Day 48

It’s not a question of getting over it or healing. No;
 it’s a question of learning to live with this transformation.
For the loss is transformative, in good ways and bad,
a tangle of change
that cannot be threaded into the usual narrative spools.
It is too central for that.
It’s not an emergence from the cocoon,
but a tree growing around an obstruction.”
Meghan O’Rourke

Today, Tuesday, May 5, 2020 is six weeks and 6 days or day 48 of my count of our pandemic quarantine. Many of us will come through these days without any visible scars. I’m shattered to learn that others, like actor Nick Cordero had to have his right leg amputated after suffering complications from COVID-19. This experience may not change us as much as it reveals us.  For some, this time is pushing up all the old traumas. For others, this time is creating new fractures. Do we really have to make meaning here? If today is my last day is this how I want to spend it? Is my conundrum or my opportunity to calibrate my re-entry to our new world?
 
What if these days are whatever we make of them and what if that is enough? “The truth is that life is a grieving process.” ~Dr. Carter Stout. Aristotle taught to be is to do. Voltaire posited to do is to be. Sinatra sang do-be-do-be-do. What will it take to get over this? “We did not have and could not get the tools and knowledge to do our work.  And soon enough we were forbidden to do it by general fiat.”~Larry P. Arn Thoughts on the Current Crisis. My awareness is wobbly. I have a vulnerability hangover.  I’m breathing I’m breathing I’m breathing into Compassionate Abiding. Kindly.
 
And now we’re Zooming deep into technology. Rose colored glasses were never my style but I’ve just bought blue glasses. Blue is the color of my throat chakra. “Blue is also at the cooler end of the spectrum, where things slow down, allowing you to take time to be still.” Chakra Anatomy. 
 
“And she took the time to believe to believe in what she said and she made me love she made me love she made me love more.” ~Love More, Sharon Van Etten.
 
Children love us just as we are. “When you teach the children teach em the very best you can. The world won’t get no better if we just let it be.”

I’m reckoning
How well did I live
How well did I love
How well did I learn to let go

Once upon a time we had the smartest carpool. Six growing girls who were old enough to have a sense of themselves and young enough not to be afraid of themselves. They would quiz one another “tell me everything you know about (‘rocks’ or ‘rational exponents’ or the verb ‘vivir’).” The girls are now capable young women who are curious and listen generously. They want to know what you see, what does it sound like to you, what does it taste like to you, what does it smell like to you, and how does it feel. Asking how not why. Observing not judging. “There is but one solution to the intricate riddle of life; to improve ourselves, and contribute to the happiness of others.”~Mary Shelley. We need and need to be loving helpmates who will elicit what is strong and not what is wrong. We must discern what we have outgrown and what it is time to gift with a warm hand. What we will hold dear and keep is as important as what we discard. “Unfortunately, there are wounds that time doesn’t heal. Fortunately, healing is intentional.” ~Marie Empowered Through Grief.
 
Organic is defined by life and death and expressed as love or grief. We humans are organic and when stressed especially need to breathe deeply, stretch, move and rest. I am grateful to have a memory for perspective on this time. Years ago we did a whole house renovation refinishing the oak wood floors, stairs and bannisters and kitchen counters and repainting three floors- 9 rooms- of living space. On each floor, we moved everything into a middle room during the floor work so we had two phases to the work or two jobs. The floors and then the walls and ceilings. Brené Brown explains that ‘so much of emotion is biography’.  With all the stacked feelings I am right now, I am reminded to tend to that which I stand on as one job and to tend that which is around and above me as job two...or too!). “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” ~Mother Theresa

Big trees grow slowly as much rooting down into the earth as reaching toward the sun. Trees in my purview have grown a lot in these 48 days. And one had one of its powerful limbs torn off in the wind and rain and smashed a car across my street today. Another death that will be lamented and grieved. But what will it create? What is reaching up in you?  What is smashing down in you?
 
“Perhaps the call ever more is to sit with the discomfort and not attach to it. Practicing Tara Brach's RAIN is almost more important now more than ever. So although it sounds simple, that's my main recommendation for you this week.” ~Kim Hennessee, Mend Acupuncture
 
These days are long but the weeks are short and the years rush past. “I wish I could tell you that it gets better but it doesn’t. You get better.” ~Joan Rivers
 
Sending my love.  Be well.  Take good gentle care of yourselves.