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?