Daily Dispatches: Day 22
April 3, 2020
Day 22
The first week of shelter-in-place (or self-isolation or lockdown or quarantine – whatever we’re calling it now), I was ON IT.
Every night, I made dinner, actually cooking something as opposed to pouring a jar of sauce over pasta. The kids and I watched movies together in the evenings. I hit the ground running.
Now it’s Friday late afternoon. Honestly, whatever I was thinking of writing today has escaped me. I picture our neighborhood fox, sauntering down the middle of the street. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him in a while. Sometimes that’s how it is with the writing – it just wanders off, unowned by any human, least of all me.
After I wrote those two paragraphs, V came into the living room and put her head on my shoulder. We sat together quietly for a few minutes, mostly in silent acknowledgment that this is hard. I told her I could fall asleep like that. Falling asleep at 4:30pm is dangerous if I want to be able to sleep tonight, so I am literally willing myself to stay awake right now.
Then I called Mani in from the kitchen to tell her something and she sat down and I put my head on her shoulder, and again felt the pull of sleep. She read my first two paragraphs over my shoulder as I lamented having absolutely nothing to say tonight. She said when she got to the fox part and how we haven’t seen it lately, her first thought was that it got eaten by another animal. So something bigger might have come along and eaten my writing?! Ha!
Today, with a client, I called this “pandemic punchiness.” It’s like the kind of laughter that could turn into crying at any minute, or vice versa. Release. Relief.
This ridiculousness got us thinking about how unhopeful it would be to write to you about a dead fox. Not exactly inspirational. But then again, I never did set out to be inspirational. If anything, the thought of that makes me want to run the other direction, not unlike the “candemic” thing from my last posting. I’m much more interested in real life than in inspiration.
So then we got really silly. “I should do a group called Fierce Despair,” I joked. To which Mani replied, “Fierce Discouragement!” Then we really laughed and oh, it felt so damn good to laugh.
I’m listening to Bill Withers, may his memory be a blessing.
Pearl’s sitting next to me playing on the X-Box.
It’s 4:55pm. If you’re feeling down, maybe Fierce Discouragement will give you a laugh. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, let this be an invitation to you to put zero pressure on yourself. ZERO. Seriously. Now is not the time. Week one is well behind us. We don’t have to rock the quarantine; we just have to survive it – something that actually means something very, very real right now.
When in doubt about how much to say or share with my kids, I’m choosing transparency and honesty. They deserve nothing less. As do you. So here I am, my yoga pants covered with dog fur. The other day, Jen Louden asked on Facebook when the last time we wore pants with an actual waistband was, and I couldn’t remember.
Yesterday, I did not leave the house. I napped in the morning and truthfully I only got up because I had clients in the afternoon. I had a moment when I thought I could just completely fall apart here, and then I had another moment when I knew that I would not do that. Giving myself permission, though, to have the former moment is no small part of the choice to get back up and keep going. We must let it all be true right now, be so very patient with our own rollercoaster of emotions, be present with our kids and allow them, too, to express the parts of this they hate.
I don’t want inspirational. I want real.
For today, fierce discouragement will be my offering, tongue-in-cheek, perhaps, but also you have to admit pretty funny.
I’m not reading these dispatches over before sending them out. Doing so would decrease the likelihood of my hitting “send,” and I do want to hit send. Why? Because this is my flare; it’s my eyes meeting yours; it’s my way of saying whatever you’re feeling is ok; it’s my anchor, my touchstone, my permission slip, my mac-and-cheese from a box for dinner, my good enough. It’s me channeling Leonard Cohen and forgetting my perfect offering which was never perfect at all.
“The serious revolutionary, like the serious artist, can’t afford to lead a sentimental or self-deceiving life.”
If you are able and inclined to contribute any amount, your support helps me to keep doing what I do and keep the pantry stocked. My deepest gratitude.