by Laura Munson | Dec 23, 2020 | Musings
Well…it’s been a motherf***er of a year. Many of us feel that we can’t complain about it unless we got Covid, lost someone we loved to it, or are on the health care front lines. But we have to talk about it. We have to. However we are affected by this global pandemic, I know that if we don’t talk about it, whine about it, rage against it, beat it with a broom, laugh in its face, thank it the way you thank a robber for cleaning you of your “greed”…we won’t learn from it.
I tried the non-complaining approach for months. I mean, a lot of good has happened in my life due to the pandemic. My kids came home. I had a full house. We have memories we’d never have if it weren’t for the quarantine— we called it “one long spring break.” I mean, there was a beer pong table set up on my lawn all summer, after all. I learned to make sourdough bread like everyone else. I’ve been able to offer writing workshops online. My book became a bestseller regardless of a cancelled book tour. See…there I go. Glass-half-fulling it. It’s not my nature to lead with anger. I run optimistic as a rule, and not because I’m forcing it. It’s just more comfortable to me to be positive and grateful. But in the last months I’ve taken to a weird form of mental abuse, muttering things out of nowhere and for no apparent reason and to no one like, “Okay! FIIINE!” or “Leave me ALONE, okay?!” or “I’m TRYING!” or “Give me a freaking BREAK!” Maybe I’m speaking to Covid itself? Likely so. I catch myself kicking rocks down the driveway on my daily walk. Hard.
Like Covid is a squatting, rotting, uninvited fish-guest in my house and I don’t quite know how to ask it to leave.
So I just rage at it. It actually seems to like the abuse, because no matter how angry I get at it…it…just…won’t…leave.
And it’s not just in my house. It’s in every conversation I have. Weird stuff comes out of my mouth. Weird stuff comes out of other people’s mouths too. Stuff like, “We need to clean the kitchen ceiling.” If there was a script, we’re way off it and I wonder if we’ll come back. A few generations ago, our world was in the same sort of sucker punch. But we had Bob Hope and the Andrews Sisters. Now we have the Tiger King. And Minecraft. And Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani. And legal weed. No wonder people are watching a TV series about a woman playing chess. No wonder we’re bragging about our sourdough starter. It’s the only thing left to brag about. Well, that, and our “nice” pair of pajamas.
So, in this winding up of 2020, I say, let it rip! Let’s hereby BITCH about this last year. Just for one solid jaunt, grab it like that baseball bat your uncle wielded at your seventh birthday party when the pinata wouldn’t break, and have at it. Bash that paper mache pink pony until it falls off its noose and its treacly guts splatter all over the garage floor. Let’s do it before the year ends! Let’s do it as the days get longer and lighter. Let’s shake off 2020 in the most emotionally aggressive (but not violent) way. Every bit of scum that’s built up behind our ears and under our arms and inside our cerebral cortexes, and that dreadlock that won’t brush out because of all the sitting in your bed. To that end, the bed sores. Let’s take whatever’s left of your bi-ceps and punch this sucker right back! Especially if you run on the kind side of things…let’s bash this thing bloody. Just for a few minutes. We’ll call it sacred rage.
Let’s get it out of our systems and walk into 2021…new. Even if 2021 is a lot like 2020, or somehow worse (please, God, no!), at least we will have done some decent due diligence in the realm of rage. At least we will be purged enough to face whatever wants to fill our next footsteps.
I’ll go first.
- 30 year old dream comes true: got a novel published. March 2nd. F*** me.
Big bounteous book tour on full steam—NYC, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis— needle scratch on vinyl record. Just kidding, West Coast and Rocky Mountain states. Sorry, summertime Eastern Seaboard. Turns out I need to go home, buy beans and rice, and get back into my bed, where I was for the last eight years, writing the damn book. TP? Meh. I have T-shirts I don’t like.
- Realize on the airplane home, after cancelling 38 events from coast to coast and in-between, that I also don’t have a little thing called a job. Like…who’s coming to Montana on a writing retreat when there’s a pandemic going on? Silver lining: I hung with the Delta finger wagging No Smoking lady. She’s a real live flight attendant! Got a photo with her. I was supposed to get a photo with like…scads of tan booklovers at the Martha’s Vineyard Yacht Club, with Mt. Gay and tonics in one hand and my novel in the other. But whatever.
- Get a cough. A dry cough. And a sore throat. And…like I can’t smell anything. And like…my eyes are pink and gooey. And like…I can’t stop coughing. And my body aches. I must just be worn out from all the travel. All the hugs and kisses and whispers in the ear and the breathing. And the Uber after Uber and the subway and more hugs and more kisses and more whispers in the ear and chummy, close-up photo poses. Montana had very few Covid tests in March. I thought it correct form to leave them for the healthcare workers. I was already in my bed anyway. What’s five more weeks, supine? Saving Grace: A friend gave me Thieves cough lozenges at my first gig in NYC: “They used these to ward off the Bubonic Plague in the 1600s, so just in case it gets bad out there on the road.” I highly recommend them.
- Get a rejection from the New Yorker for an essay I didn’t submit. Nor write. Awesome!
- Whilst driving a country road, the hood of my car suddenly flies back, full throttle, against my windshield. I mean…is that a thing??? We lived. The hood didn’t. Bonus points: The tow truck guy knows me by my first name. “Which rig is it this time, Laura?”
- In similar news: my 2002 Suburban, the one that the kids were little in, the one that drove sophomoric soccer stars and local baseball legends over the Continental Divide for tournament after tournament, the one that serves as my utility truck and my son’s transportation when he’s home…finally gives up. But after I sink almost 2k into it and buy brand new tires for winter driving safety. “That thing’ll run forever. I’ve seen Chevy trucks with 300,000 miles on them,” sayeth the mechanic. Turns out he’s a ‘splainer-sayer, not a soothsayer.
- And forget about basic human interaction, even at six feet apart. My hearing sucks and it turns out that I read lips more than I knew I did. And with reading glasses on top of a mask, it’s all one big foggy mess. So it’s get in and get out. Fast. Put it this way: I’m the one who corners you in the grocery store and wants to know all about the hardest thing in your life. While you’re trying to buy broccoli and your kid has a dirty diaper. Lo, there are relieved people all over Whitefish, Montana.
