vox--2020-12-16--How bad is your state’s Covid-19 outbreak?

America ’ s national Covid-19 epidemic continues , with the US ’ s daily new cases still higher than most developed nations and the country recently surpassing 300,000 deaths due to the disease .
At the state level , things can look even worse than the national picture .
Public health experts look at a few markers to determine how bad things are in each state : the number of daily new cases ; the infection rate , which can show how likely the virus is to spread ; and the percentage of tests that come back positive , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sufficient testing .
A Vox analysis , updated weekly , indicates the vast majority of states report alarming trends across all three benchmarks for coronavirus outbreaks .
Most states still report a high — sometimes very high — number of daily new Covid-19 cases .
Most still have high infection rates .
And most have test positive rates that are too high , indicating they don ’ t have enough tests to track and contain the scope of their outbreaks .
Across these benchmarks , zero states fare well on all three metrics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under control right now .
In fact , not a single state meets even two of the three benchmarks .
America ’ s outbreaks , reaching from California to Florida , are the result of the public and the country ’ s leaders never taking the virus seriously enough and , to the extent they did , letting their guard down prematurely .
States , with the support of President Donald Trump , moved to reopen — often before they saw sizable drops in daily new Covid-19 cases , and at times so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to see if each phase of their reopening was leading to too many more cases .
The public embraced the reopenings , going out and often not adhering to recommended precautions like physical distancing and wearing a mask .
Even as cases began to fall later in the summer , America ’ s overall caseload remained very high .
And yet many states moved to reopen once again , with much of the public embracing the looser restrictions and subsequently going out .
It ’ s this mix of government withdrawal and public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why states continue to struggle with getting the coronavirus under control .
“ It ’ s a situation that didn ’ t have to be , ” Jaime Slaughter-Acey , an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota , told me .
“ For almost three months , you had opportunities to be proactive with respect to mitigating the Covid-19 pandemic and to help normalize culture to adopt practices that would stem the tide of transmissions as well as the development of Covid-19 complications .
… It was not prioritized over the economy.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terms of more infections , critical illnesses , new chronic conditions , and deaths , but in the long-term financial impact as the economy struggles , many people still refuse to go out , and businesses resist reopening during a pandemic .
“ Dead people don ’ t shop .
They don ’ t spend money .
They don ’ t invest in things , ” Jade Pagkas-Bather , an infectious diseases expert and doctor at the University of Chicago , told me .
“ When you fail to invest in the health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ longitudinal downstream effects.
” The benchmarks tracked here by Vox don ’ t cover every important facet of the pandemic .
Hospital capacity was previously included among Vox ’ s metrics , but it ’ s been removed due to inconsistent data reporting .
The data for contact tracing , when “ disease detectives ” track down people who may have been infected and push them to quarantine , is also poor .
Some measures that are helpful for gauging whether a state can safely start to reopen , like the total test @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the previous two weeks , are excluded to focus more on the status of each state ’ s current Covid-19 outbreak .
But together , these three benchmarks help give an idea of how each state is doing in its fight against Covid-19 .
Nationwide , it ’ s pretty grim .
1 ) All 50 states have too many daily new Covid-19 infections What ’ s the goal ?
Fewer than four daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people per day , based on data from the New York Times and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ goal ?
None .
Why is this important ?
The most straightforward way to measure whether any place is experiencing a big coronavirus outbreak is to look at the number of daily new Covid-19 cases .
There ’ s no widely accepted metric for how many cases , exactly , is too many .
But experts told me that aiming for below four daily new cases per 100,000 is generally a good idea — a level low enough that a state can say it ’ s starting to get significant control over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ metric : It ’ s only as good as a state ’ s testing .
Cases can only get picked up if states are actually testing people for the virus .
So if a state doesn ’ t have enough tests , it ’ s probably going to miss a lot of cases , and the reported cases won ’ t tell the full story .
That ’ s why it ’ s important not to use this benchmark by itself , but to use it alongside metrics like the test positive rate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of daily new cases may give a delayed snapshot of a Covid-19 outbreak .
If test results take a week to get reported to the state , then the count for daily new cases will really reflect the state of the outbreak for the previous week .
If testing is adequate in a state , though , the toll of daily new cases gives perhaps the best snapshot of how big a state ’ s Covid-19 outbreak is .
2 ) The coronavirus is spreading too quickly in most states What ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or Rt , below 1 , based on data from Rt.live , a site created by two Instagram founders and a data analyst .
Which states meet the goal ?
Alaska , Illinois , Iowa , Kansas , Michigan , Minnesota , Missouri , Montana , Nebraska , New Jersey , New Mexico , North Dakota , South Dakota , Washington , Wisconsin , and Wyoming — 16 states .
Why is this important ?
The Rt measures how many people are infected by each person with Covid-19 .
If the Rt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will , on average , spread the coronavirus to one other person .
If it ’ s 2 , then an infected person will spread it to two on average .
And so on .
It ’ s an attempt , then , to gauge how quickly a virus is spreading .
One way to think about it : Unlike the count for daily new cases , this gives you a snapshot not of a state ’ s Covid-19 outbreak today , but of where the outbreak is heading in the near future @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rt below 1 .
If each infection doesn ’ t lead to another , that would over time lead to zero new Covid-19 cases .
The estimated Rt can be very imprecise , with margins of error that make it hard to know for certain in any state if it ’ s really above or below 1 .
Different modelers can also come up with different estimates .
That ’ s , unfortunately , just the reality of using limited data to come up with a rough estimate of a disease ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an average .
If 10 people are infected with Covid-19 , nine spread it to no one else , and one spreads it to 10 , that adds up to an Rt of 1 .
But it masks the fact that individuals , for whatever reason , can still cause superspreading events — which seem of particular concern with the coronavirus .
And the Rt is only as good as the data that goes into calculating it .
If a state ’ s data is poor quality or inconsistent , it might skew @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why some states with bad and continuing outbreaks may fare better on this benchmark than others .
Still , the Rt is one of the better measures we have for tracking a pathogen ’ s spread across the whole population .
When paired with the other metrics on this list , it can give us a sense of each state ’ s outbreak now and in the future .
3 ) Most states ’ positive rates for tests are too high What ’ s the goal ?
Less than 5 percent of coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ week , based on data from the Covid Tracking Project .
Which states meet the goal ?
Hawaii , Maine , and Vermont — three states .
Washington , DC , did as well .
Why is this important ?
To properly track and contain coronavirus outbreaks , states need to have enough testing .
There are all sorts of proposals for how much testing is needed in the US , up to the tens of millions .
But one way to see if a state is testing enough to match its outbreak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back positive .
An area with adequate testing should be testing lots and lots of people , many of whom don ’ t have the disease or don ’ t show severe symptoms .
High positive rates indicate that only people with obvious symptoms are getting tested , so there ’ s not quite enough testing to match the scope of an outbreak .
The goal for the positive rate is , in an ideal world , zero percent , since that would suggest that Covid-19 is vanquished entirely .
More realistically , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the positive rate should be below 5 percent .
But even if a state reaches 5 percent , experts argue it should continue trying to push that number further down — to match nations like Germany , New Zealand , and South Korea that have gotten their positive rates below 3 percent and even 1 percent — in order to truly get ahold of their outbreaks .
As long as a state is above 5 percent , chances are it ’ s still missing a significant number of Covid-19 cases .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more cases that are very likely getting missed .
So even if your state is reporting a low number of daily new cases , a high positive rate should be a cause for alarm — a sign that there ’ s an outbreak that ’ s only hidden due to a lack of testing .
And if your state is reporting a high number of daily new cases and a high positive rate , that ’ s all the more reason for concern , suggesting the epidemic is even worse than the total @ @ @ @

America’s national Covid-19 epidemic continues, with the US’s daily new cases down from an early January peak but still higher than those of most developed nations — and the country recently surpassing 500,000 deaths due to the disease.
