Essential vs Non-Essential

Every night, the seven o’clock cheers have been getting louder.

A few weeks ago, all we heard were awkward hoots and random claps. Now, people appear in windows, some holding pots and pans as cowbells, cheering for our essential workers. Afterwards, you can hear Sinatra’s “New York, New York” playing from across the courtyard. It’s faint, but loud enough to lip sync to it.

The other night, as the cheering started, I turned to Becky and said, “Don’t you think it’s patronizing to the workers coming home hearing this again and again? I get that we appreciate them, but it’s been weeks and weeks of this. They probably just want to stay home like us.” She looked over confused at my uncharacteristic cynicism.

But it’s true. When it comes to this nightly ritual, I haven’t participated unless Becky asks me to join. It’s ironic for someone with my personality to not want to cheer and shout for a few minutes everyday, but I can’t get myself to do it.

I think of friends of mine who have 12 hour shifts in hospitals for days in a row, or those working checkout lines at the C-Town down the street, and I start feeling guilt, gratitude, sadness, and respect all at once.

I’m scared I might start crying rather than cheer, just like when I couldn’t stop crying watching clips on “Some Good News” of people cheering for essential workers all over the world.

The Blood of My Work

This crisis has cut through layers, as Jack Cheng writes:

Crisis is a knife. It cuts throughs layers of confusion. Exposes, to the clean air, what was once cocooned by habit, routine, and ignorance. It opens a wound, revealing the blood of your life.

For me, it’s revealed the blood of my work and made me consider what about it is essential or non-essential. Right now, my work as a photographer is deemed non-essential, as it should be. This doesn’t mean my work shouldn’t exist, but it’s a good time to examine those layers of habit, routine, and ignorance.

I don’t think my industry is ever going to be the same, and that’s a good thing. The last thing I want is to rush back into this to recover some kind of normalcy. I want to be vigilant with what I bring back into my work because a foundational principle has emerged for me these past few weeks:

Work that pushes us forward, helping others become better, and participating in their transformation will always be essential.

New York Tough

The most recent example of this kind of work happened literally in front of my eyes. My wife’s released her first single “New York Tough” last Friday. She wrote the song during the lockdown, and we recorded it (I play guitar) in our bedroom/office.

It’s a song written for the city and those who live here, but I hear it as something more. In its specificity, it speaks to all of us, around the world going through this time together.

The song was written to encourage us during a time we desperately need it — in other words, it’s essential.

Take a listen, be encouraged, and send her some love.

Hope you are safe and healthy.