It's the End of the World as We Know It

March 16, 2020

A couple weeks ago (weeks that feel like decades), Toni Morrison came to me in a dream.  She told me to write a novel.

In the dream, she was a friend of a friend.  She knew, somehow, that I write, that I have written, that I studied such a thing.  She asked me, off-handedly, casually, if I thought I could write a novel.  I paused, fumbled, possibly hiccuped, said that, well, I have written longer connected vignettes (certainly stated as a question).  She laughed.  I said, you’ve heard that one before, huh.

I had that dream on March 3rd, a lifetime ago.  A time when my life seemed fairly predictable; tending shop, tending children, paying the mortgage and the rent, making my way.  Today is March 16th and we are in a different reality.  We are sheltering in place by county order, hiding from a fast-moving pandemic.  My shop is closed indefinitely.  My kids are out of school for the next month at least.  My only physical contact are those terrific (and occasionally terrifying) teenagers and my (thank god, thank god, thank god, I got my shit together enough to calm down and have a) boyfriend.  Everyone else is six feet away at very minimum, a wave and a nod as we walk on opposite sides of the street, maybe holding our breath.

Every day has broken new ground.  The stock market hit a record low today, again, for the third time this week.  Beyond kind Facebook friends buying gift cards for my store, I have no income.  We’ve cancelled every doctor’s appointment, every commitment, large and small.  My refrigerator and pantry hold more food than they every have.  My gas tank is full.  I’m a little low on toilet paper.  I’m contemplating building raised vegetable beds on my roof.

I don’t know if I can write a novel, Toni Morrison, but my very favorite fiction is dystopian.  I’ve read The Stand maybe twenty times - I just read it again after hearing the first reports out of China in December.  Station Eleven is something of a bible, also read many times.  The Road I could handle only once.  Perhaps, Toni, I’m writing a dystopian novel that is instead a memoir, a genre for which, as a writer, I seem to have some affinity.

In my dream, Toni Morrison said that every time I say my name I shouldn’t just say Liz.  I should say my name is Liz Lavoie and I am a writer.

My name is Liz Lavoie and I am a writer.  And I’m living in some weird fucking times.