This past week, I started reading Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist. It’s required a lot of focus, a lot of re-reading of sentences and paragraphs to give myself time to absorb and take in information, and a lot of stopping to think. What Kendi makes clear throughout the first 40 percent of the book that I’ve gotten through is that racism is something that is learned, taught to us by everyone from our parents, families, friends, textbooks, schools, media — you name it, and they’re teaching racism to you in some shape or form. Some people think that it’s impossible for a Black or Asian or other “person of color” to be racist, and this could not be further from the truth. Racism against anyone is possible by anyone. Black people can be racist against White people. Asian people can be racist against Latinx people. Darker skinned Latinx people can be racist against lighter skinned Latinx people, and Black people can be racist against Black people. But I think one of the concepts he points out in the book that really made me think was that the term “racist” is oftentimes seen as a pejorative word rather than a descriptive word, and that is actually part of the problem. Someone who is striving to be an antiracist can say or do a racist thing, but that does not necessarily make the person racist because they are (we’d hope) still learning, still evolving). Being racist vs. antiracist is not static. We can evolve and change for the better (sadly, for the worst). So, we should be able to accept “racist” as a descriptive word for a specific action or statement said by an individual and not just pejoratively write them off as a “racist” forever and always.

That sounds like a growth mindset, right?

I took a walk around the Upper West Side late afternoon yesterday, which was the first official day that low-risk businesses could begin reopening. This meant that a number of coffee shops and Starbucks locations had reopened, even allowing a handful of customers inside their stores depending on the space. Restaurants that had previously been closed have reopened for takeout and delivery. Even a handful of clothing shops along Columbus Avenue have reopened, along with a stationery store on Broadway. There was far more life at 72nd and Broadway, considered the central hub, of the Upper West Side, than I’d seen in months. Street performers were scattered throughout. A random man collecting donations had about a dozen different parakeets, cockatiels, and lovebirds sitting around him, along with two bunnies in the center, just steps away from the Upper West Side Trader Joe’s. It actually feels like we’re slowly but surely getting back to regular street and sidewalk traffic.

It still felt weird, though. We’re not at ideal testing levels. There’s tension all around not just because of COVID-19, but because of police brutality, racial injustice, and the protests that we’ve seen around the world in the last two weeks. My mind and even my body are just exhausted. Walking only about 30 blocks, I felt so drained afterwards. The world is just so tiring, and our nation’s leadership is only exacerbating the problems that exist instead of offering comfort or tangible solutions. This is 2020.

It’s been over three months of being on lockdown here in New York for us. We’ve gotten restaurant and groceries delivered. We’ve made weekly trips to different grocery stores. We’ve walked north, south, east, and west. We’ve walked all the way down to Manhattan Chinatown. We’ve taken the subway only twice with our groceries from lower Manhattan to be good citizens and stay off the subway. We walked in Central Park today, which Chris bemoaned since he runs there every weekday morning and is sick of it.

“You can just tell that people are walking around here aimlessly,” he grumbled.

That’s probably true. People are walking for the sake of walking, to get out of their cramped apartments and to get some fresh outdoor air. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to walk aimlessly, though. It could allow us to think more freely, to think without distractions. My daily weekly days have been done while catching up with colleagues and friends over the phone, listening to different podcasts and audio books. It’s been a lot of productive activity, but even though it’s different content and different people, it’s been a bit redundant. Who knows what “normal” even looks like anymore, and how that will be redefined in the coming weeks. But it still just feels so bleak.

New York City will begin opening up again in the next week, and the reopening of the city will take place in phases. People who work in white-collar professions such as myself are likely part of the very last phases to return to work, so I may not be “allowed” to go back to the office until the end of this month. But this reopening also means that restaurants who felt unsafe to open for delivery/takeout during this pandemic finally feel like they can open now, even if it’s just delivery/takeout. One of these restaurants was Ba Xuyen, who reopened for takeout earlier this week. They are a cash-only, independently owned establishment with owners who speak little to no English. It’s one of my most favorite spots in New York given that it has the most authentic banh mi in New York City when compared to the ones all over Vietnam. One of the fears we had at the beginning of the pandemic was: what restaurants are still going to be financially sound enough to reopen at the time of re-opening, or will many of them just close forever? The more of these businesses that close, the more New York will not retain what makes it such a great place to live and eat. I hope Ba Xuyen will be okay.