- Speaking of the election: My 88 year-old mother falls on her way into the voting booth, and breaks her arm. Then gets UP, and says to all of City Hall, (in some iteration—I’ve heard it at least three different ways) “I came here to vote and I’m going to vote! Even though I’m crossing party lines this time! Devil be damned!” Votes. Then drives herself to the ER, shifting with her left hand. So that explains 75% of my personality. Like so many of our elders she’s alone for all the holidays, in Skilled Nursing. No visitors. PS: Don’t tell her but some Christmas elves are going to surprise her on Christmas Eve outside her window with some holiday cheer…
- Seriously…politics. Not going there. But whatever that all was…I’m just glad it’s over. And did we really need all the license plate-sized, expensive, nasty campaign flyers? I made a huge heart out of them on my front lawn in case aliens wanted to know if there was still love on the planet earth. There is. Just didn’t feel like it when you turned on the news all year.
- What else? Oh yeah. My computer broke and I lost half of a pretty good novel. Yup. And my email still doesn’t work right. So I miss things. Little things like…“Would you like to be our $keynote$ speaker?”
- And then the Christmas tree falls down. Twice. My grandmother’s favorite ornament, that she so carefully curated, and me too, smashed to smithereens. And a glass globe that my son painted in 1st grade with his little sweet handprint on it for all of eternity— bah-bye. A million little sharp glass pieces all over the living room. I cut my foot on one of them. Symbolism: My favorite ornament, a red blown glass heart that I got in Italy, broke in half but didn’t fall. So I left it right where it was, up next to the star. Because… 2020. Part of me was like…just leave the damn tree lying on the floor. The lights still work.
- And there’s this weird mole on my chest. That itches. Gotta get that checked out. And that colonoscopy I’m due for… No appointments until 2021. So no luck on the deductible. At least I have some things to look forward to!
- Not doing a #13. I’m not superstitious but…
There were good things too. Great things. But that’s not what this is for. This is for shedding it all so there’s room to bring in the new. And I must say…that felt good. BUT it was hard. Every single bit of rant felt like it needed to be somehow justified by some sort of silver lining.
And I wonder…if the bright side can stay bright without the dark side to remind it of what it is.
And always will be. Because I believe in the bright side. So there. But 2020…you really sucked. Thank you, then, for your service. We’re probably better for you, somehow. At least we can dream.
To all of you who lost anything this year, which is all of us, especially to those of you who lost loved ones: here is a huge, up-close-and-personal written-from-my-heart HUG and a KISS and a whisper in your EAR: It’s gonna be okay. It just is. We have to believe that it really is.
I’m going to go watch It’s a Wonderful Life now and bawl my eyes out. Happy holidays to you, even if it’s a small light in your small window. Savor it.
Love from Montana,
Laura
My Haven Home online 8 week writing course will be from January 18th-March 12th! Enrollment coming to you Dec. 31st! Here’s more info!
by Laura Munson | Nov 16, 2020 | Musings
Recently a new friend asked me what makes me happy.
I talked for a while, trying to get at the truth of it and landed on: caring for others. It felt authentic. But then I woke up this morning and there was something in my gut that wanted to answer that question again in a way that was more self-indulgent. Self-preservational. As I let myself dream my list, I realized that I’ve done very few of the things on it in the last nine months. I also realized that I had planned to do many of the things on my list in 2020 but haven’t been able to due to the pandemic. Furthermore, I realized that the things on my list that ARE things that I could be doing in a pandemic…I’m still not really doing.
Just because our lives have been dramatically changed in 2020, it does not mean that we aren’t allowed to be happy. Making this list allowed me the chance to dream about the future, reminded me of happy memories from the past, and showed me what is absolutely available to me in the realm of happiness if I give myself permission to say yes. I strongly encourage you to make your own list. It’s such a simple thing to do. And it showed me just how much of my happiness I’ve let Covid take away. I mean, just because I can’t gallop a horse in Morocco right now, doesn’t mean that I can’t put my guitar in my lap. And play. And sing. And…well…be happy.
Here’s my list. In no particular order:
Bumming around all day in a great walking city with no agenda. Like New York. London. Florence. San Francisco. Boston. Chicago. Seattle. Popping into indie bookstores, cafes, museums, galleries, pubs. Catching a matinee at an indie movie house. I had a day like that in NYC. March 1st. The day before my last book tour started. It was heaven. I was so happy.
Eating a very long very good dinner with very good wine outside with friends and/or family. Cooking most of it. Enjoying all of it.
Playing music and singing with people who don’t take it too seriously and who love it especially because of that.
Listening to jazz on a rainy day.
Reading on my screened porch in summer.
Walking on beaches. Picking up shells. And rocks. Especially heart shaped rocks.
Eating at a world class restaurant. For hours.
Foraging for mushrooms and huckleberries. Basically a bushwacked walk in the woods.
Hovering in an airplane over a new place that I’ve never been before and have planned to visit for a long time, about to land, taking it all in, feeling like I’m about to be so new.
Galloping horses. On beaches.
Walking in the mountains to a lake.
Cutting flowers from my garden and making arrangements with them and putting them around my house. Especially the ones just for me.
Taking baths.
A very nice boutique hotel.
Percale sheets.
Playing card games with my kids.
Sitting by any kind of river. Floating down a slow river.
Sitting in the amphitheater of a Greek or Roman ruin. Imagining what went on there in ancient times. Thinking about how much we haven’t changed.
Diving into a mountain lake in summer. And the feeling of my skin afterward.
Soaking in remote hot springs.
Outdoor music festivals. Dancing in a happy crowd.
Being in the audience in a grand performance hall, listening to a great work of classical music, or classical choral music.
Popping into an old church in Europe and listening to someone practicing the organ.
Taking a ferry to an island where I’m going to spend some time, preferably writing.
Touring an artist’s home that has been made into a museum.
All day at a major art museum.
Writing.
Teaching writing.
Playing the piano.
Playing my guitar.
Family togetherness.
