Ride on the back of my moldy, hopeful whale
On hope and struggle in a waterlogged new year
Driving down the I-5 early this January, back from spending Christmas with my parents, I was so inspired by my brimming hope for a new year I pulled over and scribbled an entry for this blog titled: Ride on the back of my hopeful whale.
I wrote: “I awoke to 2023 in an ocean full of hope. I may not be sure where land is, but I feel like I’m riding on the back of a hopeful whale towards a better future.”
Then I got back to LA.
Before I batted my eyes open on my first cloudy morning of the new year in LA, I thought about the long checklist I’d made for myself for the day… leads and jobs to follow up on, managers to reconnect with, friends to reach out to, writing to finish. And then I saw THE BLACK MOLD.
For 2023, I’d vowed that I would make my creaky, less-than-ideal apartment work for me. It’s cheap1, it’s run-down, but we’ve been holding back on moving on because the prices are up and we feel like a good turn is just around the corner. I’ll get another staffing job, or he’ll find more production work, or maybe some of my comedy will take off. Unfortunately, the universe is a better comedian than I am, because my ceiling is now covered in fuzzy, black dots that just keep growing, and my life has turned upside down.
There’s also severe water damage. The whole ceiling will have to come out. When? Well, after two weeks, that’s still unclear. We occasionally get the text from our landlord to spend the entire day there waiting, only to find out nobody is coming after all. It’s funny I was obsessed with the idea of riding on a hopeful whale, considering that whales live in water, just like my apartment currently. I drove by cows on the side of the freeway and thought, NO, it’s not a cow, it’s a HOPEFUL WHALE. Maybe something in my heart knew a cow wouldn’t be able to swim through all this dread.
It’s overwhelming to wake up one morning with big dreams for how you’ll start your year and then be thrust into a reality where you don’t know where you’ll sleep each night, and many of your belongings might be PERMANENTLY INFECTED by NIGHTMARE MOLD COOTIES. Some moments I’m completely fine, handling business, casually discussing throwing my clothes in the dumpster, and then something will have me choked up. I was perfectly calm and collected on the phone with a friend the other day, until I had to ask if I might have to throw away my art.
It’s not particularly skilled artwork, but I’ve spent two years painting dozens of paintings I love. When I realized we didn’t have enough money to buy the amount of art we wanted in our lives, I started painting it. Today, we took most of it off the walls and boxed it in two brown boxes until further notice. It feels like a metaphor- I am a person who saw a need in my life and learned how to fill it. I am skilled at making lemonade out of lemons, but now, instead of lemons, the universe is handing me A WET ROOM FULL OF DEATH SPORES and saying Where’s the hope now, bitch?
It’s been two weeks since the mold began, and today I sit in my apartment, waiting for service techs that never seem to arrive to begin work that never seems to begin. My allergies flared up, my throat burning in ways it doesn’t when we’re back the hotel room where we’ve been waiting this out.2 I look around at my apartment, completely torn upside down, full of hastily packed boxes, and wonder where the hope is.
But of course, it’s in those boxes. They weren’t packed by me, but by friends who came and lovingly helped us pack our life away. The hope is in my texts, where other friends have reached out asking if we need a hot meal, or in my phone calls with other people who have dealt with similar situations advising me on the best way to write a letter of demand to my landlord. The hope is in my neighbors next door, who we’ve known for four years but never spoken to much, but suddenly, now, we text. With EMOJIS! The hope is in the kindness of the hotel staff who dote on our dog and send us apartment listings, and in the fact that my dog still seems perfectly content wherever we bring her. To Puddin’, everything is just a joyful adventure on the way to a soft nap. And I can't help but remember, I wouldn't even have my dog if I hadn't suffered the series of disappointments and rejections that lead me to her perfect, goofy smile.
Today is January 16, 2023. A year ago today I sat in this same room beset by deep grief and anxiety. My wedding, thrice rescheduled due to Covid, was set for January 22, and Omicron was rearing its head. We'd already paid our non-refundable deposits and cancellations from health-conscious friends were rolling in. My partner and I were completely isolated to avoid getting sick. I was waiting for my parents, brother, and 86-year-old grandmother to let me know whether they tested positive after a recent exposure. I was organizing N-95s and putting cheerful wedding stickers on hand sanitizer in between sobs. I had just picked up my wedding dress, which had been on fire only a few days previously. Hope was in short supply.
And yet, a few days later, we got married, and it was beautiful.
Another thing I wrote earlier this January, just before the mold set in was: “Hope is not an orchid. It is a tough and hearty plant, maybe even a weed… a pretty one.”
The great thing about weeds is you can think you’ve killed them, and yet they always come back. Life moves on, it finds a way. Joy is always around the corner, even when you can’t see where the corner is.
My therapist reminds me this is a new perspective. I haven’t always been able to see the weeds of hope. She told me it inspires her to see this change in me. I’m not just telling you this to remind you I’m very good at therapy (but I am, I’m so good at it, please clap). I’m telling you because it reminded me that my hope in my darkness doesn’t just touch my life. When I find it, and I show it to her, I can plant a small patch of hope weeds in her garden. Maybe then, she can share it with someone else. It’s nice to believe that even in the midst of my stupid, moldy suffering, maybe my hope can spread as quickly as the untreated mold.
I do wonder, as I go through my current hell, throwing the sheets I was gifted for my wedding into a box labeled “TRASH??” what hopeful glimmer will come from this? Because one will surely come. Right now, every step I take in so many parts of my life is into darkness. I don't know where we will live, where my next paycheck will come from, or when I will feel okay again. Yet every step, my foot falls onto the ground. It surprises me- I wasn’t sure land was there. But it always is. Land arrives eventually. I will not be stuck forever. One day, I will step off the back of the moldy, hopeful whale into a field full of hopeful cows. So often the hardest things in my life have lead me somewhere beautiful. The dreams I didn’t get lead me to dreams I could never imagine. I write my own story, and despite my ability to suffer with great theatrics, I always manage to write a joyful end to every chapter. There will be beauty to come, and in two years, in five years, in ten years, if the MOLD DOESN’T TAKE ME3, I will be somewhere beautiful, probably Aruba, safe, thinking about how the moldy apartment lead me to… whatever is in between hell and Aruba.
We live in LA so it is objectively not cheap, but like… y’know… for the area. Also, obviously, it’s “cheap” for a reason and that reason is black mold ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Don’t worry, I’m working on a whole piece about the legal/logistical/renter’s rights difficulties of this experience. Subscribe now to hear about the time I found a MUSHROOM growing in the floorboards of my THIRD FLOOR APARTMENT in college!!
For the record, I still wish this had never happened because it SUCKS and is really hard and scary and overwhelming and dangerous, but it did, so we may as well make the best of it.
Thank you for sharing your moldy, hopeful whale. My husband has been out of work for almost a year. He finally got a job back in February and we have been waiting (and waiting and waiting) for his background check to clear. Some days it feels like the day will never come. But I’m going to plant my weeds and hope for a better future. Also thanks to Adam Conover for giving you a shout out on IG that led me to this post.