in 2011 and earned her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction from Sierra Nevada University in 2019. Her work has been featured in other local publications such as This is Reno and The Reno News and Review. Because she didn't have enough patience to bake sourdough bread during quarantine, she started a blog titled Battle Born to find out how the rest of northern Nevada was dealing with COVID.
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