That’s a good start, anyway. Made me smile. And again…made me realize how little of this list I have lived in the last nine months… Now you try it! Let me know how it goes!
Here’s something that makes me REALLY happy! Ecstatic, even!
And it’s happening very soon!
If you’d like to join us, or to get more info, be sure to sign up for my newsletter here on my website! What a way to welcome a brand new you in 2021!
by Laura Munson | Sep 20, 2020 | Musings
I have never been more hyper-sensitive in my life than in these last six months.
At first I was ashamed of it. All my life, people have told me “You’re so sensitive” and not as an observation. Rather, as a criticism. There’s a lot of shame around that feeling for me. Even so, I’ve worked hard to keep my sensitivity intact, along with its siblings: empathy and curiosity, but I’ve learned how to not let it blindside me. I have an inner colander of sorts. And I am usually pretty good at running things through it before they lodge in me. I use this inner colander a lot when I’m in a city, the sudden onslaught of energy so different from my quiet Montana life. Since the pandemic, I’m having to use this filtering system more than I ever have, and now it’s not on the subway or fighting traffic on the freeway. It’s in my own house. In the tiny ablutions of life. The smallest spider dropping with its silk from the ceiling onto the kitchen counter…has my adrenals responding like I’m being mugged in a dark alley. A mouse running through the room? There’s a screaming woman running for her bedroom in Montana like she’s running for her life. As the months have gone by, it’s gotten worse. This hyper-sensitivity isn’t just flight or fight or freeze. Sometimes it shows up as a very new sort of disorientation.
Maybe this has been happening to you too. I wouldn’t be surprised. I think we’re all in some sort of shell-shock right now. Globally. Here are a few examples. Some of them are actually funny. In a sad sort of way. Maybe they’ll help you know you’re not alone:
I was having a conversation with my twenty-four year old daughter about college kids being back in school and about the likelihood of social distancing and how they could all so easily be sent back home, and about how all of this will affect them later on. And I was about to quote my WWII father, who used to remark on my generation (X) and all of our complacency and apathy and lack of patriotism when we were in our twenties, with this maddening comment…wait…what was it? I couldn’t think of it. It was something that I didn’t understand at the time and still really don’t understand. But with Covid, I keep thinking about his words and wanting their wisdom, and getting glimpses of it. I wanted to share it with her. Maybe we’d understand it together.
And I said a frustrated, “I don’t remember what I don’t understand.”
And we laughed. Because I didn’t mean it the way it came out. So tangled and maybe even metaphysical. I just meant that there was something my father used to say. And I didn’t understand it, until maybe Covid. And I couldn’t remember it just then.
But I don’t remember what I don’t understand is how this whole time in our lives feels to me. I wake up in the morning not knowing why I have this fist in my chest gripping all of my organs like they’re trying to fly out of my ribs, but with a fierce knowing that there are very bad things happening. I make myself try to not remember. And then I do remember. Just like I remember what my father used to say. “Oh yeah. He used to say, ‘What your generation needs…is a good war.’” Well we have one. We just can’t see the enemy.
Another one of these moments of disorientation happened in the laundry room recently. I was digging through a mountain of clean clothes for something I needed in order to get out the door and to the grocery store— because the cupboard is bare. Not even beans and rice. So I’m trying to get up the courage to brave the grocery store. And frankly, I don’t want that courage, because I don’t like going to the grocery store anymore. I thought I’d be able to see people’s smiles in their eyes above their masks, but I can’t. People aren’t really looking at each other anyway, never mind smiling. They’re in and out fast. Grocery store chats used to be one of my favorite small-town ways to connect with people. My kids used to hate that about me. They’d fume, “Mom, why do you have to talk to people? For so long? We’re starving!” So I’d go on my own time. It’s a little locally owned health food store where everyone cares about your gut health and your life health.
And now I just go in, grab a few zucchini and some chicken and maybe some white beans, and whatever else looks good and easy, and stand six feet away from everyone with my mask on and my glasses, which are fogging up so I can’t see anything, and when the nice woman at the counter speaks to me from behind the plastic barrier, behind her sunflower mask…I can’t see if she’s smiling or stressed that she has to be in the public all day trying to breathe with a mask on her face, and I really can’t hear her because my hearing isn’t great and I do a lot of lip reading, I’ve realized. And I know I need to go to the doctor but I don’t think I can bear the waiting room. It’s already scary enough. All that waiting for bad news. Or maybe good news. But these days bad news seems to be what we’ll get.
But I’m not in the grocery store yet. I’m in my laundry room. Looking for something that I need to clothe myself so that I can feed myself and all I can think about is how sad my little happy grocery store is and that I don’t want to go out in the world at all.
And I say, out loud, “I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’ll know when I find it.”
Another one. These comments are meant to be mundane. But they are so symbolic and maybe even spiritual. I think they mean to be symbolic and spiritual. Need to be. I mean if happiness is an inside job, then it seems like most everything should be, especially during this pandemic. We don’t really have a choice unless we just want to watch Netflix all day. We are inside. We are sitting with ourselves. Whether we like it or not. We might as well try to learn something. (P.S. I was looking for a sock. I didn’t find it.)
To that end, I realized I needed to read a good book. One to help my hyper-sensitivity and my disorientation. I’d heard a lot about one called The Untethered Soul. So I bought it, and every morning I read a chapter before I get out of bed. This morning, I couldn’t find it. I rifled through my stack of books, felt between the mattress and the headboard, and looked under my bed. Nowhere to be found. This book has been a savior. I’ve been relying on its wisdom, underlining and writing all over its margins. And apparently not much has sunk in…
…because these words literally flew out of my mouth: “Where’s my mother f***ing Untethered Soul?!!”
And then I laughed, because how could you not laugh if those words came out of your mouth. Even if they meant to mean one thing, but maybe meant to mean something very different in actuality. One of the passages I have underlined and memorized from this book, is this:
“You are behind everything, just watching. That is your true home.”
