Just before COVID-19 hits my husband and I stumble into the biggest conflict of our twelve-year relationship. The pandemic becomes a pressure cooker. We are avoiding the virus but there is no escape from each other. Accusations fly. Like a bad acid trip, we are caught in a loop, experiencing the same feelings again and again. A never-ending cycle of pressure building and releasing.

We are trapped in our home, confined to a small box inside a larger box. This is apartment living during a pandemic. The neighbor’s kids are slowly going mad, four children and two adults in a one-bedroom. The seven-year-old boy releases his tension in frequent high-pitched screams, often minutes long. His older sister locks him out of the apartment for hours, leading to loud banging on the door. The parents have probably given up, it is not hard to picture them huddled in a corner, rocking back and forth. The couple above us seems on the brink of divorce. We listen closely for their screaming matches to cross the line but the need for intervention never comes. Across the courtyard another neighbor plays the recorder, poorly, the same simple tune for hours, every note sharp or flat. We watch videos of people singing arias or putting on impromptu concerts from their balconies. That is not what is going on here.

Our apartment is on the ground floor. A low wall separates our back patio from the shared courtyard. Craving the soothing impact of nature, we begin adding plants to our patio collection. We grow tomatoes, strawberries, herbs, roses, petunias, succulents, Swedish ivy, African daisies, and zinnias. Soon plants are three rows deep, a wall of green behind which we can hide. When we run out of patio space our efforts spill onto the courtyard guerilla gardening style. We add a lemon tree, lemon grass, and giant whiskey barrel planters with different kinds of lavender. The maintenance staff either does not notice or does not care.

Neighbors all around us develop fascinating routines to cope with the quarantine. Every night, at precisely 5pm a woman I had never seen before the pandemic circles the courtyard hundreds of times, having the same loud phone conversation about how much she hates her job. I feel for whoever is on the receiving end. Two men, they look like brothers, smoke weed every morning near one of the emergency exits. They never talk and avoid eye contact at all cost, as if that would make them invisible. Others do not leave their apartments for days while Amazon deliveries pile knee high in front of their doors, to be replaced with an equally high pile of empty boxes and other trash.

My husband and I have the same conversations over and over again.

“You don’t want to talk about it.”

“We’ve talked enough.”

“I’m not over it yet.”

“If only you hadn’t done it the way you did.”

And so on. We fight. We are terrible at communicating. Everything is fair game, everything is questioned, everything under a magnifying glass. There is no privacy. Our problems are serious and absurd in equal measure. We crave validation from each other that neither of us is able or willing to give.

Meanwhile the neighbor’s kids have taken to throwing shoes out the windows onto the grassy strip beside the apartment building. They only throw one shoe, never a pair. I wonder if they have any matching shoes left. A little collection forms and remains, the maintenance staff has given up, too. I feel for them. Early on, they were told not to wear masks as not to scare tenants and yet they must perform their duties and keep everything running–unseen, unnoticed.

Mountains of kitchen scraps accumulate from cooking every meal at home. I research non-smelly composting options and learn about vermiculture: worm composting. I buy a four-tier box system and one pound of red wigglers. They arrive in the mail, worms spilling out of the first-class package. I am amazed the post office delivered. One of the heroes of COVID-19, our kind letter carrier wrapped a plastic bag around the box to wrangle its wriggling escapees. The worms are a bit traumatized, but most are alive and happy to be transferred into the compost bin.

Unlike the neighbors, the worms are polite and well-behaved little creatures. They make no noise, do not destroy anything, leave no trash. They do not ask for much, only a moderate environment: not too dry or wet, not too hot or cold, not too acidic or spicey, not too much food and not too little. They like their food in bite-sized pieces. Every other night I use the food processor to blend green matter (fruit and vegetable scraps) with brown matter (shredded paper bags, egg carton, dry leaves) and a few snacks (egg shells, tea and coffee grounds).

My husband’s pride are his flowers. Flowers must be deadheaded to continue blooming. Every week he carefully prunes wilted blossoms before they turn to seed, creating more food for my worms. Soon, the petunias explode with flowers. Plant pot dapperlings, mushrooms beneficial to the soil, appear in our largest pot. They are inedible and can be poisonous for animals, however, they are composters like my worms: they metabolize dead matter. In any case, you cannot get rid of them, their mycelium, once established, runs deep. It is best to accept their existence.

We start working with a couple’s therapist but cancel our appointments after a few sessions. She was too gentle, too neutral, and seemed intimidated by us. We are intense people, driven, ambitious, smart, and proud. Both with individual traumas that run deep and far. Our minds are like pitbulls, we are not willing to let go easily.

I develop intestinal issues: gastritis, GERD, and IBS, the constipated kind. Every night my abdomen is grotesquely bloated, full of food my body fails to digest and expel properly. I try diet after diet, each more restrictive, but nothing works.

Meanwhile, my industrious worms have no problem digesting, they keep chomping away and happily poop out black gold: nutrient rich worm castings. If done right worm compost does not smell foul. It has an earthy smell, like the forest floor, rich and fertile. My vermicompost smells wonderful, something I am doing right, something balanced and good. On occasion a few worms escape, and, in the morning, I find them dried up on the concrete patio, half eaten by ants. A desert too large for them to cross. They have bitten off more than they can chew and ventured further than they can return from. The mornings I do not find worms are a cause for joy. I am committed to taking the best possible care of the little wrigglers.

When really stressed worms ball up into a writhing cluster, keeping close together. If the situation becomes truly dire there will be a worm exodus, a worm superhighway in search of a better life, a less stressful environment. They do not know if they will make it, all they know is that they cannot survive where they are. I do what I can to prevent this from happening.

A few months into quarantine the worm compost develops a life of its own. Seeds sprout and die. Mold forms and disappears. Some unwelcome visitors join. A train of ants establishes, workers marching in and out of the bin, carrying away food, bothering my precious worms. Fruit flies appear by the hundreds. They hover around our heads when we sit on the porch and irritate us, further causing us to be short with each other. We are acutely aware of the precarious and impermanent nature of our situation. After over a decade together we start talking separation, divorce.

My husband and I are good at practical things, always have been. Being a trauma survivor means being resourceful. Committed to non-toxic approaches, we find an elegant solution to the ant problem by creating little motes: four waterfilled bowls under each of the composters’ legs. Ants will not cross water. For days the ants mill about uselessly, unsure what to do. Eventually they give up. The fruit flies, stubborn, annoying little buzzers, however, leave us stumped. They ignore the dishes with vinegar and soap and keep on buzzing.

One morning, I notice a hummingbird approach. Impossible little creature, shimmering in the sunlight, wings whirring, darting here and then there. It dives into the porch area to feast on the fruit flies, over and over again. I watch mesmerized.

I realize that we have created a tiny little eco system. The circle of life in miniature. Everything is part of this circle, even the troublesome aspects. Everything must die and from that life emerges or is sustained. Unwelcome visitors are a matter of definition. With willingness and patience, they will eventually disappear or be transformed. What is left is the beauty of it all: all parts working together, a never-ending cycle that does not offer the promise that anything will last, only that things will forever transform.