At the state level, things can look even worse than the national picture.
Public health experts look at a few markers to determine how bad things are in each state: the number of daily new cases; the infection rate, which can show how likely the virus is to spread; and the percentage of tests that come back positive, which should be low in a state with sufficient testing. Combined, these three benchmarks can tell you whether or not a state’s coronavirus outbreak is under control.
Vox’s analysis, updated weekly, shows the vast majority of states are reporting alarming trends for coronavirus cases based on these benchmarks. Only one state — Hawaii — fares well on all three metrics, suggesting the vast majority of states don’t have their outbreaks fully under control right now.
The US outbreaks are due to the failure of both the American public and the country’s leaders to take the virus seriously enough; to the extent they did, many let their guard down prematurely. With the support of former President Donald Trump, states moved to reopen — often before seeing sizable drops in daily new Covid-19 cases, and at times so quickly they weren’t able to tell whether each phase of their reopening plan was leading to too many new infections.
The public embraced the reopenings, resuming their usual day-to-day activities and often refusing to adhere to recommended precautions like physical distancing and mask-wearing.
Even as cases began to fall later in the summer, America’s overall caseload remained very high. Yet many states moved to reopen once more, with much of the public embracing the looser restrictions and subsequently going out.
It’s this mix of government withdrawal and public complacency that experts have cited in explaining why states continue to struggle with getting the coronavirus under control.
“It’s a situation that didn’t have to be,” Jaime Slaughter-Acey, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, previously told me, adding, “You had opportunities to be proactive with respect to mitigating the Covid-19 pandemic and to help normalize culture to adopt practices that would stem the tide of transmissions as well as the development of Covid-19 complications. … It was not prioritized over the economy.”
The effects are felt not just in terms of more infections, critical illnesses, new chronic conditions, and deaths, but in the long-term financial impact as the economy struggles, many people still refuse to go out, and businesses resist reopening during a pandemic.
“Dead people don’t shop. They don’t spend money. They don’t invest in things,” Jade Pagkas-Bather, an expert in infectious diseases and a doctor at the University of Chicago, previously told me. “When you fail to invest in the health of your population, then there are longitudinal downstream effects.”
With a Covid-19 vaccination campaign underway, a finish line to this crisis in finally visible. But until America reaches sufficient population protection — and, preferably, herd immunity — every day the coronavirus spreads means more illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths.
As the country works toward vaccinating everyone, the three benchmarks tracked by Vox give an idea of how each state is doing in its fight against Covid-19 in the meantime. Nationwide, it’s pretty grim.
1) Most states have too many daily new Covid-19 infections
What’s the goal? Fewer than four daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people per day, based on data from the Covid Tracking Project and the Census Bureau.
Which states meet the goal? Just one — Hawaii.
Why is this important? The most straightforward way to measure whether any place is experiencing a big coronavirus outbreak is to look at the number of daily new Covid-19 cases.
There’s no widely accepted metric for how many cases, exactly, is too many. But experts told me that aiming for below four daily new cases per 100,000 is generally a good idea — a level low enough that a state can say it’s starting to get significant control over the virus.
A big caveat to this metric: It’s only as good as a state’s testing. Cases can only get picked up if states are actually testing people for the virus. So if a state doesn’t have enough tests, it’s probably going to miss a lot of cases, and the reported cases won’t tell the full story. That’s why it’s important not to use this benchmark by itself, but to use it alongside metrics like the test positive rate.
The number of daily new cases may also give a delayed snapshot of a Covid-19 outbreak. If test results take a week to get reported to the state, the count for daily new cases will really reflect the state of the outbreak for the previous week.
If testing is adequate in a state, though, the toll of daily new cases is perhaps the best insight as to how big a state’s Covid-19 outbreak is.
2) The coronavirus is spreading too quickly in some states
What’s the goal? An effective reproduction number, or Rt, below 1, based on data from the Centre for Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases.
Which states meet the goal? All but Alaska, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Wyoming — 45 states, as well as Washington, DC.
Why is this important? The Rt measures how many people are infected by each person with Covid-19. If the Rt is 1, then an infected person will, on average, spread the coronavirus to one other person. If it’s 2, then an infected person will spread it to two on average. And so on.
It’s an attempt, then, to gauge how quickly a virus is spreading. One way to think about it: Unlike the count for daily new cases, this gives you a snapshot not of a state’s Covid-19 outbreak today, but of where the outbreak is heading in the near future.
The goal is to get the Rt below 1. If each infection doesn’t lead to another, that would over time lead to zero new Covid-19 cases.
The estimated Rt can be very imprecise, with margins of error that make it hard to know for certain in any state if it’s really above or below 1. Different modelers can also come up with different estimates. That’s, unfortunately, just the reality of using limited data to come up with a rough estimate of a disease’s overall spread.
The Rt also reflects an average. If 10 people are infected with Covid-19, nine spread it to no one else, and one spreads it to 10, that adds up to an Rt of 1. But it masks the fact that individuals, for whatever reason, can still cause superspreading events — which seem of particular concern with the coronavirus.
And the Rt is only as good as the data that goes into calculating it. If a state’s data is poor quality or inconsistent, it might skew the picture. That can help explain why some states with bad and continuing outbreaks may fare better on this benchmark than others.
Still, the Rt is one of the better measures we have for tracking a pathogen’s spread across the whole population. When paired with the other metrics on this list, it can give us a sense of each state’s outbreak now and in the future.
3) Most states’ positive rates for tests are too high
What’s the goal? Less than 5 percent of coronavirus tests coming back positive over the previous week, based on data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and the Covid Tracking Project.
Which states meet the goal? Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin — 24 states, as well as Washington, DC.
Why is this important? To properly track and contain coronavirus outbreaks, states need to have enough testing. There are all sorts of proposals for how much testing is needed in the US, up to the tens of millions.
But one way to see if a state is testing enough to match its outbreak is the rate of tests that come back positive. An area with adequate testing should be testing lots and lots of people, many of whom don’t have the disease or don’t show severe symptoms. High positive rates indicate that only people with obvious symptoms are getting tested, so there’s not quite enough testing to match the scope of an outbreak.
The goal for the positive rate is, in an ideal world, zero percent, since that would suggest that Covid-19 is vanquished entirely. More realistically, in a world going through a pandemic, the positive rate should be below 5 percent. But even if a state reaches 5 percent, experts argue it should continue trying to push that number further down — to match nations like Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea, which have gotten their positive rates below 3 percent or even 1 percent — in order to truly get ahold of their outbreaks.
As long as a state is above 5 percent, chances are it’s still missing a significant number of Covid-19 cases. And the higher that number is, the more cases that are very likely getting missed.
So even if your state is reporting a low number of daily new cases, a high positive rate should be a cause for alarm — a sign that there’s an outbreak that’s only hidden due to a lack of testing. And if your state is reporting a high number of daily new cases and a high positive rate, that’s all the more reason for concern, suggesting the epidemic is even worse than the total case count indicates.
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vox--2020-12-16--Trump has finalized a controversial agreement to deport asylum seekers to El Salvador

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it ’ s ready to implement a controversial international agreement to return asylum seekers arriving on the US-Mexico border back to El Salvador .
The Asylum Cooperative Agreement , signed in September 2019 with the approval of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele , is one of three such pacts that the US has made in an effort to discourage regional migration .
The other agreements are with Honduras and Guatemala , although only the agreement with Guatemala has gone into effect so far , leading to the deportations of nearly 1,000 Hondurans and Salvadorans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asylum to those countries despite the fact that migrants are commonly robbed , kidnapped for ransom , raped , tortured , and killed in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador , Honduras , and Guatemala , and the State Department has issued travel warnings for US citizens in all four countries .
El Salvador has the highest homicide rate in the world , while Honduras ranks fifth , and Guatemala 16th , according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime .
All have rampant government corruption and high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ individuals .
