The best thing about social distancing is gardening naked, and privilege
The yard today, the mango tree in the background.
Social distancing is a breeze — if you’re privileged like me. I’m able to work from home, sunbathing in my blue-bucket pool with my unusually chill dog nearby. My house is huge, I live alone, and the garden is about 15 by 20 meters (I’m not converting this for you, USAmericans, figure it out and get your shit together).
In Brazil, gardening is pretty effortless, the weather does most of the work. The matriarch of my yard is a 12-meter-high mango tree, at least half a century old. My great grandmother really liked her, they were friends way back when she was half the size she is now. Like a queen, she just rules, nothing to do about it other than guard her reign.
My great-grandmother and the mangoes on the tree at least 20 years ago.
Occasionally, I go around making sure there is no drama, and when there is, I provide conflict resolution. Such as, some vine is choking a rosebush, or some older tree is throwing too much shade at a younger one. The rose bushes get particularly offended when you let the roses dry on the branch. It’s good to show appreciation for them, otherwise they’ll understandably stop blooming.
I’m better at doing all of this when I’m naked. Except for the purple clogs, which, believe it or not, have nothing to do with the time I lived in the Netherlands. Every damage or disruption I cause to the plants I feel on my skin, which makes it easier to relate to them. And having no other people around makes it easier to relate to myself.
No need to think about what other people are thinking, whether anyone is sexualizing or judging your body, whether you’re bothering them of if they want anything from you. It’s only you and the plants. It’s liberating.
I’m privileged but I’m not a complete moron, so I know not everyone gets to do this. Not everyone gets to avoid crowded buses. Not everyone gets to eat fresh vegetables and fruits, wash their hands for 20 seconds with calming maracujá scented soap, or walk around naked talking to plants.
The more I value these moments of connection and gratitude, the more I realize how important it is for others to access them too. Sometimes I think about how common it is for people struggling with homelessness to rely on drugs like crack and alcohol to cope with their denied access to these moments; That momentary peace that comes with privacy; That sense of liberty that comes with dominion over a space, and over yourself.
Homelessness in Brazil is very different from homelessness in Western Europe. When I lived in the Netherlands and heard people talking about “extreme poverty” I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. Most people there had never seen what I call “extreme poverty”. Homelessness in the Netherlands means a temporary state right before being forced into the system either by deportation, arrest or forced labor. Here, though, homelessness is a condition that can haunt a family for generations. More specifically, since the late 1800s when enslavement was abolished.
The foundational differences between what is perceived as poverty here and there lie in whether it’s based on measurable wealth or an inherited state of being. There, it’s more about how much you earn. Do you have enough to buy new furniture or do you rely on handouts from people who are getting new things and have no use for the old ones? Here, it’s about your role in society. You are homeless, a maid, a street vendor, a construction worker. You are a low paying job, as if it was a race. Wealth you can somehow acquire, but changing your “DNA” is a little more complicated. And when it’s instilled in our society as a whole that poverty is this immutable state of being, the real obstacle isn’t access to resources or wealth, but the state of mind that you deserve a life of dignity. I have been broke in the Netherlands, working as a dishwasher at a Mexican restaurant, cleaning hotel rooms, and paying 80% of my income in rent. But I would never call that “being poor” because I’ve had an upbringing that taught me I deserve basic things and that my voice matters.
Last year’s Christmas party for people struggling with homelessness in Rio de Janeiro.
This may sound like a sidetrack from the social distancing thing, but if you think about the massive amounts of people who struggle with homelessness and how vulnerable they are, you will see that the problem of coronavirus is a small piece of a much bigger puzzle. Feeling unworthy of dignity has put many people on a perpetual state of vulnerability, starting much before this outbreak, and continuing well after this whole thing blows over.
In Rio, for instance, tuberculosis is incredibly common among people dealing with “extreme poverty”; Overcrowded living spaces and poor diet make it very difficult to treat. Worldwide, an estimated one and a half million people die of TB a year, and it’s undeniably poverty related. We could talk about HIV as well, but we barely began scratching at the taboo infested surface of saving poor people’s lives from a treatable bacterial infection, imagine an incurable sexually transmitted (viral) disease.
In other words, coronavirus is one of many health risks for poor people; Risks that could be managed with basic human rights; housing, healthy diet, and above all — dignity. You can see this whole thing as the glass being half-full, the coronavirus isn’t the end of the world, we will still have a lot of problems to deal with when this global shutdown is over.
In the meantime, walk around naked talking to plants if you can. If not, talk to yourself about all of these privileges, all that you are grateful for and have perhaps been taking for granted. Call an elderly relative, remember where you come from, all the good and the bad you have inherited. Remember that the bad you inherit doesn’t have to define you, and the same goes for others. We all deserve to live with dignity, and survival shouldn’t be achieved at the expense of the most vulnerable.
Mirna Wabi-Sabi
is a writer, political theorist, teacher and translator. She is an editor at Gods&Radicals, founder of the Enemy of the Queen megazine and of the Plataforma 9 media collective. Her work orbits around Capitalism, White Supremacy and Patriarchy, and the proposals involve resistance to Eurocentrism and Western Imperialism.