Under the Cloak of COVID.

Hi, friends.

It’s been a minute.

I have missed writing so much and while I am not sorry for my silence, I feel I owe an explanation in the hopes that perhaps some of you may find yourself feeling some of these same feels and might benefit from knowing you are not alone. I don’t have a formal excuse or a primary reason for my absence on here….but I have been feeling a deep heaviness and a great looming lonelines, all while simultaneously feeling swallowed by noise and yet also profoundly alive. Caught in a swirl. I have been uncharacteristically still these last summer months, spending my days with the clouds and the stars instead of with carpools and soccer games. I have been watching the sky turn pink as day becomes evening. I watch, with curiosity and awe, the flight patterns of the bumblebees as they pollinate my cucumbers and pumpkins and zucchini. I am silent with my backyard hibiscus blowing softly in the breeze. I watch the woodpeckers peck and the blue jays bully and the robins seek worms and the finches eat flowers. I run alongside the sandpipers while they flutter at the ocean’s edge, both of us chasing, as they frantically peck for their next snack to sustain and I desperately, continuously, seek to find my center. I have become deeply connected with my yoga mat and am thankful for every pop and snap and stretch that it provides. I have been observing the schools of metallic fish swimming below the dock at a lake while appreciating the reflection of the clouds above on its looking glass lid. I hear the twitter of birds and the screech of the sea gulls and the scream of the hawks and the honk of the geese. I listen to the giggle of my four children as they genuinely delight in one another…until the next squabble strikes and that laughter turns to tears. 

I have never felt more tuned in to the quiet hustle of nature and also the sound of my own beating heart. 

This earth has brought me closer to its center, as I appreciate the twinkly dance of the rays of sunlight through the leaves of our yard’s mighty oak tree and appreciate the flurry of ants and the laze of caterpillars and the flutter of butterflies. 

I feel so close to my family too. My children. My husband. My parents and in-laws. My siblings and their families. We have been treated to so much time this summer and while it is unfortunately atypical, I am grateful beyond measure. 

Also, though, I have felt lost. Sad. Alone. 

COVID has gifted me fear. Anxious thoughts. Questions of the future. Concern for our friends and family who are providing medical care in corona hotspots and listening to harrowing tales of their own experiences of being sick themselves, treating patients at the bedside, or fearing for the health of their own families has been never-ending, unnerving and unsettling.  This concern extends now to our beloved teachers who are preparing to embark on a journey into unchartered waters with their own fears and worries.  I also find myself following the rules and questioning my gut at every turn when it comes to decisions about living and educating our kids and trying to find an appropriate rhythm for our own family bubble….and also with respect to our many loved ones who have their own unique risks and fears of their own. 

I am struggling with disgust and horror at the racial inequities that have existed for centuries that I am just beginning to know and understand.  The recent events in our nation have pierced my heart and my head hangs in shame for the horror and wrong of so many leaders and citizens in this world who contribute to this pain, both today and for many, many moons before. I feel horrified and heartbroken as I work to learn and unlearn so many parts of this sad song. 

The landscape of a world I once knew before the pandemic has shifted greatly as people who were primary players in my life….the listeners, the coffee-gifters, the tear-sharers, the lifters, the huggers, the co-parents to my children…. have left my daily life for reasons of merit….but have left my heart aching and raw. The rug we together weaved of what was presumed safety for us all from the rocky world we live in, and what I felt would be a forever commitment, was tugged from beneath me in this wild tsunami that is this world.  I feel like my safe place, my one refuge from this storm, the support net outside my home, no longer exists the way it once was. 

I have set down many of my personal past times that had once brought me great joy: meditation, writing, nutrition…because my head had little space with four children home full time and my heart had little strength.  In exchange, I have opted for hikes, swimming in the ocean, staring into the great beyond and marveling at the leaves.

I was preparing to experience with conflicting emotion my first time ever since 2007 being home, alone, with no children, at last able to sit in stillness with the questions in my heart of “what next?”, hoping to find answers and map out next steps as I reclaim pieces of myself that have lied dormant these last thirteen years as I have poured into my babies who are now becoming teens. With remote schooling x4 coming into view on the horizon, I feel that space for reflection is still out of reach.  Some bits of myself have only just been born out of this beautiful journey….and other parts have died and gone away. I’m not sure I even know at all who I am today or remember who I once was or am able to clearly dream of who I could be. 

I simply know that:

I am alive. 

The sky is blue, whether I can see it or not. 

I tell myself I am not alone, even though at times, despite being surrounded by noise at my dinner table and frenzied bedtimes, I feel wholly engulfed in solitude. 

I have a choice as to how to see and how to breathe and how to feel.  I can opt into an air of gratitude or I can sink into a puddle of stress.  

The sun always sets and will rise again. 

There are more stars in the sky than any human could possibly count, and they shoot and they fall and they explode and they burnout….even in the promise of their mere existence, there is infinite change. 

The tides change. Seashells become sand. Mountains move and become rock. Plants are pruned and grass is clipped and weeds are pulled….and they become nourishment for the next crop. 

The more we look around, the more we see that nothing stays the same. And that fact is both beautiful and soul wrenching all at once. 

It’s okay to mourn the loss of people and grieve the death of dreams. It’s also important to create space to build new dreams….while also learning to not cling so tightly to anything but yourself because all things change, even the things and people you bet your life on. 

I have no answers for anyone…but if you’re out there reading this and care to reach out with any shared emotion…. it would be a much appreciated tonic for my weary soul in this wild world we live in. I wish you all your own version of peace and safety and solace with the promise that, for better or worse, this too shall pass. ❤️

Also, in an effort to help mend my heart and to insert some control in this crazy world of chaos, I am holding myself accountable by sharing here that I am going to attempt to write, daily, for the next 30 days. I can promise it may not be good (or even worth reading), but it will be authentic, unedited, raw and true. I invite you to join me, in your own way, if you’d like, to spend your day seeking one moment that can teach you something. Open your eyes to something pure. Beautiful. Painful. If writing is your jam, open your journal. If you paint or take photographs or sing or organize spaces or design or decorate or make music, I welcome you to, in your own special way, to find opportunities to create away. If you love to read or run or swim, seek deeper meaning in your mind and body’s hard work. Even if you wish to share a line or two with us all in a comment below each piece about how you saw something new, or something old in a new way, in your children or garden or closet or self….that would be glorious. Your insights would help me and might benefit someone else…and you might learn from someone else how to see something differently. We can all be alone together, more deeply connecting and seeking joy, with one another. Tell your friends. Invite your mom. Use the hashtag #thegiftofmoments and/or #seekingmoments2020. we can all learn and appreciate the beautiful moments, amidst the insanity, alongside each other. 

Take good care of you, friends. You’re the only you we’ve got. ❤️