Today is quarantine day something. We are past the one-month mark. I need not mention life is strange; though, we are fortunate for good health and good weather. We are fortunate for the ability to work from home and school from home. We made a fun-ish Spring Break with backyard camping and indoor baking and bird-watching at the beach. We have all learned that we really yearn for fresh air and to touch nature every day and to sweat and work to physical exhaustion when possible.
It is almost beginning to sound trite to discuss the “good” to be found in all of this. First, I fear it sounds like I am discounting the gravity of the pandemic. Second, I think many are mentioning it for the “likes” and will quickly return to the breakneck life waiting just beyond our masks. I may be one of those people.
I do not have anything new to add to the discussion. For the most part, I don’t even want to have discussions anymore. But I did want to write, for myself now and to look back on later.
Risking sounding dull and vapid or like an “Everything I need to know I learned in Quarantine” poster, I would be remiss not to mention what I have learned things and enjoyed life in a way that is different and new. I have met neighbors I would have otherwise waved at from behind the wheel of my car as I rushed to our next thing. I have watched child after child learn to ride a bike. I’ve seen my girls’ faces dirtier than they have ever been from adventuring in the woods. I’ve looked at stars and sunrises and sunsets. And I’ve done a lot of sitting. Just sitting. Not something I do very often in “real life.”
I have figured out things about myself like I need to be outside more and in my head less.
I have also started (re-started) writing. Not just here. Poetry. And reading it. I forgot how cathartic it is for me. I forgot how it was praying for me - fervent praying. And a part of me maybe even forgot how much I need that, not just now but always.
I’ve also cried. A lot. Almost every day. Most of the time I’m not even sure what I’m crying about - it just all gets to be too much. Sometimes too much sadness and death. Sometimes too much simple joy and kindness. Just too much feeling and and too many conflicted feelings. But like the writing and the praying, I need the crying too and that’s okay.
My biggest concern through all of this is to make sure the girls are good. Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. I want them to know that it is okay to not feel okay all the time. I want them to talk about their feelings and feel them. But I also want them to play - hard - and laugh - a lot.
Who knows why we remember clearly certain things from our childhood and have no memories of others. I certainly don’t know why the brain holds on to what it does. But if the girls have any memory of this time, I hope it is one of joy and security, even if it is intertwined with some confusion and the occasional tears. They are too young to remember it any other way.
So we will keep on baking and hiking and reading and biking, laughing a lot and crying a little. We will also keep on praying, in all the ways we know how.
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