Even if the world still needs to stop in many many ways, we can be part of the living in a pandemic. We can move around in the world in our own social distanced way. We can move around in our homes wearing clothes and creating ritual and experiencing our space whatever it may be. …
There was a line that drifted out of adult mouths quite often when I was a child: “She’s taken to her bed.”
It was up there with “She’s let herself go” and “She needs to go away for a while and rest.” These lines usually came along with “The poor dear.”
They were the opposite from the line “sitting around and eating bon bons all day,” which I also heard a lot, mostly from my work-ethic-driven mother, and always with disdain. To me the bon bon eaters seemed like they were having a great time. They laughed a lot and sat around swimming pools with sexy looking beverages, smoking cigarettes, and took long afternoon “lie downs.” My mother took a nap every day. For twenty minutes. At exactly noon thirty. So that she could Energizer bunny-hop straight through dinner and back to her “desk work,” her typewriter keeping beat to Happy Days and Mork and Mindy and Little House on the Prairie all the way to the Carson monologue— even though she was prone to headaches. I was once told that when my mother got a headache in the middle of her many board meetings, she wouldn’t even break for a glass of water— just eat aspirin raw.
My mother is in no way a bon bon eater. And she would never “take to her bed.” Even with a pandemic going on.
She’s eighty-six now, living in a retirement community where everyone is confined to their living space, and she’s still busy. She’s taken up knitting. She’s reading a book called the Royal Secret which she’s reviewing for a virtual book group. She’s needle-pointing Christmas ornaments for her grandchildren. She’s watching The Queen’s Gambit and thinking of taking up online chess. She reads the Chicago Tribune Bridge Hand every day before she takes her walk. She finds all sorts of reasons why she needs to go to the hardware store and the plant nursery. She keeps asking me if I’ve had a chance to get my oven fixed. Or my truck. Or get a new bed. My thirty-year old bed. That squeaks and wakes me up at night. That’s lost its will to support my back, its pillow top in lumpy curds. She’s worried about my back. She knows that it hurts by the way I ow eee err on our Zoom calls. She does forty minutes of exercises for her back every morning before she gets out of bed. At five a.m. And then she gets out of her bed and makes her bed and gets DRESSED like she’s going to duplicate bridge at the club, and then goes into the kitchen to make oatmeal with blueberries and fresh orange juice. Good for her. Especially the getting dressed part.
What she doesn’t know is that my back hurts…because I’m always in my old lumpy bed.
When I get out of it, I quickly return to it. Hence it’s never made. I joke that my “commute” these days goes like this: I awake supine in my bed. I take the old lumpy body pillow from between my knees and place it against my headboard (waiting for the subway), stack the other four feather pillows on top of it (listen to a podcast on the subway), lean over the side of my bed and reach for my computer (core workout at gym), drag it upward (grab a cappuccino at the corner café— smile at the barista who knows my name and exactly how to make my foam), plop my computer on my bed (open the door to my office), make the bold move to putting myself in the sitting position (drop into my ergonomically correct office chair with a view of the Hudson), lean against said pillow stack (thank my assistant for bringing me fresh flowers and taking away the almost-dead-but-not-quite bouquet from last week), take two other firm pillows and put them on my lap (adjust my state-of-the-art standing desk), open my laptop (take three grounding breaths in through the nose out through the mouth), and begin my day.
It takes all of thirty seconds.
What she also doesn’t know is that there have been a few times in the pandemic when I’ve tossed and turned so much in the night, rearranged my pillows so often, that they’ve shed their cases and I just leave them naked. Why make another step for myself? They’re just going to come off anyway, because tossing and turning seems to be the default sleep-state these days. It’s also the reason why my sheets curl up around the mattress corners and wad up underneath me. Sometimes I just shove them off altogether so that I sleep (and work) on the actual mattress. That’s when I know I’m in trouble. That’s when I know that I have “taken to my bed.”
This is the sort of thing I don’t admit on a Zoom call.