Just watching. With life being stopped and stretched into this slow solitude, there is so much time to watch. Watching the forest fire smoke stain the sky. Watching the birds leave in V’s and churring flocks. Watching a face on a computer screen look back at a face on a computer screen, not at an actual face. Watching news I can’t take, and then cooking shows that make me hungry but not to cook for just me. Watching myself go out to dinner and remember that you can’t sit at a bar, so I watch myself sit at a table for one, watching people at tables for two, and eventually watching whatever’s on the TV over the bar, like football. I don’t watch football as a rule, but suddenly it’s my only company out in the world. I should have brought The Untethered Soul. But I don’t want to watch myself being symbolic and spiritual and sensitive. I want to watch myself eat excellent Manila clams and sip Sancerre, and chat with the other single diners at the bar. Instead, I’m watching myself eat two bites of my meal and decide to take the rest to-go. This is my true home: watching the movie that is conscious human life. I am not the movie. I know this. I just wish I liked what I am watching. Maybe I’ll see what Yellowstone is all about. At least I’ll be watching horses and Montana. Only the irony is: I have horses and I live in Montana. I watch myself say “no” to invitations to ride. I watch myself allowing that. Sometimes I say “Yes.” It has to do with how I’m feeling. Is it a sensitive day? Almost every day is. I startle so easily and this is new. Along with this disorientation.
I am startling so easily over the tiniest things. As a horse person, I’ve been trained not to startle easily. Startling easily can get you into serious trouble. You startle, the horse startles. And when horses startle, they run away from the danger. Fast. Sometimes they buck along the way. I understand them. They just want to get back home. Where they feel safe. And can watch for predators. Like me.
The other day I was outside, and I saw something in the sky out of the corner of my eye— something that pushed into my vision and psyche, dark and foreboding and fast, and I gasped. Some nefarious intruder? Some otherworldly winged thing?
It was a rain cloud.
I laughed and said,
“Since the pandemic, now apparently clouds can fall on you. And maybe even suffocate you.”
I tried to shake the startle out of me.
It was cold then, and so I decided to make a fire because I haven’t had the heating ducts cleaned yet for winter and refuse to turn on the heat. God knows what’s been living in those ducts all summer. I don’t need hantavirus blowing all over my house. Especially during whatever other viruses might be amuk. I prefer a fire to gas forced air anyway. I like something alive in my living room besides my dog and me— something that casts light and warmth my way. That’s contained and feels economic and that also makes me feel brave for building it. Going out to the woodshed with the wheelbarrow and loading it up. Chopping kindling on the big larch round that’s been there for thirty years. I brought a load into the woodstove hearth, and stacked the logs with kindling and ripped up cardboard like I always do. And then my knuckle hit the top of the woodstove and it burned. But there weren’t any flames yet. It was like my knuckle was pressed against a hot ember that wouldn’t let go, and I realized that I was being stung by a wasp.
I shook my hand and saw it land on the hearth, still alive. Then I struck a match and let the fire burn, left the wasp, and went into the kitchen to find the baking soda to make a poultice. It stung and I felt very violated by that wasp. Is there a wasp nest in the chimney now? I want all of these uninvited visitors out of my home. Normally, I think these displaced creatures are sort of sweet and brave. I would never kill a spider. I’ve killed mice. They eat my electrical wires. I don’t have the heart to kill anything now. I’ll live in the dark. But I won’t be cold. Even if I get stung by wasps when I’m making a fire.
That’s the thing. It feels like nothing is safe.
One morning last week, I woke up to smoke in the sky. The smoke from the current heartbreaking western inferno finally hit Montana. We’ve been lucky this summer in the Flathead Valley. But there’s lightning in the forecast. I’ve wondered what I would take if I had to evacuate, like so many in the West have had to do in the last months. I can’t think of one thing. One thing becomes boxes of things, and there wouldn’t be time for boxes of things, and passports and birth certificates can be replaced. My grandmother’s piano, and all of my memories cannot. I think I would just grab the dogs and run for our lives. Leave it all behind. My house is my safety. I can’t bear to think of losing it.
So I go the other way.
I stay in bed and realize that my sheets are old and pilly and have holes in them, and some of the pillows don’t even have cases. And suddenly I find myself online buying high thread count percale pillowcases from Italy. I never splurge on things like that. Maybe a trip somewhere or a nice dinner. Experiences. But not really things. The pillowcases come in the mail a few days later, and I wash them, and dry them, and put them on my old sad limp pillows. I rest my head on them and I feel safe. But then it’s more than that. It’s that I feel luxurious. Like I’ve gone somewhere I’ve saved for and planned for and am finally there. Only it’s just my bed. Where I am every day. No long commute. No peopled place, exotic or not. And I think, Well it’s something. So I buy the matching duvet cover and sheets. Even though they are on sale, they are all out of my Covid budget. I’ve never had nice sheets anyway. Not like this.
And I say, aloud, “Why are you buying these?” And then I say, “I don’t know. I’m just lonely.”
Part of me feels like ending this essay there. With that last line. “I don’t know. I’m just lonely.” Because I know you feel it too. Even if you aren’t living alone. Even if you have a house full of people. The loneliness from not being able to connect with the world in person, is causing adrenal burnout. Mis-firing neurons. I’m no scientist, but I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on with not just me, but so many of us. I’m disoriented. I’m feeling everything and all at the same frequency. And I know: I can’t feel the whole world. I would live in a constant anxiety attack. I just need to feel myself. But it helps me to know that behind the feelings, there is the watching. The knowing that I don’t have to be or become any of this. I can be and become instead, the observer of it.
“You are behind everything, just watching. That is your true home.”
I’m just glad that I have really great linens on my bed for now.
yours,
Laura
Sunday, October 25th, 10:00-3:00 MST
Using the powerful tool that is the written word…
We will spend the day digging deeply into:
What you want to let go of
What you want to embrace
What you want to dream alive
You do NOT have to be a writer to come
You DO need to want to find the answer to this question: So Now What
You can be very private and introspective, as it’s not a highly interactive workshop
All you need is a pen and some paper and an open heart. I will guide you through every minute of it!
The time flies by and you come out feeling new, with direction, energy, focus, hope!