The asylum-seeker deals resemble “ safe third country agreements , ” a rarely used diplomatic tool that requires migrants to seek asylum in the countries they pass through by deeming those countries capable of offering them protection .
But the Trump administration has been reluctant to use that term , perhaps because the countries it ’ s dealing with can not be considered safe .
Before President Donald Trump assumed office , the US had this kind of agreement with just one country : Canada .
The agreements are one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obtaining asylum impossible for all but a few prior to the pandemic .
But since March , the administration has been turning away all asylum seekers arriving on the southern border on the basis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-imposed border restrictions , which have largely replaced those other measures temporarily .
( Unaccompanied children were recently excluded from those restrictions by court order , but the Trump administration has continued to expel some of them anyway . )
It ’ s not clear whether the Trump administration will actually use the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ El Salvador in the final weeks before Inauguration Day .
The Department of Homeland Security did not elaborate on the implementation Tuesday .
That means that the fate of the agreements could fall to President-elect Joe Biden .
He has vowed to reverse many of Trump ’ s immigration policies , but the asylum agreements in Central America are notably not among those articulated in his detailed plans for immigration and Central America .
Transition team representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment as to whether Biden would exit from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ criticized them , writing in a letter signed by her Democratic colleagues in the Senate earlier this year that they are “ not only inhumane and potentially illegal ” but also “ could have serious and detrimental implications for US national security ” as a destabilizing factor in Central America .
Chad Wolf , the acting Secretary of Homeland Security , framed the agreements as a “ critical step in the establishment of a truly regional approach to migration , and , more specifically , to the offer of protection to those migrants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a statement Tuesday .
But the countries with which Trump has brokered the agreements have a long history of instability and violence , and , in some cases , asylum seekers are in particular danger .
Central America remains a hotspot of gang violence .
MS-13 and M-18 , which together have a presence of about 85,000 members in the area , are gangs that formed in Los Angeles and were transplanted to Central America after mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants with criminal histories in the 1990s .
Gangs facilitate drug trafficking , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boys to join .
The Northern Triangle countries also produce high numbers of people seeking asylum themselves .
In 2017 , the most recent year for which asylum data is available , the US granted asylum to 3,471 migrants from El Salvador , 2,954 from Guatemala and 2,048 from Honduras .
To address these issues , Biden has said that he would put forth a $ 4 billion foreign aid package for Central America that would be delivered over the course of four years , incentivizing governments to reduce gang- and gender-based violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and implement anti-corruption measures .
But he has stopped short so far of promising to do away with the agreements .

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it’s ready to implement a controversial international agreement to return asylum seekers arriving on the US-Mexico border back to El Salvador.
The Asylum Cooperative Agreement, signed in September 2019 with the approval of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, is one of three such pacts that the US has made in an effort to discourage regional migration. The other agreements are with Honduras and Guatemala, although only the agreement with Guatemala has gone into effect so far, leading to the deportations of nearly 1,000 Hondurans and Salvadorans.
The US is returning people seeking asylum to those countries despite the fact that migrants are commonly robbed, kidnapped for ransom, raped, tortured, and killed in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, and the State Department has issued travel warnings for US citizens in all four countries. El Salvador has the highest homicide rate in the world, while Honduras ranks fifth, and Guatemala 16th, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. All have rampant government corruption and high rates of violence against women and LGBTQ individuals.
The asylum-seeker deals resemble “safe third country agreements,” a rarely used diplomatic tool that requires migrants to seek asylum in the countries they pass through by deeming those countries capable of offering them protection. But the Trump administration has been reluctant to use that term, perhaps because the countries it’s dealing with cannot be considered safe. Before President Donald Trump assumed office, the US had this kind of agreement with just one country: Canada.
The agreements are one of many interlocking Trump administration policies that made obtaining asylum impossible for all but a few prior to the pandemic. But since March, the administration has been turning away all asylum seekers arriving on the southern border on the basis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-imposed border restrictions, which have largely replaced those other measures temporarily. (Unaccompanied children were recently excluded from those restrictions by court order, but the Trump administration has continued to expel some of them anyway.)
It’s not clear whether the Trump administration will actually use the agreement to deport asylum seekers back to El Salvador in the final weeks before Inauguration Day. The Department of Homeland Security did not elaborate on the implementation Tuesday.
That means that the fate of the agreements could fall to President-elect Joe Biden. He has vowed to reverse many of Trump’s immigration policies, but the asylum agreements in Central America are notably not among those articulated in his detailed plans for immigration and Central America.
Transition team representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment as to whether Biden would exit from the agreements. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris previously criticized them, writing in a letter signed by her Democratic colleagues in the Senate earlier this year that they are “not only inhumane and potentially illegal” but also “could have serious and detrimental implications for US national security” as a destabilizing factor in Central America.
Chad Wolf, the acting Secretary of Homeland Security, framed the agreements as a “critical step in the establishment of a truly regional approach to migration, and, more specifically, to the offer of protection to those migrants who are victims of persecution” in a statement Tuesday.
But the countries with which Trump has brokered the agreements have a long history of instability and violence, and, in some cases, asylum seekers are in particular danger.
Central America remains a hotspot of gang violence. MS-13 and M-18, which together have a presence of about 85,000 members in the area, are gangs that formed in Los Angeles and were transplanted to Central America after mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants with criminal histories in the 1990s. Gangs facilitate drug trafficking, extort local residents, and force teenage boys to join.
The Northern Triangle countries also produce high numbers of people seeking asylum themselves. In 2017, the most recent year for which asylum data is available, the US granted asylum to 3,471 migrants from El Salvador, 2,954 from Guatemala and 2,048 from Honduras.
To address these issues, Biden has said that he would put forth a $4 billion foreign aid package for Central America that would be delivered over the course of four years, incentivizing governments to reduce gang- and gender-based violence, improve their legal and educational systems, and implement anti-corruption measures. But he has stopped short so far of promising to do away with the agreements.


On Waiting

When I first left America , I left behind a lifetime of waiting for racism to end .
It was 2013 , I was 23 and had just finished college .
I bought a one-way ticket dated the day of the graduation ceremony .
As the plane took off from JFK and landed in Trinidad , relief washed over me .
I finally felt like I could breathe .
I had no plan for how I would make a life for myself , but I knew there wasn ’ t one for me back in America .
Still , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after that moment , to return to the home I knew , only to realize again that it would never fully embrace me as a Black woman .
Measuring the harm of racism , of something as all-encompassing , and as subtle as it is overt , is an impossible task .
But when I finally picked up and left , my decision felt born out of time that had been stolen from me .
The hours I had sunk into internalizing negative messages about Blackness , moving after being priced out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ body to try to appease white standards , and begging for others to acknowledge the pain and trauma I had endured .
Fighting to survive as Black woman in America had exhausted me .
How can I account for the number of seconds , minutes , days , years , that I waited , and waited , for a day uncolored by racism ?
It ’ s unquantifiable , but here ’ s my best guess : There are the hundreds of hours I spent astutely absorbing history lessons as a child , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Afro puffs , wondering why the brown faces in my textbooks that resembled mine were consolidated into chapters only about their pain and struggle .
The moon rose high the many nights I lay in bed contemplating the hideousness of racism that incited crowds of white people to scream and jeer at little Black girls and boys who dared venture into whiter pastures in search of an education .
Behind the darkness of my eyelids played images of enslaved Black people sojourning through the woods of the South with only the North Star @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their freedom .
Countless sunrises illuminated my mother ’ s travails in search of the basic necessities for her and her family .
A single parent , she worked for decades as a hospice nurse at the bedsides of dying patients — some of whom were old and white and called her racial epithets — to provide for her three children .
The sun set on many family dinners while Mom tried to explain why we could no longer attend the “ good ” school .
“ I can ’ t afford to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” mom would say when we were priced out of our Florida neighborhood , her voice heavy with shame and defeat .