Just like I don’t show anything from the waist down, unless it’s a pajama party. On Zoom calls I talk about silver linings because it’s really weird to start crying “at” all of your friends, Brady Bunch style. Air hugs suck. Especially when they’re herky jerky, or when they freeze altogether. Or when I’ve just admitted that I’ve taken to my bed and they forget their mics are all off and so I see “You poor dear” mouthed by eight women who have gotten out of bed this morning, made their bed, and put on proper pants. Like my mother. Do I tell them that I put on my “good” pajamas just for them? The ones that don’t smell. The ones with the cute powder-blue leopard prints on them because they’re so sexy. Like the bon bon eaters’ cocktails. The bon bon eaters weren’t the sort to take to their beds. The bon bon eaters would be the type to take a vacation during a pandemic. To a five star resort in French Polynesia. Or go sailing in the BVI’s because f*** this pandemic sh**. I want to be a bon bon eater. Sorry, Mom. But I do. I want to have fun again.
I wonder why I, instead, feel the need to hold some sort of self-flagellistic vigil during this pandemic.
Like I’ve been sent into a much-merited time out and am not allowed to leave my room until it’s over. Anyone feel me? Anyone feel like you’re splaying yourself supplicant on the altar of austere living? Like you’ve taken some sort of vow of celibacy mixed with a vow of rice-eating and robe-wearing. Bathrobe wearing, that is.
Wake. Make tea. Earl Grey. I feel like I’m having an affair with Earl Grey. He’s the most exciting person in my life. With the exception of my dogs. I feed and walk them more than I feed and walk myself because they take three times more of a walk, running around in the snowy woods of Montana behind my house. Come back from BIG five star outing with the dogs. Eat the other half of yesterday’s almost black banana. Less exciting. Go back to bed with Earl. Work from bed until it’s time for the news. Maybe, if I can take it, watch the news. If I watch the news, it requires wine. Box wine since it seems to last forever and I can use the cardboard to start a fire in my woodstove. Unless it’s a really bad news week and then there’s less fire-starter. Feed dogs again. If I don’t watch the news, maybe think of making toast for dinner from my own bread because that’s the one thing that I have learned how to do this last year, like everybody else: Make bread from my own sourdough starter. Before the pandemic, I was gluten free. Not anymore. I’m considering learning how to make my own butter, since that seems to be my main protein. It has .1 grams of protein in it per teaspoon, after all. I wonder how much protein is in a healthy schmear. The healthier the schmear the healthier the butter, right? When I really start to stink, I bathe. Watch Colbert not from my bed happybirthdaytome, but from the five star living room couch. Or Fallon. Sometimes Seth or Corden too. Yawn uncontrollably. Go to bed. Repeat.
This week, I actually said, aloud, to nobody: “My life has turned into Bed Bath and Bananas” which is my term of endearment for almost-said box store. I hate box stores. I’ve used the pandemic as an excuse to not go to a box store for a solid year. Silver lining indeed. The bon bon eaters go to box stores all the time and buy cute holiday tchotchkes and fresh pillowcases and bathing suits for their next vacation. They don’t seem to be worried about COVID. That said, the bon bon eaters I know are in no way anti-maskers. They all wear masks. They don’t seem to mind wearing a mask at all. They even say things to each other like “Cute mask!” Apparently they can spot each other in a crowd. I’ve pretty much had one mask all year. Not because I don’t wear it but because I obviously rarely leave the house. I’ve also gone through less than one bottle of hand-sanitizer for the same reason. It’s also the reason why I’m one pilly pillow away from developing bed sores. But if I keep going like this…they’re a-comin.
So…dear bon bon eaters: teach me.
Tell me that I’ve paid my dues. I’ve atoned for whatever was my life pre-pandemic. A year ago I was racing from city to city promoting my new novel Willa’s Grove. I’d spent a solid year prior preparing for over thirty-eight events from coast to coast and in-between. I’d plotted and planned my outfits, where I was going to get blow-outs for certain more media-genic events. I’d prepared special live workshops based on the theme of transformation in my book: So Now What Workshops. I was fully, and perhaps scarily, leaned in, as all authors are after the years of hard labor it takes to produce a book baby. From New York to Boston to Chicago to Minneapolis I went with my little novel baby, watching it work its charm and yield its messages, trying not to think too much about this thing called COVID that was this dark shadow lurking in the fray. We just didn’t quite understand what was about to happen. How could we?
And then it was March 13th. San Francisco, my next stop, shut down. And then Seattle. And Portland was thinking about it. I emailed my Italian friend because she’s one of the most sensible people I know, and Italy was newly in this thing called quarantine. She responded immediately. “The US is ten days away from being where we are. I’m telling you: Go home. Get your kids home. Stock up on beans and rice. Let go of the book tour.”
