I woke up this morning feeling the way I’ve felt for months.

This feeling of knowing I have to run. Hard. But can’t. No matter how hard I try. I can’t run. Something is holding my feet to the ground—disorienting, foreign ground I didn’t ask to be on. There’s something I have to run away from. Something very dangerous. And there’s something I have to run toward and save. If I don’t do it, no one will. It’s like I’m dreaming, but I know I’m not dreaming. This is reality. I lay there looking out the window trying to talk myself down: You are safe. You don’t need to run anywhere. You don’t need to save anything. You have everything you need— a line from my novel. The one I was on book tour promoting when all of this started and I had to come home.  I haven’t really given myself permission to grieve that, with so many massive losses in the world. It’s not like people aren’t reading it. It’s on the USA Today best-seller list, for crying out loud. I just had plans, you know? Plans I’d worked hard on for a long time. I wanted to be that messenger on those stages. I wanted that victory lap after eight years of writing it and a lifetime of wanting to publish a novel I love. Of course you know.

We all had plans. And then we stopped.

I wonder how stopping has landed in your heart. And mine. For me, stopping has brought me into something that looks a lot like hiding. It might not look like it on social media. In many ways, I’ve thrived during this time: I’ve taken my writing workshops online until I can lead them in person again. I’ve started a new Friday journaling group, as my gift, to help people use writing through this momentous time in history. My kids have been home and we’ve been cooking and baking and enjoying our home and Montana. I’ve learned how to make sourdough bread, and likely you have too, judging by the flour aisle in the grocery store. But my thoughts…they haven’t been thriving. They have been full of fear that’s so spun out that it’s turned white. It strikes the worst in my waking. You’re hiding, Laura. You don’t need to. You’re not in danger. You’re safe. I don’t feel safe. I feel scared. I feel like my house is keeping me safe. My pantry is stocked. I do a lot of canning anyway, but the second I came home from the book tour, I loaded up on beans and rice. We’ve eaten from it for months. I don’t want to leave my house. I’ve been in it for so long now.

I know the quarantine is over. But I don’t want to go out in the world.

I don’t want business as usual. I mean I want businesses to thrive and life to go on. I’m just not sure I want to be part of it yet. I’ve liked this little safe world of mine. I’ve liked living in my bed, working from my bed, living my life by stretching and folding sourdough. Walking in the woods. Watching my garden grow. Watching the hummingbirds. Maybe you feel this way too. Yesterday there was a grizzly bear in your yard. You call that safe? The grizzly bear didn’t scare me as much as going back to my life does. I was on full, 110%, break-neck, pace. I knew it. I loved it. But…I think I love this more. This hiding.

You admit these things early in the morning.

As a child I did a lot of hiding, rationing my fear with fancy. Hiding was relief from the world. I would hide in my closet with pillows and a home-made flashlight that I made in science class. I hid in the woods during recess eating crab-apples I’d pick and pilfer from the playground. I hid in my treehouse, as high in the branches as I could climb, because who would look for me up that high, that dangerous. It felt safe to me. I could look out over my house and neighborhood, to the small Baptist church, and maybe even hear the gospel choir if it was a Sunday. I hid during hide-and-seek, only I hid not to be found. In leaf piles, flat on my back, with a few air holes, dirt falling in my eyes and mouth. The joke was on them. They’d look for me all afternoon and they wouldn’t find me. Kids hid in places where they knew they’d be found. Not me. Maybe they’d forget about me altogether.

I lay there, thinking about being forgotten. Getting off social media. Getting off stages and platforms altogether. Holing up and writing and drinking tea. Maybe money will magically drop from the sky, because my hiding will be so holy.

I pulled the pillows around my head and all around me. These pillows are my babies. I hold them like I’m breast-feeding them. They need me. They don’t know how much I need them. My adult babies are in their childhood rooms, asleep. Their lives on hold. They don’t need me but they need their home. We all need this home. It has held us so well. The truth is: I don’t want to be forgotten. I just want to forget a bit more. Unlearn myself. I’ve been unlearning myself, without meaning to, these past few months. And I’ve gotten into patterns. Some of them are healthy. Like cooking three healthy love-filled meals for my family every day. Some of them aren’t. Like living in my bed. Maybe you can relate. When I’m in my bed, or on my couch, or on my porch, I keep hearing the words from my book: you have everything you need. Even if it’s beans and rice for a long time. I have plenty of beans and rice. I sat up then, propped by these pillow babies. And I realized that what I’m so scared of isn’t Covid, or career pivot, or my kids going back to cities, or even grizzly bears.