For more information and to register, click here.
by Laura Munson | Aug 26, 2020 | Musings
I will be posting short essays from Haven Writing Retreat alums for the next few weeks…
…in hopes that you will be inspired, and mostly so that you know you are not alone. We’re not going for talking points or even wisdom. We’re going for truth. Here is the next installment of the series.
You might consider writing your own. The only writing prompt I gave them was this: The Pandemic and Me. 800 words. Go for your truth.
I invite you to do the same! Writing is the best tool I know in the realm of preventative wellness, self-awareness, letting go, and dreaming your future alive. Writing heals. Telling our stories heals. Reading heals. I hope these essays will help heal you.
To that end, my next So Now What online Workshop will be on Sept. 13th from 10:00-3:00 MST. For more info and to register, click here.
Yours,
Laura
My Covid-19 Stargate
By Devra Lee Fishman
My makeup basket languishes on a glass shelf in my bathroom, between a jar of cotton swabs and a box of tissues. It overflows with lipstick tubes and powder blush compacts full of my color-me-beautiful corals, bricks and just the right tomato-reds. Between the Covid-19 quarantine and safety requirements of wearing a facemask – the new little black dress – these products are not only redundant but by now well past their best-if-used-before dates. I will probably never wear them again yet I cannot seem to toss them out. They are part of my Covid-19 before and my hope for a can’t –come-soon-enough after.
There is evidence all around me of a time I was free to fill up my life with objects and activities that brought me joy. Too many pairs of black shoes and boots I collected on my yearly trips to Italy crowd the floor of my closet. The blue cotton jacket, the uniform that I wore as a weekly hospice volunteer, hangs above the shoes where I left it the last time I wore it – March 3, 2020. And on my desk next to the laptop I am typing on is a pile of theatre and concert tickets for events canceled due to the Corona virus.
When news of the virus came back in March, I (well, no one really), knew how it would affect our lives. The first couple of weeks I spent at home I behaved as though we were having a snow day, braless, dressed in sweats, drinking comforting cups of tea and putting together jigsaw puzzles. I thought the storm would pass and that within a few weeks or so we would all resume our usual activities.
I know better now. We all do. Covid-19 is more like a Stargate – a portal to another place or time – than a snowstorm. And there is no point of return once a person has passed through a Stargate.
Like so many other people, I am learning to socialize and live my life from a distance. My main communities – aerobics and yoga classes, and even my hospice volunteering are now done online. Facetime and Zoom make meeting friends for a glass of wine or dinner possible. Nothing replaces spending time in the presence of a friend or loved one, but a video call makes me feel more connected than an old-fashioned telephone call, and I need to feel connected. I feel safest when I am at home and when I need to go out for an essential activity (doctor appointment, grocery shopping) I have a collection of colorful face masks that make those beautiful lipsticks irrelevant.
While I am adjusting to the new normal I feel like I am still more in survival mode than thriving mode. Every morning, after I tune into my daily meditation app, I slip on my ear buds and take a walk around the block just to feel the air on my skin for a few minutes. I spend a lot of time mourning my previous life, its reasons for dressing up, wearing lipstick and all of the activities that made it joyful and meaningful. I know this feeling of grief will pass, but when?
I’ve moved through Stargates of grief before and always came out on the other side transformed for the better. When my first marriage ended it took a while but I learned to love and trust again, and when one of my best friends died after a long battle with breast cancer I became a softened version of my former self (my friend would love knowing that). In an odd way I am grateful for both of those horrendous and heartbreaking losses.
I wonder if I will ever be grateful for all of the losses piling up from Covid-19. I wonder what the next version me will be like if and when this is all over. I wonder if it will ever be all over. I wonder if I will ever wear my favorite color lipstick (Revlon’s Toast of New York) or Italian black shoes with the faux cow hide on the heels or my hospice uniform again. And I wonder how long it will take me to get through this Covid-19 Stargate into a new, comfortable, joyful and meaningful life. If my past experiences have taught me anything, it is that I will not know I have made it all the way through a Stargate of grief until I have made it all the way through a Stargate of grief.
Devra Lee Fishman lives and writes (and finds lots of ways to avoid writing) in Falls Church, Virginia.
I Like My Mask
by Elizabeth Pascarelli
I like my mask. Sometimes I even forget to brush my teeth. And since I am on lockdown in a foreign country, I am occasionally asking myself not very interesting philosophical questions like…Am I brushing my teeth for others or for myself ? Little nagging voices…with a New York accent…have popped up— unlike normal life…that would ask me, in a sarcastic tone: ”So…now what are you gonna do?” And: “Are you gonna wash up the dishes from last night or are you gonna make your bed first?” Even: ”You know…you’ve been wearing the same damn outfit for three months!” Things I would have done automatically before…without thinking…but now I am watching myself….narrating the day…talking and answering myself. Good god!
At first it was kind of fun. I drew faces on my masks and at 8pm…with the rest of Europe…I would blast an American rock and roll song…usually Chuck Berry…and dance on the balcony. My Spanish neighbors would join in and then we’d all applaud the workers who came around later to spray the village with disinfectant. We were bonding, I felt, uniting our two countries.
Then it all stopped…maybe they ran out of spray…but I couldn’t resume the song and dance. I would have looked like a strange foreigner.
So I set up my apartment into a kind of Montessori school…activity stations. One was for reading …another for yoga…and the utility room for painting. Even the bathroom became a make-shift spa. I could write short stories on a desk I invented by the balcony…where I could also have a cigarette and watch people go by. I soon became bored with all of that.
The little annoying voice started up again. ”Do you really want to be on a plane back to the US just to be with family that might get annoyed with you because you’re living in Spain?”
Well…no…I thought.
It continued. “Listen, stupid…this is the first time in your whole life when you don’t have to worry about where you should or could be….you ain’t going nowhere!”
Okay…Okay…I get it…I’m on lockdown…even though I hate the word…So I’ll go brush my teeth.
Elizabeth Pascarelli is an American, living and writing in Spain.
by Laura Munson | Aug 23, 2020 | Musings
I will be posting short essays from Haven Writing Retreat alums for the next few weeks…
…in hopes that you will be inspired, and mostly so that you know you are not alone. We’re not going for talking points or even wisdom. We’re going for truth.