I spent 300 hours of my childhood on road trips moving from New Jersey to Texas , Florida and back , 30 hours moving my family ’ s things from home to home .
Once , we tied mattresses to the hood of our car and laughed while stuffing towels into the cracked windows to stop the rain from leaking in and soaking us .
Such hardships never stopped the labor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ woman , I tied my sneaker laces too many times to count and clocked hours running , the bass of the music in my ears setting the pace of my quest to slim down like the white women I watched on television .
I buried myself in my studies and maintained mostly A grades in school and university , all in a quest for social mobility and assimilation and “ success.
” Perhaps then , I hoped , I would be more desirable and acceptable in the white world that promised comfort and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years I argued that generations of people should never inherit wealth or hardship purely based on their skin color , and that we must close America ’ s racial wealth gap with reparations if the country truly aspires to equality .
“ I don ’ t see color ” was the most common dismissal I heard of my writing , as if America ’ s ghettoization of Blackness was something hard to see .
It was especially evident to me when I spent 72 weeks of my life pregnant .
During my first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ waited for three hours to be seen by a white male doctor for 10 minutes in a clinic that served mostly Black women .
“ Your next appointment with the doctor will be in about four weeks , ” the nurse told me , though I had barely received any medical care .
I knew in that moment that I ’ d need to spend more time looking for another doctor .
Afterward , I sat for two hours on the phone with the Medicaid bureaucracy before I was able to see a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of town that served a more diverse clientele .
I left the new doctor ’ s office with a prescription for levothyroxine for hypothyroidism after blood tests revealed that I was not producing enough thyroid hormone necessary for a fetus to properly develop .
Had I waited as suggested by my doctor , my health would have been at risk .
And my firstborn might have had developmental issues or even died in my womb , leaving us another Black infant mortality or maternal death statistic .
I endured seven total hours in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world .
In those first hours of their lives , I prayed that I would find a way to provide for , support , and protect them from the racism that made my life so much more difficult .
That the world would see them through my eyes , in all their perfection , forever .
But when I tried to envision the future my Black children would have in America , I could only see their lives marred by pain , hardship , and degradation .
I was haunted by fears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Martin or Tamir Rice — Black boys gunned down by police or vigilantes for merely existing .
In my daughter ’ s tiny brown face , I saw the vulnerability of Black girls like Honestie Hodges , who died of the coronavirus at age 14 , only three years after her violent arrest by Michigan police made national headlines .
With them in tow , I boarded a flight back to my birth country , hoping the choice could set them on a safer trajectory .
One filled with welcome and opportunity for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enslaved Africans journeyed across the Atlantic in the belly of slave ships , their spirits , and those of the millions of Black lives claimed by the white appetite for Black suffering , haunt America .
They stand behind the millions of Black Americans still fighting to survive a centuries-old genocidal system .
They visit me in my nightmares .
Their backs are scarred , their wrists , ankles , and necks are bruised , and their bodies are riddled by bullet holes .
The gaping lesions created by systemic racism are widening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black lives are claimed by Covid-19 , which has disproportionately impacted communities of color that were already insufficiently armed to win the war against the pandemic .
Families of color are being plunged into economic despair in a “ K-shaped ” recovery that favors white families and turns a blind eye to Black suffering .
This is one of America ’ s darkest moments , and the North Star can not lead Black people to the light of freedom .
Two years have passed since I left America for good , finally accepting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on its promise of full citizenry for Black people .
I tallied the centuries ’ worth of fighting expended by Black Americans and the many hundreds of hours I spent thinking , enduring , and battling — and I realized I could see no end to the struggle in my lifetime .
I am 30 years old and my life is not yet perfect , but it ’ s so much better .
My sister joined me seven months after I moved , and my mother joined us in the months that followed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drink coffee every morning while the kids play , free of the burdens we certainly would have carried had we remained in the US .
If Mom had waited longer , she , as a nurse , could have been among those whose lives were claimed by Covid-19 .
It ’ s hard not to be overwhelmed by the guilt of surviving and escaping while so many continue to suffer .
Not everyone has the option .
And moving far away from family and community connections is hard .
I understand why someone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But there was something I couldn ’ t sacrifice , either — another moment .
Tiffanie Drayton is a writer working on her first memoir about escaping American racism ( Penguin/Random House 2021 ) .
She previously wrote for Vox about what reparations means for Black women and Americans living abroad who voted in the 2020 election .

When I first left America, I left behind a lifetime of waiting for racism to end.
It was 2013, I was 23 and had just finished college. I bought a one-way ticket dated the day of the graduation ceremony. As the plane took off from JFK and landed in Trinidad, relief washed over me. I finally felt like I could breathe. I had no plan for how I would make a life for myself, but I knew there wasn’t one for me back in America. Still, I tried time and time again, even after that moment, to return to the home I knew, only to realize again that it would never fully embrace me as a Black woman.
Measuring the harm of racism, of something as all-encompassing, and as subtle as it is overt, is an impossible task. But when I finally picked up and left, my decision felt born out of time that had been stolen from me. The hours I had sunk into internalizing negative messages about Blackness, moving after being priced out of neighborhoods, reconfiguring my identity and my body to try to appease white standards, and begging for others to acknowledge the pain and trauma I had endured. Fighting to survive as Black woman in America had exhausted me.
How can I account for the number of seconds, minutes, days, years, that I waited, and waited, for a day uncolored by racism? It’s unquantifiable, but here’s my best guess: There are the hundreds of hours I spent astutely absorbing history lessons as a child, my kinky hair braided or pulled into Afro puffs, wondering why the brown faces in my textbooks that resembled mine were consolidated into chapters only about their pain and struggle. The moon rose high the many nights I lay in bed contemplating the hideousness of racism that incited crowds of white people to scream and jeer at little Black girls and boys who dared venture into whiter pastures in search of an education. Behind the darkness of my eyelids played images of enslaved Black people sojourning through the woods of the South with only the North Star serving as a beacon of hope for their freedom.
Countless sunrises illuminated my mother’s travails in search of the basic necessities for her and her family. A single parent, she worked for decades as a hospice nurse at the bedsides of dying patients — some of whom were old and white and called her racial epithets — to provide for her three children. The sun set on many family dinners while Mom tried to explain why we could no longer attend the “good” school.
“I can’t afford to buy, I’m sorry,” mom would say when we were priced out of our Florida neighborhood, her voice heavy with shame and defeat.
I spent 300 hours of my childhood on road trips moving from New Jersey to Texas, Florida and back, 30 hours moving my family’s things from home to home. Once, we tied mattresses to the hood of our car and laughed while stuffing towels into the cracked windows to stop the rain from leaking in and soaking us.
Such hardships never stopped the labor of my bootstrap-pulling. As a young woman, I tied my sneaker laces too many times to count and clocked hours running, the bass of the music in my ears setting the pace of my quest to slim down like the white women I watched on television. I buried myself in my studies and maintained mostly A grades in school and university, all in a quest for social mobility and assimilation and “success.” Perhaps then, I hoped, I would be more desirable and acceptable in the white world that promised comfort and security.
As a writer, for years I argued that generations of people should never inherit wealth or hardship purely based on their skin color, and that we must close America’s racial wealth gap with reparations if the country truly aspires to equality.
“I don’t see color” was the most common dismissal I heard of my writing, as if America’s ghettoization of Blackness was something hard to see.
It was especially evident to me when I spent 72 weeks of my life pregnant. During my first prenatal doctor’s visit, I waited for three hours to be seen by a white male doctor for 10 minutes in a clinic that served mostly Black women.
“Your next appointment with the doctor will be in about four weeks,” the nurse told me, though I had barely received any medical care. I knew in that moment that I’d need to spend more time looking for another doctor.
