1.The Puppet Show
“Did you know there are no support groups for people who are trapped living on the set of their own puppet show in the middle of a global pandemic lockdown?”
When I posed this question to my new online therapist, she replied, “I’m sorry?” I nodded in agreement and said quietly, “Me too, Jennifer. Me too.”
“No, no.” She shook her head slightly, inching closer to the screen. “I was asking you—what kind of support—I don’t think I heard you correctly—I’m sorry.” Her forehead furrowed. I repeated my word salad factoid again. I knew it wasn’t a normal sentence. That was the issue. But, unfortunately, it was my normal. I’d been searching for help on Google for a few months, sometimes while screaming each word out loud and pressing the keys with maximum intensity. The P on my laptop keyboard was notably loose.
Jennifer and I stared at each other in silence. Her eyes narrowed. Her mouth formed the shape of potential expressions a couple of times, but nothing came out. I did list “comedian” as one of my occupations when applying for the service, so it was plausible that she thought I was making a ha-ha.
At her third inhale and frown, I thought it would be best to offer a more relatable problem. “I think I want a divorce,” I said firmly. Jennifer’s face relaxed immediately. “Oh. Okay, great!” Her shoulders softened as she attempted to rein in her happiness. “Not, great, but that’s—”
“It was exacerbated by the puppets,” I interrupted and chugged the Negroni I’d made a carafe of in preparation for the session. I wanted to be more relatable, but I also needed to talk about my actual situation with a professional and not keep unloading my puppet life issues onto my friends, none of whom had any experience being trapped on the set of their own puppet show in the middle of a global pandemic lockdown. This was my third attempt at an online therapist in a month, and I was well versed in the confusion I’d encounter while relaying my problems. I really wasn’t confused about the divorce. I was spiraling about the puppets and the pandemic. To Jennifer’s credit, it is an absolutely bonkers situation to unpack. To my credit, again, that’s why I was looking for professional assistance.
To be clear: you shouldn’t be trapped on the set of your own elaborate puppet show in a pandemic. You definitely shouldn’t move three times during a global pandemic. The initial move was out of Brooklyn, the night of the first protests after the murder of George Floyd. The protestors reached our house on the eve of our move. We wanted to be outside with them because, of course, Fuck The Police.
We lived right next to a large police precinct. A shoddy wire fence separated us from their parking lot, which was also home to three gasoline pumps. That afternoon there had been a heavy series of knocks on the door. Ones that jolted our very anxious cat up out of his slumber on a moving box and sent him sprinting up the stairs to hide. I wanted to do the same, as the knocks were unmistakable for anything else other than “the cops.” The only other knock it could have been, maybe, was a friend pretending to knock like the cops. The kind where you yell “why’re you knocking like the fucking cops” as you walk to the door and then open it, adding “what’s wrong with you?”
But the city was still in lockdown and our friends had only come by in the past few days to say tearful goodbyes through our screened backyard window. Sliding the mesh aside briefly, to exchange sanitized gift packages between our latex-gloved hands. Our masked faces were unable to properly relay how deeply terrified we were of the multiple apocalypses in play. So it couldn’t be a friend at the door, for these reasons, and also because I could feel the electric and menacing tension in the air. My heart pounded in my chest with the same intensity as the knocks, and my first thought was, “We’re going to die today.” A completely valid thought as a person in this body, in that moment, and in light of all the surrounding moments. My brain also simultaneously went into New Yorker mode, which is “Aye, stop knocking on my door like that! Fuck is wrong with you?” I know it’s the most stereotypical thing you could do in New York Speak to say, “Aye, I’m walkin’ here!” I didn’t say any of this out loud, because—cops. I opened the door, attempting to breathe normally.
The cop asked me if we “had any cameras on the property.” I said, “No.” He leaned back and glanced around the front of the house and left without another word, stomping down the steps and out of sight. I closed the door quickly, blood pounding in my head, and wished that we had packed our giant U-Haul, which was parked right outside, the night before, instead of planning to both finish packing and leave the city in the morning.
It had been over a year of this kind of heart racing, panic-induced existence by the time I started looking for an online therapist. We had finally landed in our house in Baltimore, after two other moves: a nightmare of a time in North Carolina and a short, anxiety-riddled stay at another Baltimore location. I wished I’d turned down the job I was on, but we had no other options for working income. My husband couldn’t tour, for obvious reasons, even though his album had just been released. And my fully staffed puppet show, which was supposed to start shooting in April 2020, had, of course, been canceled—also for obvious reasons.
So, sure … I could do that show at home if the company paid me! Sure, my husband could learn how to make puppets from scratch, make seven of them in a couple of months, and yeah, I could rewrite all six episodes of the show, find a new home, and then build an entire set to film the show in our home and figure out how to shoot it alone. Mmmhmm. Sure! *cries in the fetal position* Sure.
Why didn’t we dip into our savings to get by during—hahahahaha, independent artists don’t have any savings. Most people don’t have savings. How do you pronounce that? “Sah-veens?” We didn’t even have health insurance (still don’t). “Inshurahnce?” Must be nice. The fear of a doctor’s bill made us extra careful and extra panicked about making contact with any other living (deadly?) being during our moves. An added isolation apocalypse layer, firmly stacked in what was becoming an infinitely layered apocalypse lasagna, a drippy dish no one had fucking ordered. How unfortunate. I used to love lasagna.