It’s this: I’m not sure who I’m going to be when I go into the world again.

This surprised me. Is that what my daily waking hour haunt has been about? I needed to take a deep breath and give myself permission to stop…in order to allow the future? This time of going inward has been sacred and scary. But really sacred. My outward life can be too. It’s time. Life goes on. You want it to go on. You have everything you need. So I put my hand on my heart and closed my eyes and breathed in deeply and out deeply, long enough to feel some calm. And I thought: Why don’t I practice on today? Just this, today. Why don’t I do things differently today. Not the way I used to, pre-Covid, necessarily. But choice by choice, mix it up. Something different than what I’ve habituated these months. Starting with my thoughts. It’s evening now. I’m sitting on my porch, in a new part of it where I’ve never sat. Not in twenty years. Something different. I rearranged the chairs. Pulled them around a corner where the kids used to play. A whole new view. And I think about my day of difference. When I wanted to crawl back into bed with my tea to start going through my emails (which can last for hours and dictate my entire work day), I stopped, and went outside instead. Sat in actual chair, NOT perched in pillows thankyouverymuch. When I wanted to start my next project without taking a break, I stood up. Just stood up and walked around the house. Asked myself, what small thing can I do that’s different? So I opened the packet of nasturtiums that’s been sitting on my window sill for a month. Scored them and put them in a jar with water to soak. Not so difficult. Caught a glimpse of the mask that’s been hanging on a hook in the mudroom, never been used. I haven’t needed it. I haven’t been in town.

What’s it going to be like wearing a mask? How can I gauge anything without smiles? I live my life gauging people’s facial expressions.

Sure enough, the fear seeps in, but I tell myself: You have everything you need. What can you do that’s different than sitting here, worrying? One small thing. You don’t have to take a five mile hike up the ridge. Phone rings. It’s my son. He goes into town all the time. Like nothing’s going on, like he’s been home for summer vacation, only it’s springtime. “Hey. The first Farmer’s Market is tonight. Let’s go.” Maybe he’s psychic. Or worried about me. I’m worried about me. “Uhhh…” This must be what social anxiety feels like.. “Come on. Town’s open. The quarantine is over. You need to get out.”

No one has ever said these words to me. I’m an extrovert. I love town. I love people. I love Farmer’s Market. I feel a dull rush at the thought of lilacs and lettuce and pretty things glinting in the sun. A musician on a stool singing folk tunes. Singing along. Everyone smiling. But under masks? Is this what I’m afraid of? A smile-less world?

Nonsensical thought: But…hiding. “I’ll meet you there,” he says. Nonsensical thought: I honestly wonder if I still know how to drive. “Uhhh.” Another nonsensical thought: I’m claustrophobic. I can’t wear a mask. “I…uh…” Another one: I refuse to be told what to do. “I’m not really sure I…uh…”

“Mom. You love the Farmer’s Market. Come on!”

Another: I’m a hugger. The first Farmer’s Market is where everyone sees each other again, after a long winter. It’s hugs galore. It’ll break my heart not to hug everyone. Another: I don’t want to have to talk about my book tour ending early. It’s like when someone dies and people feel like they have to say ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ and you have to try to help them not feel awkward and pretend you’re doing fine. Another: I should really clean out my desk. “Mom.” “Okay! Fine! I’ll meet you at the music stage,” I say. It takes me a long time to get dressed. I’ve worn the same four articles of clothing for months. It’s warm out. Yoga pants and a long sleeved T-shirt will be too much. Good grief. Should I wear a sundress??? I drive in and park and it feels like after my children were born and I was out of the hospital, and the world seemed new. So green. Everything is so green. And I put on the mask. You have everything you need. And I follow the music. And the voices. And the joy.

Turns out: eyes smile. And hug. I knew it. I just needed to have the courage to come out of hiding.

Judy from Terrapin Farms, smiling through her mask.