You might consider writing your own. The only writing prompt I gave them was this: The Pandemic and Me. 800 words. Go for your truth.
I invite you to do the same! Writing is the best tool I know in the realm of preventative wellness, self-awareness, letting go, and dreaming your future alive. Writing heals. Telling our stories heals. Reading heals. I hope these essays will help heal you.
To that end, my next So Now What online Workshop will be on Sept. 13th from 10:00-3:00 MST. For more info and to register, click here.
Yours,
Laura
What They Mean When They Talk About Stillness by Brooke Siem
They tell me that the answer to uncertain times is found in stillness. That all I am and all I need is in there, humming. A motor run on calm. And so I sit. And wait. I breathe and chant and wait and sit. And wait. And wait.
Where are the answers?
It’s been months of stillness in Vancouver. On March 14, I led a workshop before joining a few friends for a drink in a sparse, still-open bar. Toilet paper supplies were just dwindling. Only a handful of businesses voluntarily shut down. Notices taped onto closed front doors shone bright white in the spring sunlight. Until April 1st, they said. See you in two weeks.
The notices are fading now, sun-bleached and brittle. Plants sit parched and begging behind shuttered shop windowpanes and every time I walk by them, I want to put my fist through the window out of rage frustration boredom and grab them by their stems and take them home and feed them and nurse them and love them back to life. I want to snip their brown stalks and soak their dusty soil and wait and hope and wonder if they will sprout again, if they will renew. I want to wonder if I have done enough to save them.
I want anticipation. I want that moment when a baby green bud appears on a thirsty twig. I want to look forward to it, to covet it, to feel the burst of joy followed by the satisfaction of relief. Because anticipation brings aliveness. And in a world dictated by COVID-19, there is no anticipation. Those of us who are lucky enough not to be fighting the virus are confined to a life in which there is nothing on the horizon, nothing to plan, and not an ounce of FOMO to be found. One day begets the next begets the next begets the next.
Stillness all around.
It’s been long enough now that I’ve baked what I’ve wanted to bake. I’ve crafted what I wanted to craft. I’ve been tipsy out of principle. And spite. I’ve watched Tiger King and Too Hot To Handle, played video games and board games. I picked a fight with my partner over taking the garbage out and then screamed into a pillow. I’ve walked. I’ve cried. I’ve called friends once, twice. By the third time, we’re out of things to say. “What’s new?” doesn’t do much to spark conversation these days.
I get the most melancholy around 9:30 p.m. when there is nothing to do but wind down before bedtime. I am the sort that needs to take an hour between the end of a long day and crawling into covers. In the past, this was a ritual to look forward to, a precious hour of reading or Netflix in which there was no room for guilt over what was or wasn’t accomplished during waking hours. Because there was always tomorrow. In between the calls and emails and dinners and gym and appointments and flights and meetings and lunches and birthdays and vacations and celebrations, life would be accomplished.
Now, 9:30 p.m. is no longer a reset. Instead, it is a reminder that we do this again tomorrow. Exactly this. Maybe the food is different and the music changes but ultimately, it is all just another lap around a clock. Time is a flat circle. I understand, now. A new recipe to try or a new podcast to listen to or those leggings I ordered that I certainly don’t need are all just some primal need to look forward to something, to work for something, and to mark the passage of time through the burst of release upon completion.
That release, it seems is the mark of life itself. It is the pang of hunger and the satiety of a meal. It is the clamor of war and the silence of peace. It is the despair of grief and the boundlessness of love. It is a baby green bud on a thirsty twig.
And it is gone.
What is left when it is all stripped away? What is that unsettling feeling at the intersection of knowing I have everything I need right now — food, water, shelter, toilet paper, health — and wanting to burst, to run, to click my heels and beg for a global do-over? What is in that barely perceptible moment in between when my eye catches a dying plant behind an empty store window and the primal urge to put my fist through the glass? What is in the space between my changing reflection, lean muscle morphing into softness, and the one who is watching? Or when I watch the bubbles dance as the kettle comes to a boil for the fifth time today? Or when my partner’s beard scratches my cheek at 9:31 p.m. as we settle onto the couch, just like it did yesterday and the day before and the day before and the day before?
It is stillness.
That’s what they mean, isn’t it? It is not boredom. It is not depression. It is not restlessness. It is what’s left in the absence of anticipation when there is no agenda left to fulfill. It is not something to wait for. Nor can it be commanded to appear. It did not arrive with coronavirus. It has been here all along.
But it is only now that I can feel it pulsing, its rhythm never changing. Thump thump thump. Louder louder louder with each go around the flat circle. I spent so many years trying to make peace with the stillness and now I see it’s here. I want to sit with it and leave it and run away and come back again endlessly until time unfurls from the circle and days plump once again. I want the stillness to fill me like a thick sip of Barolo over conversation with an old friend, to soothe me, comfort me, hold me through this. I want to fall in love with it, to protect it. To understand that while it is precious it is also the strongest force on Earth. It is that which can never be stolen or destroyed. Stillness is the hum of all we are, the foundation that all we know is built upon.
It is all we have. And it is here.
And here. And here.
Brooke Siem is the founder of Happiness Is A Skill, a weekly newsletter dedicated to overcoming depression and learning the skill of happiness. Read recent issues and subscribe here.
The Gift of Grace by Rebecca Gamble
The pandemic persists. This summer feels endless, though it’s only late July. My wildest imagination could not have envisioned “staying at home” these many months. I am still chasing sleep, with images of cartoon Covid dancing at the edge of dreams. Early morning walks through the rolling meadows and maple forests of Shelburne Farms have replaced indulgent breakfasts with friends at the historic Inn. Quiet boat trips with the boys, exploring hidden coves and beaches, have taken the place of dinners at our favorite restaurants. Life marches on. Slowly.