Afterward, I sat for two hours on the phone with the Medicaid bureaucracy before I was able to see a doctor in a “better” part of town that served a more diverse clientele. I left the new doctor’s office with a prescription for levothyroxine for hypothyroidism after blood tests revealed that I was not producing enough thyroid hormone necessary for a fetus to properly develop. Had I waited as suggested by my doctor, my health would have been at risk. And my firstborn might have had developmental issues or even died in my womb, leaving us another Black infant mortality or maternal death statistic.
I endured seven total hours in labor to bring my two children into the world. In those first hours of their lives, I prayed that I would find a way to provide for, support, and protect them from the racism that made my life so much more difficult. That the world would see them through my eyes, in all their perfection, forever.
But when I tried to envision the future my Black children would have in America, I could only see their lives marred by pain, hardship, and degradation. I was haunted by fears of my son becoming the next Trayvon Martin or Tamir Rice — Black boys gunned down by police or vigilantes for merely existing. In my daughter’s tiny brown face, I saw the vulnerability of Black girls like Honestie Hodges, who died of the coronavirus at age 14, only three years after her violent arrest by Michigan police made national headlines. With them in tow, I boarded a flight back to my birth country, hoping the choice could set them on a safer trajectory. One filled with welcome and opportunity for their Blackness.
Centuries after millions of enslaved Africans journeyed across the Atlantic in the belly of slave ships, their spirits, and those of the millions of Black lives claimed by the white appetite for Black suffering, haunt America. They stand behind the millions of Black Americans still fighting to survive a centuries-old genocidal system. They visit me in my nightmares. Their backs are scarred, their wrists, ankles, and necks are bruised, and their bodies are riddled by bullet holes.
The gaping lesions created by systemic racism are widening and continue to fester as thousands of Black lives are claimed by Covid-19, which has disproportionately impacted communities of color that were already insufficiently armed to win the war against the pandemic. Families of color are being plunged into economic despair in a “K-shaped” recovery that favors white families and turns a blind eye to Black suffering. This is one of America’s darkest moments, and the North Star cannot lead Black people to the light of freedom.
Two years have passed since I left America for good, finally accepting that the country may never make good on its promise of full citizenry for Black people. I tallied the centuries’ worth of fighting expended by Black Americans and the many hundreds of hours I spent thinking, enduring, and battling — and I realized I could see no end to the struggle in my lifetime.
I am 30 years old and my life is not yet perfect, but it’s so much better. My sister joined me seven months after I moved, and my mother joined us in the months that followed. Together, we eat breakfast and drink coffee every morning while the kids play, free of the burdens we certainly would have carried had we remained in the US. If Mom had waited longer, she, as a nurse, could have been among those whose lives were claimed by Covid-19.
It’s hard not to be overwhelmed by the guilt of surviving and escaping while so many continue to suffer. Not everyone has the option. And moving far away from family and community connections is hard. I understand why someone couldn’t make that sacrifice.
But there was something I couldn’t sacrifice, either — another moment.
Tiffanie Drayton is a writer working on her first memoir about escaping American racism (Penguin/Random House 2021). She previously wrote for Vox about what reparations means for Black women and Americans living abroad who voted in the 2020 election.


The Lost Year

The Death card doesn ’ t mean literal death , except when it does .
Typically , it represents an ending , which also implies a new beginning .
Something has changed , or something will change .
You just don ’ t know what yet .
Unless you do .
Tarot ’ s funny that way .
The “ actual ” meaning of the Death card is something you learn when you study tarot , but it ’ s also something that has slipped beyond the world of tarot lore and into the mainstream consciousness .
The TV Tropes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mentions of the Death card , most of which involve characters who learn that it foretells “ change ” or “ an ending ” instead of literal death .
Usually , the Death card features some sort of skeletal figure ; the most famous version shows a skeleton in a suit of armor astride a horse .
A king kneels before him , because , well , Death is the great leveler .
My favorite version , from a tarot deck known as the Brady Tarot , features a human skull with plants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , the skull of a prehistoric animal rests below the earth , trapped in a giant , all-devouring maw lined with teeth .
The saber-toothed cats are gone ; humanity will be too someday .
Everything changes .
Everything is temporary .
I ’ ve drawn the Death card quite a bit in 2020 .
And I ’ ve frequently drawn it reversed , which is to say upside down .
Not every tarot reader finds added meaning in reversed cards , but I often do .
Typically , a reversed card @ @ @ @ @ @ @ itself — not precisely a direct opposite , but not not an opposite either .
I tend to read Death reversed as stasis , an unwillingness to change , an unwillingness to accept that things end .
Most recently , I drew the card when thinking about this very essay .
The question I asked as the starting point for my tarot spread was , more or less , “ 2020 : What ’ s up with that ?
” And when I arrived at the slot reserved for “ hopes and fears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our fears are closely intertwined — I drew Death reversed .
What I feared most was also what I hoped for most : that once this terrible year is over , nothing will have changed .
An idea has taken hold among many of my friends and family that 2020 is a sort of “ lost year ” that we simply won ’ t get back .
I think I understand this .
Early in quarantine , I made list after list of things to do “ after all of this is over.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it still isn ’ t over .
I remember the naive optimism so many of us had in those early days .
I remember thinking , the night before Los Angeles ’ s shelter-in-place orders went into effect , that I should still try to see a movie I had bought tickets to several days earlier .
I didn ’ t go , believing that theaters would be open again by the end of May , if not the end of April .
Theaters in Los Angeles still aren ’ t open .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The movies aren ’ t all I miss , of course .
I see my friends — in person but at a distance , or virtually , from time to time — but I haven ’ t been able to hug them or hang out in the same way we used to .
I miss hugs .
I miss the intimacy of a quiet , unmasked conversation in a physical space .
I miss going to my favorite bar , a little hole in the ground that serves great sandwiches , homemade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ miss petting random dogs .
I miss traveling .
But missing things is not the same as losing them .
To be sure , some of what I miss might actually be gone forever .
The movie theater industry is certainly flailing , and many local bars and restaurants will never reopen .
But , like , hugs will come back .
The world is not gone .
It ’ s just different .
I started doing tarot during quarantine , as a coping mechanism , when the slow stress of being stuck @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to eat away at me .
Tarot gave me a way to feel grounded .
There were always 78 cards in the deck , and they felt like a miniature , bounded universe of their own .
Each had a story attached .
I could learn and master those stories .
I could build a whole world in a single shuffle .
In isolation , I felt , too often , like I didn ’ t exist .
As a trans woman , there is an immense power to being out in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for me and know who I am .
Suddenly , it was as if I had been forced back to 2013 , a few years before I came out to myself and a time when I rarely left my apartment and often struggled to leave my bed , so great was the disparity between my body and my brain .
Even now , with everyone wearing masks , it ’ s easy to feel like we aren ’ t truly seeing other people .
To keep each other safe , we have hidden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I have felt completely powerless and out of control .
It ’ s like I was picked up by a malign wind and thrown into the sky with little regard for where I might land .
Nearly everyone I know has experienced some variation on this feeling in 2020 .
We are trapped by chaos .
The thing about yearning for control is that it ’ s rarely about having control of a situation .
Instead , it ’ s about having control of yourself .
I bucked against this idea when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I didn ’ t want to adopt coping strategies that could help me get through the bad times .
I wanted to attack the problem at its source .
But I didn ’ t have any control over its source .
And I did have control over the way my thoughts might spiral in any given moment .
So now , when life feels too intense , when trauma rears its ugly head , when I ’ m just having a shitty day , I pull out my tarot deck and sort it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ each .
I shuffle them together .
I sift through them until I feel certain I have the right card .
I turn it over .
I see what it is .
I tell a story to put boundaries back around the chaos .
A lot of being human is knowing just enough to be terrified of what you don ’ t know .
So we spend a lot of our lives looking at the world through interpretive lenses .
Science is one such lens , religion another .
Art is a lens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ single lens explains everything , but if you stack enough of them on top of each other , you might start to see a sliver of the full picture .
