Filipinos #CopingWithCovid — Brian Ascalon Roley, Ohio USA

The fol­low­ing is part of my series, Fil­ipinos Cop­ing with Covid.

Respond­ing to my inter­view ques­tions, Bri­an Ascalon Roley describes life  in Ohio, USA, dur­ing the time of coro­n­avirus. This was writ­ten on May 24, 2020.

Update July 10, 2020 by Bri­an Roley: “Since I first answered these ques­tions, the lock­down end­ed, but now there’s been a surge in my coun­ty and masks are required again. Not much has changed in terms of my work pat­terns. But I am prepar­ing my two under­grad­u­ate class­es this fall class­es online. “

Bri­an Ascalon Roley has received fel­low­ships and awards from the Nation­al Endow­ment of the Arts, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge, Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty, the Ohio Arts Coun­cil, the Asso­ci­a­tion of Asian Amer­i­can Stud­ies, the Djeras­si Foun­da­tion, Rag­dale, the VCCA, and oth­ers. An Eng­lish Pro­fes­sor at Mia­mi Uni­ver­si­ty of Ohio, his books include the wide­ly taught AMERICAN SON (W.W. Nor­ton), a New York Times Notable Book, and THE LAST MISTRESS OF JOSE RIZAL AND OTHER STORIES (North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty Press). More at: www.brianroley.com

 

Inter­view of Bri­an Ascalon Roley by Cecil­ia Brainard

Copy­right 2020 by Cecil­ia Brainard ~ Cecil­ia Brainard

CECILIA BRAINARD:  Are you still in lock­down? Are you alone or with oth­ers? Do you see oth­er peo­ple, and do you prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing if so?

BRIAN ASCALON ROLEY:  Here in Ohio we are still sort of in lock­down. That is, it’s now called some­thing dif­fer­ent, stores have par­tial­ly opened up, and even restau­rants are per­mit­ted to serve with con­di­tions, though most are still ten­ta­tive, most­ly closed. My habit of get­ting out of the house with a lap­top over cof­fee is sore­ly missed. A friend of mine joked that she’d nev­er thought she’d miss Star­bucks. So I keep to home, with my wife and two boys. My old­est son’s grad­u­a­tion was a cer­e­mo­ny of one; we fol­lowed him with a video cam­era.

CB:      Are you work­ing? If yes, are you work­ing from your home or do you have to go to your place of work?

BR: I write and teach. My uni­ver­si­ty class­es were abrupt­ly made remote; we nev­er had a chance to say good­bye in per­son. What made it most painful was that the in per­son rap­port was espe­cial­ly good this semes­ter. They nev­er had a grad­u­a­tion. Some had jobs, now gone. I feel bad for them, feel their shock. I’ve camped out in my home office, with lap­top, learned to make videos and hold remote meet­ings. My RSI has flared up from all the com­put­er work.

CB: Were you affect­ed finan­cial­ly by the pan­dem­ic? Did you lose your job? Did you get assis­tance? 

BR: I didn’t lose a job, but I lost a leave. That was painful. I felt a book slip away.

CB: Do you go out? To take walks? To see rel­a­tives or friends? For exer­cise? 

BR: For­tu­nate­ly we’ve been able to go out­side. My youngest son is learn­ing to dri­ve, so I’ve had him dri­ve me to hik­ing. That’s been great time togeth­er. I know it wouldn’t have been pos­si­ble in some oth­er states. One painful thing is not being able to take our trips to see my elder­ly par­ents and in-laws in Cal­i­for­nia. We don’t want to catch germs on a plane and give it to them, even now that flights are per­mit­ted. Pre­cious togeth­er-time has been lost. Still is.

CB: Do you wear a face mask? Do you prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing? 

I wear a mask to the stores and dis­tance when­ev­er out­side the house. But most­ly life has been a quar­an­tine of four.

CB: Please describe in a few sen­tences your dai­ly rou­tine.