I sit in the same comfy, threadbare chair I claimed in March, watching the meadow morph from winter-worn, brown patches to vibrant spring green to the deep summer shade that beckons fall. Just as we are beginning to see glimmers of amber waves swaying in the late-summer breeze, the meadow will be mowed, an annual rite of passage into the next season. More necessary losses loom. The boys are heading back to their colleges in a few weeks, their departures fraught with uncertainty and tinged with the excitement of being part of this grand experiment. I won’t be able to visit them. Vassar’s auditorium will sit silent, the sounds of the orchestra echoing from last winter’s concert. Wesleyan’s athletic fields will be empty, my son’s senior season a mirage: Ghost runners on forest trails.
But finding joy has been a simple thing, each day filled with moments that make up weeks and months and years, and it is easy to know that many of these mundane moments will become forever memories.
I want to remember the little moments of dailiness that brought such unexpected delight. Nathan’s heartfelt but hilarious comment, when we were sharing what we miss, surprised us all. The way the boys played with Max. Texting silly emojis with my 8-year old niece. Creating our yummy, fruit-forward Quarantini, after many failed attempts. Meeting the boys’ friends from all over the world on Zoom or Face Time or whatever. Daily sanity walks in the woods. Letters in the mail. Rearranging the family room furniture so everyone has a comfortable place to stretch out, even Max. Books. So many books. The way each boy helped in his own way at dinner. How it felt to run into a friend on a walk or at the store, thrilled to have the smallest snippet of normalcy. The unmistakable aroma of bacon frying. Every. Single. Morning.
I want to remember the music that filled our house. Noah at the piano, playing Gershwin and Rachmaninoff and Debussy. Josh with his Green Day and John Williams and jazz saxophone and the many songs he composed. Listening to Songs of Comfort from the brilliant Yo Yo Ma. The music of laughter too, giggles from all corners of the house as we connected with friends. Laughing together at the dinner table as we shared embarrassing stories, in the family room watching reruns of 30 Rock and The Office, and the horrifying but hilarious Rick and Morty.
I want to remember the gift of paying closer attention to nature, spring unfolding one day at a time. Watching the fuchsia rhododendron come into bloom outside the family room window, with hundreds of bees, and one hummingbird, swarming the blossoms for days. Max and the raccoon. The miracle of my son discovering a newborn fawn hidden in the tall meadow grass. Cheering the return of the Orioles. The fox pouncing on her prey. A light breeze carrying the sweetness of lilac through the open window. Marveling at the brazenness of the coyotes stalking the meadow mid-day. The redwing blackbirds dive-bombing us as we walked past their nest. The single tulip surrounded by wild grass. The cacophony of birdsongs in the meadow, the Bobolink so distinctive, a bit like R2-D2. Discovering a mockingbird nest, with three blue speckled eggs. The softness of new grass beneath my feet. The magnificence of the pear trees in bloom.
Most of all I want to remember the grace. The grace to accept this time as the true gift it has been for our family. The grace the boys gave themselves when they had other offers but really just wanted to be at home. The grace we extended to each other to experience our grief, our losses, in our own ways. The grace we extended to friends whose anxiety levels were higher or lower than our own. The grace we gave to unaware strangers as we stepped off the trail and let them pass. The grace I gave myself to let things go, the would have/could have/should haves. To let go of my perfectionism, walking by the dirty sink, the pile of laundry, the mountain of expectations. This gift of grace is no small thing.
Rebecca Gamble lives and writes in Vermont.
by Laura Munson | Aug 7, 2020 | Musings
Announcing the summer blog post series!
Theme: The Pandemic and Me
I will be posting short essays from Haven Writing Program alums for the next few weeks, in hopes that you will be inspired, and mostly so that you know you are not alone. We’re not going for talking points or even wisdom. We’re going for truth.
Writing heals. Telling our stories heals. Reading heals. I hope these essays will help heal you.
yours,
Laura
To begin…here’s mine.
I do not have OCD. Not that I’m aware of. But since the beginning of this pandemic, I’ve acted a lot like I do when I camp or go on a trip somewhere remote: I have the little things in order.
These long days, I have the everyday equivalent of flashlight, matches, water, varying layers of protective clothing: raincoat, fleece, long underwear, sturdy boots arranged someplace dry and warm…all of it in order.
Traditionally, in my daily life, there’s a lot that isn’t in order. It’s sort of an organized chaos, and I seem to like it that way. I can pass by the same piece of paper on the floor for days and leave it for some more important pursuit. I’ve even trained myself to stop noticing that piece of paper until my life pauses long enough to prioritize the picking up and disposing of it. I choose my battles, as it were, because otherwise I’d go nuts picking up the mini detritus of my life and I’d never get my work done. The work that I value, anyway. Like writing. Teaching. Leading retreats. Speaking. Being a messenger for my books. I haven’t really valued household order in my life. It’s good enough. Clean enough. Works well enough. So what the refrigerator door has been held shut with a potato-chip bag clip for months? It works. I have other stuff that I care about more and I learned a long time ago that you can’t do it all. So don’t beat yourself up. The piece of paper will get dealt with soon enough. The beauty of life isn’t in picking up pieces of paper. Not for me, anyway. Pieces of paper happen. They mean us no harm. If anything, they’re little reminders for us to stop. Take pause. Do something simple and deliberate. Wax on wax off. But I’ve learned my lessons in life from higher stakes, higher conflict, lower odds, lower expectations. But not as low as pieces of paper on the floor.
Then the world stopped last March. The “all” that I usually have to do…went poof. And I’ve been very different. I bet you can relate.
I’ve noticed things in a new way. I’ve especially noticed when things are not in order. I notice and tend to that piece of paper on the floor, or a spot on the rug, or a throw blanket, not evenly thrown. I line up my toothbrush and toothpaste. For no eyes but my own. The tea bag on the plate on the counter…it needs to be thrown away before the next cup of tea. Actually, it needs to be thrown away now. I notice the grill lines on the chicken breasts I cook, and flip them to be even on the other side. I set the dog bowl on a tea towel just so, since one of them is a water slob. And when drops of water fall outside the tea towel, I wipe them up instantly. Not because I care about the floor. It’s scratched by hundreds of dog nails and kid’s sippie cups and twenty years of living in this house. I built this house to look old and lived in and messy. There’s stuff everywhere on purpose. Now I feel overwhelmed by the books everywhere. The relics of my mother’s life that she passed on to me in china figurines and rare books, and antique chairs needlepointed by ancestors, that are too old to sit in. I suspect that my overwhelm has to do with control. Perhaps when we feel like our lives are in control we can choose to live in organized chaos. When we don’t…then we look for control wherever we can find it, even if it’s in the dryer lint filter.