All belief systems are interpretive lenses designed to assuage our natural curiosity about why things are the way they are , and the discomfort we often feel in the face of uncertainty .
If I have a question about the world around me , I can certainly consult science for an answer .
But explaining the neurochemical reactions that might make me fall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ profound and beautiful falling in love can feel .
It ’ s good to know those neurochemical reactions exist ; it ’ s just as good to find words to express the kind of fragile hope a new relationship or a new friendship can foster in the heart .
Tarot , for me , is a lens .
The cards originated as playing cards , with a deck containing 78 cards in total .
There are four suits composed of 14 cards each , then 22 more cards depicting specific characters , archetypes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aside and known as the “ Major Arcana.
” ( Death , for instance , is No .
13 in the Major Arcana . )
Tarot cards were not argued to possess divinatory properties until long after they had been invented .
Humans keep looking for ways to read the future by looking for patterns amid chaos .
Why not look for those patterns in playing cards ?
But forget about telling the future .
Play around with tarot cards long enough and you might start to realize that what they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yourself .
Try to read a story into them and you might trick your brain into letting go of its typical thought patterns , at least a little bit .
It ’ s an end run around consciousness , a way to tap into the place that conjures up your dreams .
I do not believe that tarot cards can tell the future because I don ’ t believe anything can tell the future .
I use tarot not to reveal what ’ s coming , but to reveal where I already am @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tarot as “ something between you and the universe , ” and that ’ s why it can feel so sacred to those of us who practice it .
There is a person inside all of us that we don ’ t always want to talk to .
( Trans people understand this deeply . )
Tarot can get you to a place where you ’ re talking to that person , maybe even building a relationship with them .
So , some nights , I get out my tarot deck , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my energies into it — I love the ritual of this practice ) , and I spread out some cards in front of me .
They are not evil , as I was taught for so much of my fundamentalist Christian childhood .
They are just cards .
They almost never tell me anything new .
They remind me of what I already know I need to do but am avoiding .
Prayer functions similarly ; if you don ’ t believe in God , prayer is just talking to yourself .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no value in talking to yourself .
Words spoken into empty air are still words .
Cards spread out on a table before you are still cards .
When I read tarot , I am conducting my own kind of experiment , journeying deeper into myself and figuring out what I might be hiding away until such time as I need it .
Belief is not a new way of thinking ; it is a new way of seeing .
In the tarot spread I did before I wrote this piece , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ card expressing hopes and fears , the final card I drew — known as the “ outcome ” card , which is to say the “ in conclusion ” card — was the eight of pentacles .
Pentacles are one of the four suits in tarot ( the other three being wands , cups , and swords ) , and they are the suit associated with the element earth ( because each suit is associated with one of the four elements ) .
As such , pentacles often represent stability , solid foundations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lives .
The spirit and the soul might be crucial , but you need to feel a sense of physical security before you can really start pondering those loftier matters .
Most designs for the eight of pentacles feature someone sequestered from society , working intently at some important task .
The world may be going about its business outside , but they are here , inside , focusing on the work that must be done to make their lives what they want .
I don ’ t know that this characterization will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does with me .
The world hasn ’ t disappeared , but for a lot of people , it ’ s been put on hold .
Until I can get back to it , I ’ m going to keep doing important work in solitude .
What form that important work takes is different for everyone who might embrace my interpretation of this card .
Maybe , like me , you learned to bake bread this year , and maybe you ’ ll carry that forward into your life .
Maybe you finally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meant to read , or watched every episode of a TV show you ’ d been saving for a year of rainy days .
Maybe you just stayed alive .
These are all important works , often done alone .
But my conclusion doesn ’ t have to be your conclusion .
The beauty of the lenses we use to see the world is the way they shift to fit the person who ’ s looking through them .
I have always been intrigued by tarot , but I don ’ t think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without this year stuck inside , alone with my thoughts .
Some combination of the trepidation that my childhood religion programmed into me and a lack of initiative kept me from really exploring it .
When I picked it up , I went all-in .
Quarantine , for me , was a chance to connect with pieces of myself I didn ’ t realize were there until I sought them out .
Locked away at home , I started to better understand my own thoughts .
I know so many people who better @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at home this year .
I know even more who spent the pandemic unable to quarantine , for professional or personal reasons .
It is not lost on me that my story — one of being able to work from home and focus on myself and my health , both physical and mental — is not universal .
If my quarantine doesn ’ t describe yours , that ’ s only natural .
It ’ s been hard enough simply to survive .
I also don ’ t want to minimize the actual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of people have lost their lives to a terrible disease made worse by some combination of government indifference and personal irresponsibility .
This has been a terrible , terrible year , even beyond the pandemic , with seemingly 500 major news stories hitting every other day .
There was a presidential election , and then the sitting president ( who lost ) kept feigning that he might try to hold on to power by any means necessary , and many days , it wasn ’ t front-page news simply because so much else @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forgotten that he was also impeached this year . )
There is a reason the card I drew to symbolize both hope and fear was Death reversed .
Yes , I want to know that the world as I knew and loved it will return in some form in the years to come .
But I ’ m also afraid that we will learn nothing from this experience , that we will , instead , hurtle so quickly back to our lives as they were that nothing will change in a world where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ On a societal or global level , that lack of change might really come to be .
But on a personal level , I ’ m much more hopeful .
For as hard as this year has been , so many of us have discovered things about ourselves we didn ’ t realize were true .
There are so many stories of 2020 that are quieter than the headlines .
Personal revelations and instances of people looking out for each other kept happening alongside the turmoil and tumult .
You just had to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So I went looking , and I have been so enthralled by what I ’ ve found .
Over the next few weeks , I ’ m going to tell some of those stories .
This has been a lost year in some ways , but also a year of learning , of bonding , of growth .
Stories of grief and sorrow are important to tell , but so are stories of joy and connection and life .
We will always look back on this year and remember what was hard .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , too .
Sometime this summer , I was taking a shower , crying in exhaustion and anxiety from the extreme stress of , well , everything .
That very day , a friend had sent me some flowers , because she knew I was having a hard time .
Seeing them , bright and joyous and colorful , had reminded me that everything ends , and everything changes .
Flowers , by their nature , are fleeting .
But they ’ re beautiful for a time .
I looked down at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ soggy yellow flower petal stuck there .
I felt a thrill at the thought of finding this obvious symbol of my friend ’ s love for me in the midst of my stressed-out solitude .
Intellectually , I knew I had tracked the flower petal into the tub on my heel , but it felt magical , an answer to a prayer for comfort I hadn ’ t thought to utter .
I stooped to pick up the petal , only to see it wasn ’ t a flower petal at all .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ had not seen properly in the dim lighting of the bathroom .
I had somehow dragged it into the shower with me .
I deflated .
I had missed the obvious truth in front of me .
Even in the stark isolation of 2020 , it was worth remembering that tumult and despair I have felt so often this year is not the only reality there is .
Even if what I saw on the floor of the tub wasn ’ t a flower petal , the way I saw through the exact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ precisely when I needed to see through it , was still real .
The flower petal was “ really ” a candy wrapper .
But it also was a flower petal .
It had transmogrified itself in the moment I needed it most .
Neither I nor you can prove it did not , even as we know it did not .
How you see a thing is always a matter of what you hope to see .
For the next three weeks , I will be sharing stories of people ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the backdrop of the pandemic , from all over the globe .
On Thursday : a woman , an injured baby pig , and a series of revelations .

The Death card doesn’t mean literal death, except when it does. Typically, it represents an ending, which also implies a new beginning. Something has changed, or something will change. You just don’t know what yet. Unless you do. Tarot’s funny that way.
The “actual” meaning of the Death card is something you learn when you study tarot, but it’s also something that has slipped beyond the world of tarot lore and into the mainstream consciousness. The TV Tropes page for tarot motifs reveals dozens of mentions of the Death card, most of which involve characters who learn that it foretells “change” or “an ending” instead of literal death.
