In Issue 5 of The Pool, we reflect on the doubles in our lives-- the parallel universes where we did one thing instead of another, the past selves that continue to speak through our present mouths, the difference between who we are and what we say we are.

 

It is April 13th, 2020, and, needless to say, the coronavirus pandemic has affected all of us, both readers and contributors at The Pool. It is said that the virus is turning everything upside-down. We challenge ourselves and our readers to see how COVID-19 is shedding a light --an irrefutable, damning light-- on existing inequities.

 

Although none of us know what normal really is, we are sure that this is not it. We make daily comparisons to what we might be doing if we still had a job, if we still were in school, if we still could kiss whoever we wanted without contagious repercussions, if we could open a public door without disinfecting our hands. 

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Some of us wrote about betweenness: the distance between where we’re from and where we are, the difference between what’s real and what we imagine, and the distinction between the self we curate for others and the self we are when we’re alone. One of us watercolored a series of bodies doubling over, and some of us wrote about the loaded foils of queer relationships. One of us wrote verse that reads like a pendulum swinging between two points, and one of us demonstrated the differences between two slugs. 

 

We already lived in a country where those who had health care were predominantly the ones who could pay, and now we are living in a country where those who can “shelter in place,” work from home, disinfect their bodies, and recover safely if they’re sick, are still the ones who can pay. Black people are disproportionately dying from the virus. Racial capitalism does not pause when the virus comes, it lives and breathes through the vulnerabilities the virus creates in our communities and our world.

 

We are seeing doubly where we are, and perhaps how far that is from where we need to be. In this Issue of  The Pool, our contributors wrote, drew, and collaged their way through this dizzying time, never forgetting that art can help us express what needs to be expressed, even if we don’t know yet how to bridge the gap between what is and what can be.