But I think it’s about more than just a dance between overwhelm and control. I think that this pandemic has brought us into an acute consciousness of everything around us.
Personally, it’s like I’m watching a movie that has become my life. I used to be in the movie. Now I’m highly, painfully even, aware of the movie. The volume is turned up high. All of my senses are firing at the same time. Every object, tiny and massive, is a character. And I want them to go away. I don’t want to think about errant pieces of paper on the floor, and tea bags. I don’t want to think about this far-away promise of a Covid vaccine and of people dying because one doesn’t yet exist. I want to not think about the past and the future and every little thing in-between. Instead, I want to get lost in thinking about not thinking.
I realize that this is called meditation. Which I’ve worked with for a long time. But it was easier to meditate when I gave it an hour window, knowing that I had an appointment or a business call afterward, and then errands to run, or a plane to catch, and then and then and then. Now it’s one slur of thought, and thoughts about thought, and it seems to all be at the exact same frequency. For instance, my fear of being alone again after six rich months of having my adult children at home— having family again and people to care for and a house full of laughter and stories and meals and games and arguments and life…that fear is as big as the one pellet of dog food that is floating in the dog bowl. As big as the smell of a dead mouse in the walls of my office. As big as the hairbrush that is lying under my bedside table, and the fan that is oscillating on the bureau across the room. The fear of being alone has always been on decibel ten of ten. A hairline crack in the drywall, decibel one. Toothpaste and toothbrush placement, zero.
This six month pause, like no other time in my life, has given voice to what used to be monotone or just mute, and now it’s all one symphony…paper, empty nest. I think it’s discordant, but maybe it’s never been more harmonious.
So I went to a remote part of a remote river to sit on stones and feel empty-minded and peaceful—something that the river promises every time. It took me three hours before I could even take a deep breath, never mind lose myself in no-minded-ness. Not this time. I threw rock after rock into the flowing water like I was trying to stab at my thoughts, my pain, my worry, my fear, and drown them all. I was not my friend. I don’t know if I know how to be my friend right now. All of my usuals have either been postponed, cancelled, threatened, masked. DISH even took CBS off the air, so I can’t watch Colbert. My nightly relief from the day. That might just be the pulled pin in the grenade. Because I feel like I’m about to explode. And I’m mad that I can’t seem to find that inner still. I can almost always find that inner still.
I think this is happening to a lot of us. At least it’s happening to most everyone I know. Pandemic fatigue.
The usual handholds of our lives have not been available to us for months and months. Maybe we used to go places. Like an office. Like the yoga studio. Like church. And think of all the little habitual places between. Like an elevator. Or a newsstand. Or a coffee shop. Like carpool. Or the grocery store. Or the post office. Or the same traffic light six times a day.
Maybe new handholds arrived. Maybe a sudden and surprise renewal of your daily mothering. Maybe in the old tune: “Mom, we need sandwich meat and mayo.” Maybe in “Thank you for mowing the lawn.” Or “How does this Zoom thing work?” Or “Can I have a hug?” Hugs have never been a more priceless commodity. And maybe those new handholds are going going gone. And it’s just us again. Only without our old lives.
And we don’t know where we begin and end and we don’t know what to do with all the pieces that used to move and are now stalled out. So the pieces become icons. A paperclip. A roll of toilet paper. A vitamin. When it used to be a school play. A presentation in a board room. A race to get on the freeway before rush hour. “What am I going to make for dinner?” Now it’s one long dinner. One endless tank of gas.
I never have known what the concept of “normal” is anyway, so I really don’t know what the concept of the “new normal” is.
I’m not saying that any of this is good or bad. But I can tell you that I think we’re all suffering and we need to give ourselves the space to honor how we feel, and not bully ourselves by saying things like, “I know other people have it so much worse than I do.” Your pain is your pain and if you don’t feel it, you end up going to your most sacred, peaceful place, and not even being able to sit down. You might not recognize yourself in the very places you always, no matter what, recognize yourself. It’s hard to recognize anything right now because everything feels new.
The gophers in my back yard are the same as writing this essay. I stood at my kitchen counter this morning, making my tea, counting the gophers. I used to think, “I need to deal with the gopher problem. Who can I call? I need to get on that before they take over.” And then I’d think, “I can use this somehow in the essay I’m going to write today.” And I’d start to ruminate on the essay. Its theme. Its central question. Its value. Today I just stood there counting the gophers. Six of them. No, seven. Thought, “Oh that one’s big. It must be the mama.” And then went back to bed with my tea and forgot to write the essay. Found myself reading a book that’s been on my bedside table for a year that I’ve never opened. Thought about how we don’t have any fruit in the house. Thought, Does jam count as fruit? I mean, if you couldn’t get to a grocery store. Is there any nutritional value in jam? I really love jam. On buttered toast. I think I’ll make myself some toast with butter and jam on it. So what if it messes with my gut. I’ve cared enough about my gut. I need to care about toast and gophers and what else? I can’t remember. I really should clean out my closet. And deal with my refrigerator door.
I think that what I’m learning as I prepare for my son to go back to college next week, and for my daughter to one day, sooner than later, move on too…that everything is a teacher. A piece of paper on the floor. A gopher in your back yard. The heart-wrench of empty nest all over again. The worry about our elderly. The worry about what’s going to happen with our jobs, our children, our world. The potato-chip bag clip on the refrigerator door. I really should get that fixed. Maybe I’ll start there. Oh, Clip. Please tell me: what is there to learn from what Mary Oliver says, “The prayers that are made out of grass?”
Mindful by Mary Oliver
Every day I see or hear something
that more or less kills me with delight,
that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen, to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself over and over
in joy, and acclamation.
Nor am I talking about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary, the common,
the very drab, the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar, I say to myself,
how can you help but grow wise
with such teachings as these –
the untrimmable light of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made out of grass?
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