I stared at the hotel room ceiling, wept, and called my travel agent.
And home I went. Got the kids home. Holed up like the rest of the world, and proceeded to get sick. Very sick. For five weeks. There weren’t a lot of COVID tests in Montana so I left them for the health care workers. But I had most of the symptoms. Dry cough. Body aches. Pink eye. It required a lot of bed time.
And a year later…I haven’t really un-holed up.
I wonder if holed-up is my new state of mind. I fear for that if it is true. I am a woman who loves to travel. I am an extravert. I am a community builder. I am a glass-half-full person by nature. Not a take-to-her-bed type of being. I don’t recognize this woman that I’ve been this year. I’m part ashamed of her and part intrigued by her. She holds a deep dark secret and she’s slowly shedding light on it:
It turns out that I’ve wanted an excuse to STOP. To…just…be. To reduce life to its essence. To live in quiet solitude and stillness. It turns out that I’ve liked living in my bed. I’ve liked not getting dressed. I’ve liked noticing every creak in the house and the way the wind moves in the naked larch trees versus the full Douglas firs. I like measuring my life in cups of tea and glasses of water and walks in the woods.
But…I mean…dude…it’s time to get out of bed. Really. It’s time.
Even if the world still needs to stop in many many ways, we can be part of the living in a pandemic. We can move around in the world in our own social distanced way. We can move around in our homes wearing clothes and creating ritual and experiencing our space whatever it may be. Even a one room apartment has many invitations to live in it. Read a book in the sun rays beaming from your kitchen window. Eat a meal at your table with a Zoom companion who is doing the same. Put on some music and dance. Go out on the balcony and watch birds. See what they have to say about all this. And yes, get in your bed and rest. But don’t stay there.
Just ask my mother. It’s noon thirty. By now it’s time for her twenty-minute nap. I wonder if she makes her bed after her nap. I wonder if she takes off her pants.
So. To that end. I’m going to make my bed now, for the first time in a year.
It’s time to hear the echo of the woman lying in the hotel room on March 13th, 2020…staring at the ceiling and weeping, grieving the loss of the hard-won hardback tour. All those people who I would have read to and all those questions I would have hopefully answered with some semblance of grace. All those books I would have signed with loving messages about the power of women in community, the power of telling your story, the lessons of the Montana wilderness. And then all of the Haven Writing Retreats I had to cancel, all of the hungry-for-your-voice seekers who would have sat in small circles courting their muses…supporting each other in the community of heart language…which inspired the book in the first place. It’s time to stop sitting shiva for all of what didn’t happen in 2020. And honor all that did.
Because it’s happening again. The paperback of Willa’s Grove comes out exactly a year from the hardback last March 2nd. I get another chance to be the messenger for this novel that I love so much. Only this time it’s the paperback and this time it’s all virtual. And this time, people need its messages more than ever. And I’m hoping with all my heart that I’ll be able to lead my fall Haven retreats. People will need live community and the healing salve of Montana more than ever before. I pray that we can do it safely.
For now, I’m going to blow the dust off of my book tour clothes hanging in dry-cleaning bags in my closet. I’m going to actually deal with my hair. I’m going to put on boots. I’m going to perk up and yes maybe even lean in. Just not on planes trains and automobiles. But in the rooms of my own house and the rooms of my own heart. I have learned that you can still feel people on a Zoom call. You can still look into their eyes and know that you are all in this together.
And I solemnly swear: I will never take to my bed again.
As the character Bliss says in Willa’s Grove: “We want to freeze time, don’t we? But everything must move.”
And so…dear mother…dear back…dear bon bon eaters…dear old lumpy bed…as Willa and her women do at the end of the book over a rushing springtime Montana river, I am claiming my forward moving future and all that I would like to leave behind.
And to honor that, I have just…wait for it…bought a new bed. It’s a done deal. Thank you, old bed. You supported me for many years. But it’s time to trade you in for a new organic, five star mattress. New, luxurious percale sheets. New organic body pillows. And from here on out…I’m going to make my bed every morning.
Just without me in it.
Stay tuned for my Willa’s Grove paperback Book Tour events! I’m teaming up with some incredible authors and I can’t wait to share our discussions with you!
Please support your local bookstores, bookshop.org, or you can PRE-ORDER my bestselling novel here, and be among the first to receive Willa’s Grove in Paperback!