It is difficult to drive many hours through many states with your partner, your giant U-Haul truck, all of your belongings, and your anxious (but team player) cat in the middle of a global pandemic and countrywide civil protests. Especially when only one of you drives (not me and not the cat). As I mentioned before, I am a New Yorker. You may or may not know that many New Yorkers do not know how to drive for various reasons. Mostly because we grew up in a big city with a vast public transportation system. But also, owning a car is expensive. Parking a car where I grew up, in the middle of Manhattan, would have been damn near impossible, and neither of my parents owned a car. I don’t think my mother ever knew how to drive, but I know my stupid father did. I’m pretty sure that when they lived elsewhere—Cape Town, Europe—he drove. But never in New York. Whenever I meet people who live in New York that drive, I assume they are transplants, or grew up in other boroughs of the city. Potentially, just farther uptown in Manhattan. But not in Chelsea, or really, anywhere downtown. The Rarity of Driving rule might be broken if the nontransplant city person in question comes from a rich family that has another house elsewhere. There, they might learn how to drive near a lake, or something. I don’t know how rich people learn how to drive. We did not have another house in America. We did not have a lake.
Not being able to drive had never been an issue for me. I’d traveled globally my whole life, but my home base had always been NYC. I do consider “driving” to be a very American skill to have. It’s necessary in a country where most cities are nonwalkable. You either know how to drive, or—don’t live there. This is partially why I had never lived in another state. I had considered only Miami. I like Miami. It’s a twenty-four-hour, hot, walkable town with beaches, cigarette smoking, and great food. It feels like Cape Town and New York had a spicy baby, and it’s just a three-hour flight from NYC. I don’t “get” a lot of America, but I “get” Miami—it’s a cool city. Cool, minus the flying critters I do not like to manifest, so I won’t type the name. They are actually my main aversion for moving there. That and, well, Florida … what is you doing, baby?
You may or may not know that New Yorkers (including me) generally don’t lead with calling ourselves “Americans” for many reasons. Overseas, we don’t identify ourselves by stating, “I’m an American.” Because the treatment you’ll receive after sharing that information will be very different from saying, “I’m a New Yorker.” We don’t say it for the upgraded treatment though. We say it because we’ve had a very different experience than the rest of the country. A lot of it involves growing up in a walkable city. A lot of it involves being immersed in so many diverse cultures all the time. A lot of it involves the fast pace and intentional (mistaken as chaotic) energy we are used to. And even more of it involves our general nature. I’m not saying that all native (and almost native like me) New Yorkers have had the same experience, but there are similarities, and I don’t mean the stereotypical “Aye, I’m walkin’ here” accent. The sentiment of it though … yes, definitely. We also introduce ourselves this way because we immediately want people to know that we do not take any responsibility for the rest of the country’s feelings and views, please, and thank you so much. That’s why most plastic bags and coffee cups from NYC say THANK YOU on them. I know that people like to say “Ugh, you make being from New York your whole personality.” I don’t disagree, but it’s not a choice. Our city is inside of us for as long as we live, wherever we are. Thank You.
I think that when I tell people I don’t drive, the shocked response mainly comes from the fact that I have a lot of skills, so it’s assumed that I would also have one so commonplace. I know that this sounds like I’m giving a speech from Taken, but it’s not that far off. Some of my skills are innate and some I have spent decades honing and perfecting. I have told many people that I meet and keep in my friend group why we should stay a community. It is for our collection of varied apocalypse skills. I don’t know how to drive, but in an apocalypse, I am a very good leader who will make sure that none of us get killed, because I will also be making the decisions on who needs to get the fuck out of the group. They are a liability, a wild card, a charlatan. My traumatic experiences with terrible people have led me to read terrible people very quickly. As an Old School New Yorker, I’m sussing out every environment in one point three seconds. I smell things you don’t smell, because of my hyperosmia (super smelling). I see the colors you can’t—I’m a tetrachromat. I am an excellent planner and I am very particular. I am hyper-hyper sensitive to changes in the air and sounds. And my experience in artist poverty has led me to be an amazing cook who can make meals for ten people out of nothing. You see nothing in that ransacked zombie supermarket. I see a three-course meal.
I have other skills, but most importantly, I have led large groups of people and not had the calling to turn evil. And in case you’re wondering, because of the things I have listed, yes, I have been clinically tested for ADHD and autism a few times (I had to make sure). I don’t understand how I’m not, but until further testing proves otherwise—I am simply composed of many singular heightened experiences. This is a recurring theme for my existence. All this to say, when I met my then-husband I clocked that he possessed a team-needed driving apocalypse skill. “You’re in!” I’d yelled at him.
I assumed that one day we would have to use his driving skill in an apocalypse-like situation, because I am a dark motherfucker like that. But you’re never really prepared for what it’s going to feel like when you’re in it and the apocalypse is apocalypsing. I guess that also applies to being middle-aged, but we have so much time to get to that, hold tight.
It’s not like we didn’t know what our apocalypse skills were, but the real-life version is very different from the pillow talk version. It was physically and mentally very difficult on my husband, because besides my lack of driving knowledge, my body had started to be (for three years) in confusing, excruciating chronic pain. And it had become almost impossible for me to lift any heavy objects. Unfortunately, lifting heavy objects is the bulk of activities that happen during moving, and he was forced to do so much. No one wants to overwork their partner in a terrible situation, and also, no one wants to feel so … fucking … useless. Being physically strong was on my apocalypse skill list and it had dropped off at such an inconvenient time. I fulfilled all of my team leader jobs. My planning, timing, and executing but … I couldn’t do all of the things that needed to get done by two human bodies, and I felt so fucked-up for “letting the team down.”
Copyright © 2025 by Jean Grae