BR: In the morn­ing: I retreat with cof­fee to my room above the garage, and write or read for inspi­ra­tion. Cur­rent­ly it’s a nov­el-in-verse, Lud­low, by David Mason about a 1914 mas­sacre in Col­orado. I do yoga. After­noons, I hike.

CB: Do you go buy your own gro­ceries? What pre­cau­tions do you take? 

BR: We go to Kroger, Whole Foods. Every­one wears masks, and we do too. Whole Foods gives them away, so peo­ple pre­tend not to have one.

CB:  Do you order food to go? What pre­cau­tions do you take?

BR: We tried in-car pick­up from a restau­rant. We wait­ed thir­ty min­utes in a hot, click­ing car past the time it was sup­posed to be ready. That hap­pened once. We eat in.

CB:  Do you shop online or do you go out to stores that are open? 

BR: Online, most­ly.

CB:  Do you wor­ry about the future? Do you have night­mares or bad dreams? Do you feel some anx­i­ety? Or do you sleep well and feel nor­mal as usu­al?

BR: There was more anx­i­ety, day and night, before. It waned with the weath­er this cloudy, cold spring— my per­spec­tive and prog­no­sis for our com­mon lot could dif­fer rad­i­cal­ly with the move­ment of cloud over sun.

I wor­ry about fall semes­ter. The high­er ups plan on a return to cam­pus in the fall, but I don’t see how that’s going to work safe­ly, unless the virus disappears—which seems not to be the goal of flat­ten­ing the curve. We’ll see.

I wor­ry even more about being able to vis­it my par­ents, with the kids. I’ve regret­ted liv­ing two thirds of a coun­try away from them, and feel geog­ra­phy’s blunt force real­i­ty more now that ever. I look through pic­tures of fam­i­ly vis­its, over the years. It strikes me how few pic­tures there are of work or oth­er things; fam­i­ly is life, and life is finite.

CB:   What do you miss doing, with this pan­dem­ic? For eg eat­ing out, or going to church, or see­ing rel­a­tives?

BR: See­ing rel­a­tives, tak­ing trips out­side Ohio to regen­er­ate, writ­ers res­i­den­cies, Cam­bridge, being around peo­ple, church. We live a block from church and the park­ing lot was emp­ty at Good Fri­day, East­er. I miss help­ing out there with com­mu­nion.

CB:   Do you have tips about sur­viv­ing this pan­dem­ic? 

BR: None that you prob­a­bly haven’t already thought of and been telling your­self. I try.

CB:  Please share any oth­er thoughts about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. 

BR: I tell my grad­u­at­ing seniors to take advan­tage of this time and write. I can hear their thoughts, that this is true but–, that their jobs are gone, that they’ll nev­er see their col­lege friends again. I feel the unspo­ken avalanche of loss. The lone­li­ness. I tell them to read Rilke’s Let­ter to a Young Poet, which I’ve reread myself, which odd­ly still speaks to me, though I am no longer young.

Read also:
Coro­n­avirus: The Begin­ning, by Cecil­ia Brainard
How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing With Covid, Part One (Cecil­ia Brainard, Pos­i­tive­ly Fil­ipino)
How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing With Covid, Part Two (C. Brainard, PF)
How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing With Covid-19, Part Three (C.Brainard, PF)

Inter­views fol­low:
Lia Fer­aren, Ger­many
Tere­sa Con­cep­cion, Cana­da
 Ofe­lia Gelve­zon Tequi, France
Reine Marie Bon­nie Melvin, France
New Zealand: Jay Mon­til­la & Moni­ka Tawngdee
Lin­da Ty-Casper, Mass­a­chu­setts, USA
Bar­bara Ann Jacala, San Diego, CA, USA
Bri­an Ascalon Roley, Ohio, USA

Inter­views of Fil­ipino Amer­i­cans #Cop­ing­With­Covid

All of the above links are part of the Philip­pine Covid Archive of Fil­ip­inas Her­itage Library.

tags: #coro­n­avirus #covid19 #covid #Fil­ipinos #cop­ing­with­covid #Paris #France #Europe #Fil­ipinoFrench #French­Fil­ipino #Fil­ipinoAmer­i­can