Usually, the Death card features some sort of skeletal figure; the most famous version shows a skeleton in a suit of armor astride a horse. A king kneels before him, because, well, Death is the great leveler. My favorite version, from a tarot deck known as the Brady Tarot, features a human skull with plants sprouting from the eye sockets. Beneath it, the skull of a prehistoric animal rests below the earth, trapped in a giant, all-devouring maw lined with teeth. The saber-toothed cats are gone; humanity will be too someday. Everything changes. Everything is temporary.
I’ve drawn the Death card quite a bit in 2020. And I’ve frequently drawn it reversed, which is to say upside down. Not every tarot reader finds added meaning in reversed cards, but I often do. Typically, a reversed card is interpreted as the mirror image of itself — not precisely a direct opposite, but not not an opposite either. I tend to read Death reversed as stasis, an unwillingness to change, an unwillingness to accept that things end.
Most recently, I drew the card when thinking about this very essay. The question I asked as the starting point for my tarot spread was, more or less, “2020: What’s up with that?” And when I arrived at the slot reserved for “hopes and fears” — because usually our hopes and our fears are closely intertwined — I drew Death reversed. What I feared most was also what I hoped for most: that once this terrible year is over, nothing will have changed.
An idea has taken hold among many of my friends and family that 2020 is a sort of “lost year” that we simply won’t get back. I think I understand this. Early in quarantine, I made list after list of things to do “after all of this is over.” It’s December, and it still isn’t over.
I remember the naive optimism so many of us had in those early days. I remember thinking, the night before Los Angeles’s shelter-in-place orders went into effect, that I should still try to see a movie I had bought tickets to several days earlier. I didn’t go, believing that theaters would be open again by the end of May, if not the end of April. Theaters in Los Angeles still aren’t open. I desperately miss going to the movies.
The movies aren’t all I miss, of course. I see my friends — in person but at a distance, or virtually, from time to time — but I haven’t been able to hug them or hang out in the same way we used to. I miss hugs. I miss the intimacy of a quiet, unmasked conversation in a physical space. I miss going to my favorite bar, a little hole in the ground that serves great sandwiches, homemade potato chips, and absinthe. I miss petting random dogs. I miss traveling.
But missing things is not the same as losing them. To be sure, some of what I miss might actually be gone forever. The movie theater industry is certainly flailing, and many local bars and restaurants will never reopen. But, like, hugs will come back.
The world is not gone. It’s just different.
I started doing tarot during quarantine, as a coping mechanism, when the slow stress of being stuck inside with myself and my thoughts started to eat away at me. Tarot gave me a way to feel grounded. There were always 78 cards in the deck, and they felt like a miniature, bounded universe of their own. Each had a story attached. I could learn and master those stories. I could build a whole world in a single shuffle.
In isolation, I felt, too often, like I didn’t exist. As a trans woman, there is an immense power to being out in the world, to having people see me for me and know who I am. Suddenly, it was as if I had been forced back to 2013, a few years before I came out to myself and a time when I rarely left my apartment and often struggled to leave my bed, so great was the disparity between my body and my brain. Even now, with everyone wearing masks, it’s easy to feel like we aren’t truly seeing other people. To keep each other safe, we have hidden ourselves away.
Since the pandemic began, I have felt completely powerless and out of control. It’s like I was picked up by a malign wind and thrown into the sky with little regard for where I might land. Nearly everyone I know has experienced some variation on this feeling in 2020. We are trapped by chaos.
The thing about yearning for control is that it’s rarely about having control of a situation. Instead, it’s about having control of yourself. I bucked against this idea when my therapist presented it to me. I didn’t want to adopt coping strategies that could help me get through the bad times. I wanted to attack the problem at its source. But I didn’t have any control over its source. And I did have control over the way my thoughts might spiral in any given moment.
So now, when life feels too intense, when trauma rears its ugly head, when I’m just having a shitty day, I pull out my tarot deck and sort it into six smaller decks of 13 cards each. I shuffle them together. I sift through them until I feel certain I have the right card. I turn it over. I see what it is. I tell a story to put boundaries back around the chaos.
A lot of being human is knowing just enough to be terrified of what you don’t know. So we spend a lot of our lives looking at the world through interpretive lenses. Science is one such lens, religion another. Art is a lens, and so is politics. No single lens explains everything, but if you stack enough of them on top of each other, you might start to see a sliver of the full picture.
All belief systems are interpretive lenses designed to assuage our natural curiosity about why things are the way they are, and the discomfort we often feel in the face of uncertainty. If I have a question about the world around me, I can certainly consult science for an answer. But explaining the neurochemical reactions that might make me fall in love doesn’t explain how profound and beautiful falling in love can feel. It’s good to know those neurochemical reactions exist; it’s just as good to find words to express the kind of fragile hope a new relationship or a new friendship can foster in the heart.
Tarot, for me, is a lens. The cards originated as playing cards, with a deck containing 78 cards in total. There are four suits composed of 14 cards each, then 22 more cards depicting specific characters, archetypes, and concepts, which are set aside and known as the “Major Arcana.” (Death, for instance, is No. 13 in the Major Arcana.)
Tarot cards were not argued to possess divinatory properties until long after they had been invented. Humans keep looking for ways to read the future by looking for patterns amid chaos. Why not look for those patterns in playing cards?
But forget about telling the future. Play around with tarot cards long enough and you might start to realize that what they’re really useful for is learning things about yourself. Try to read a story into them and you might trick your brain into letting go of its typical thought patterns, at least a little bit. It’s an end run around consciousness, a way to tap into the place that conjures up your dreams. I do not believe that tarot cards can tell the future because I don’t believe anything can tell the future. I use tarot not to reveal what’s coming, but to reveal where I already am.
A good friend of mine describes tarot as “something between you and the universe,” and that’s why it can feel so sacred to those of us who practice it. There is a person inside all of us that we don’t always want to talk to. (Trans people understand this deeply.) Tarot can get you to a place where you’re talking to that person, maybe even building a relationship with them.
So, some nights, I get out my tarot deck, and I knock on it (to invite my energies into it — I love the ritual of this practice), and I spread out some cards in front of me. They are not evil, as I was taught for so much of my fundamentalist Christian childhood. They are just cards. They almost never tell me anything new. They remind me of what I already know I need to do but am avoiding. Prayer functions similarly; if you don’t believe in God, prayer is just talking to yourself.
That doesn’t mean there’s no value in talking to yourself. Words spoken into empty air are still words. Cards spread out on a table before you are still cards. When I read tarot, I am conducting my own kind of experiment, journeying deeper into myself and figuring out what I might be hiding away until such time as I need it. Belief is not a new way of thinking; it is a new way of seeing.
In the tarot spread I did before I wrote this piece, the one that featured Death reversed as the card expressing hopes and fears, the final card I drew — known as the “outcome” card, which is to say the “in conclusion” card — was the eight of pentacles.
Pentacles are one of the four suits in tarot (the other three being wands, cups, and swords), and they are the suit associated with the element earth (because each suit is associated with one of the four elements). As such, pentacles often represent stability, solid foundations, and the material realities of our lives. The spirit and the soul might be crucial, but you need to feel a sense of physical security before you can really start pondering those loftier matters.
Most designs for the eight of pentacles feature someone sequestered from society, working intently at some important task. The world may be going about its business outside, but they are here, inside, focusing on the work that must be done to make their lives what they want. I don’t know that this characterization will resonate with you, but it certainly does with me. The world hasn’t disappeared, but for a lot of people, it’s been put on hold. Until I can get back to it, I’m going to keep doing important work in solitude.
What form that important work takes is different for everyone who might embrace my interpretation of this card. Maybe, like me, you learned to bake bread this year, and maybe you’ll carry that forward into your life. Maybe you finally read a book you’d always meant to read, or watched every episode of a TV show you’d been saving for a year of rainy days. Maybe you just stayed alive. These are all important works, often done alone.
