Until my retirement in late-June 2019, I led a very deadline-driven life. I have been accused of thriving on chaos, and I have recently embraced the truth in that. Seems that the only way I could get anything done was to fill my life with so many events and obligations that I had only a sliver of white space in my calendar, and that's where I shoehorned/crowbarred in whatever unexpectedly popped up. Effective, yes. Attractive, no. I always made it happen, but at a great cost to my emotional, mental, and physical health.
Only a handful of people know this, but... my greatest fantasy, for decades, was that the whole world would go into a one-week deep freeze/sleep (except for me!), so that I could furiously catch up... on e-mails, phone calls, concert booking, work duties.
Not that I conjured this virus, but it seems my vision has come to fruition. Not to minimize the real risks, harm, and financial setbacks associated with COVID-19, and I have immense gratitude for those who remain on the front lines of essential people... but most of us are now experiencing some sort of suspended animation, during which we are being given an *opportunity* to re-calibrate our lives. We have been offered the gift of time, which was always in short supply. We can read, bingewatch, exercise, meditate, eat healthy, connect with family and friends (whether up-close-and-personal or from afar). We can engage in Radical Self-Care. All that is asked of us is to be patient and follow the rules to stay safe and well. I am finally getting around to some projects long on my To Do List: whittling down the e-mails in my inbox, writing in my Grandmother's Journal for Colin, fine-tuning our will, etc.
Yes, there is a tendency to go stir-crazy but, honestly, going inward will serve us well during this difficult time, re-examining our lives and tweaking how we can come out better people on the other side of this. The struggle is real, but so is the challenge... :-)
P.S. Yesterday I watched Brittany Runs a Marathon on Amazon Prime, which reveals at the end of the movie that it's based on a true story. I posted on our family group text, saying that I thought, post-coronavirus, we should run/walk a 5K together. We're all in!
“People are getting restless,” Jimmy Kimmel said on Monday night of the growing social discord in the country. “Especially the people who aren’t too bright.”
Thus began a lengthy monologue from the Jimmy Kimmel Live host, during which he savagely mocked the protesters as well as President Trump for putting wind behind their sails.
“I get that people need to go back to work. I do. But the point of stay-at-home is to get a lid on this so we can get back to work, and then stay at work,” Kimmel said, before comparing the protesters—many of whom have carried signs in support of Trump—to a death cult. “I’m starting to think that these characters who support Trump might be suicidal. They seem to be fighting hardest for the things that will kill them. They want the freedom to gather in large groups during an epidemic. They want guns. They want pollution. I figured it out. They want to die, and they’re taking us down with them. It’s like if the Titanic was headed towards the iceberg, and half of the passengers were like, ‘Can you please speed this thing up?’”
SONG: Sleeping Beauty by Tom Prasada-Rao
BOOK: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
POEM: Notes to Myself During National Poetry Month, 2020 by Dante Di Stefano
Remember, bluets still sprout
beneath your boots
when you take your daughter
for a walk by the river.
Even though an orange snow fence
surrounds the jungle gym
in the park down the street,
there’s the low fork
of a young oak to sit her in.
Remember, even if the hoops
have all been unscrewed
from the backboards,
you can still feign a hook shot for her.
Remember, if the balcony
is closed,
sing through the wall.
Find the riot, unquelled,
in the cherry blossom’s center.
Remember, beneath each scarf,
bandanna, and surgical mask,
there is a throat
that might break into sudden
surprising aria.
Remember, how astonished
your daughter is
at motorcycles and ladybugs,
a pebble she finds
in a neighbor’s driveway,
the stars, the moon, mayflies,
streetlights seen from
the window before bed.
Remember, the image of
your wife’s brown hair
sprawled on the pillow
in the blue hour
of any morning
is worth more
than all your poems.
Remember, even an angry word
from her
is worth more than
the best line of poetry
you have ever read.
Remember, your poems
cannot shelter you,
or make a roof
for the ones you love.
Remember, the earth’s
sole vocation is to astonish.
Remember, the angels of the earth
choir themselves
with mouths full of sod.
Remember, glaciers melt,
oceans rise,
coastlines recede.
Remember, everything can happen
at once and always,
and God, and heaven, and hell.
Remember, the world is
inside you,
the meadow between
one clover and one bee.
Remember, the world is sweet
and spinning, still.
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