But my conclusion doesn’t have to be your conclusion. The beauty of the lenses we use to see the world is the way they shift to fit the person who’s looking through them.
I have always been intrigued by tarot, but I don’t think I ever would have gotten into it without this year stuck inside, alone with my thoughts. Some combination of the trepidation that my childhood religion programmed into me and a lack of initiative kept me from really exploring it. When I picked it up, I went all-in. Quarantine, for me, was a chance to connect with pieces of myself I didn’t realize were there until I sought them out. Locked away at home, I started to better understand my own thoughts.
I know so many people who better learned to understand themselves when locked away at home this year. I know even more who spent the pandemic unable to quarantine, for professional or personal reasons. It is not lost on me that my story — one of being able to work from home and focus on myself and my health, both physical and mental — is not universal. If my quarantine doesn’t describe yours, that’s only natural. It’s been hard enough simply to survive.
I also don’t want to minimize the actual losses of 2020. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives to a terrible disease made worse by some combination of government indifference and personal irresponsibility. This has been a terrible, terrible year, even beyond the pandemic, with seemingly 500 major news stories hitting every other day. There was a presidential election, and then the sitting president (who lost) kept feigning that he might try to hold on to power by any means necessary, and many days, it wasn’t front-page news simply because so much else was happening. (You might have forgotten that he was also impeached this year.)
There is a reason the card I drew to symbolize both hope and fear was Death reversed. Yes, I want to know that the world as I knew and loved it will return in some form in the years to come. But I’m also afraid that we will learn nothing from this experience, that we will, instead, hurtle so quickly back to our lives as they were that nothing will change in a world where so many things need to change.
On a societal or global level, that lack of change might really come to be. But on a personal level, I’m much more hopeful. For as hard as this year has been, so many of us have discovered things about ourselves we didn’t realize were true. There are so many stories of 2020 that are quieter than the headlines. Personal revelations and instances of people looking out for each other kept happening alongside the turmoil and tumult. You just had to know where to look for them. So I went looking, and I have been so enthralled by what I’ve found. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to tell some of those stories.
This has been a lost year in some ways, but also a year of learning, of bonding, of growth. Stories of grief and sorrow are important to tell, but so are stories of joy and connection and life. We will always look back on this year and remember what was hard. I want to remember what was good, too.
A story:
Sometime this summer, I was taking a shower, crying in exhaustion and anxiety from the extreme stress of, well, everything.
That very day, a friend had sent me some flowers, because she knew I was having a hard time. Seeing them, bright and joyous and colorful, had reminded me that everything ends, and everything changes. Flowers, by their nature, are fleeting. But they’re beautiful for a time.
I looked down at the floor of the tub and saw a soggy yellow flower petal stuck there. I felt a thrill at the thought of finding this obvious symbol of my friend’s love for me in the midst of my stressed-out solitude. Intellectually, I knew I had tracked the flower petal into the tub on my heel, but it felt magical, an answer to a prayer for comfort I hadn’t thought to utter.
I stooped to pick up the petal, only to see it wasn’t a flower petal at all. It was a yellow Starburst wrapper I had not seen properly in the dim lighting of the bathroom. I had somehow dragged it into the shower with me. I deflated. I had missed the obvious truth in front of me.
And yet —
Even in the stark isolation of 2020, it was worth remembering that tumult and despair I have felt so often this year is not the only reality there is. Even if what I saw on the floor of the tub wasn’t a flower petal, the way I saw through the exact lens I needed to see through, precisely when I needed to see through it, was still real.
The flower petal was “really” a candy wrapper. But it also was a flower petal. It had transmogrified itself in the moment I needed it most. Neither I nor you can prove it did not, even as we know it did not. How you see a thing is always a matter of what you hope to see.
Thus endeth the lesson.
For the next few weeks, I will be sharing stories of people’s very real experiences in 2020, had against the backdrop of the pandemic, from all over the globe.
Next: A woman, an injured baby pig, and a series of revelations


vox--2020-12-17--Stories from a Lost Year

Stories from a Lost Year

Life in 2020 has been dominated by big stories .
The Covid-19 pandemic .
Protests against multiple centuries of systemic racism and injustice .
An impeachment .
A presidential election .
Murder hornets .
But beneath every one of these big stories is a long list of smaller personal ones .
Everyone ’ s experience of 2020 has been different , and everyone ’ s story has something worth hearing .
I went looking for those stories , in hopes of understanding the events of this year from the ground level .
What I found was remarkable .
I talked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ baby pig back to health .
I talked to a sex worker who very quickly had to figure out how to make his business Covid-19-safe .
I discussed opening up a marriage — at a time when nobody can see anybody in person — with someone who did just that .
I talked to a woman who fell in love with her mailman , and a postal carrier who grew distressed at how little her rural community seemed to be taking Covid-19 seriously .
I ’ ll be sharing 14 of those stories @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think they all underline the fact that no matter how dramatic or mundane your year was , it was that much more fascinating or difficult or compelling because of the times in which it took place .
This year is almost over , and another will follow .
I ’ m so glad we all got through it together .
We ’ ve lost so much in 2020 .
But we ’ ve found some things , too .
A woman , an injured baby pig , and a series of revelations “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is holy lying under the stars with friends and a pig sleeping in the crook of your arm.
” Non-monogamy , Zoom sex , and the agonizing wait to kiss your partner A dad , his son , and the bittersweet realization of life ’ s true priorities

Life in 2020 has been dominated by big stories. The Covid-19 pandemic. Protests against multiple centuries of systemic racism and injustice. An impeachment. A presidential election. Murder hornets.
But beneath every one of these big stories is a long list of smaller personal ones. Everyone’s experience of 2020 has been different, and everyone’s story has something worth hearing. I went looking for those stories, in hopes of understanding the events of this year from the ground level.
What I found was remarkable. I talked to a woman who nursed an injured baby pig back to health. I talked to a sex worker who very quickly had to figure out how to make his business Covid-19-safe. I discussed opening up a marriage — at a time when nobody can see anybody in person — with someone who did just that. I talked to a woman who fell in love with her mailman, and a postal carrier who grew distressed at how little her rural community seemed to be taking Covid-19 seriously.
I’ll be sharing 14 of those stories over the next few weeks. I think they all underline the fact that no matter how dramatic or mundane your year was, it was that much more fascinating or difficult or compelling because of the times in which it took place.
This year is almost over, and another will follow. I’m so glad we all got through it together.
We’ve lost so much in 2020. But we’ve found some things, too.
“It’s easier to believe everything is holy lying under the stars with friends and a pig sleeping in the crook of your arm.”
“As soon as I started taking non-monogamy seriously, it was like any other coming out.”
“In America, we say everything we do is for our child, but we spend a lot of time working and accumulating money and stuff that we don’t need.”
“I can’t do any of my old standup comedy. And I don’t want to do it. I literally am starting over from scratch.”
“The first couple weeks, I sucked at life. I sucked at everything.”
“Online sex work has amplified the loneliness for some customers. I’m talking to them because they’re paying.”
“That day, for the first time, I saw myself. And I knew I was trans. Holy shit.”
“I asked him, ‘How’s everything going? How can we help?’ And I accidentally told him that I loved him.”
“There are certain ways — and maybe it’s not cool to say this — in which quarantine has been helpful.”
“I love just looking at his face when he sees there are other people in the world!”
“I haven’t contracted Covid yet. I’ve been lucky, because my bubble is probably huge.”
“It feels like I’ve never stopped playing Russian roulette because I never stopped working.”
“It’s been a lifeline. I don’t have very big classes but when we meet up [over Zoom], we check in with each other. We see how we’re doing.”
“Your to-do list, some days, it has just the one thing on it: Stay alive. And if you can do that, it’s a successful day.”