I woke up to a grey day this morning, with the slightest smattering of spittle-rain hitting the young leaves of the tree outside my window. It’s the tree that the cardinal couple live in, who catch my eyes when I work at my desk, distracting me with their colors as they flit about busily getting ready for spring. Today it was a soft flash of lightening, followed by the low, guttural grumbling of a second of thunder - the first of the year - that got me out of bed.
This is a day when so many of us are home when we’re not supposed to be. We are used to being somewhere else out in the world, focused on specific tasks that lead us to things we need. Money, most obviously…concrete, physical sustenance, food, the ability to pay rent, to support oneself and others. Less obviously, a sense of purpose. We are used to following the pulse of the ground and the vibrations we feel in the air outside, inside - the invisible forces that pull us along, push us out of our homes and into the world to take it on. We move forward instinctually, impulsively, for the sake of physical and emotional survival.
Stripped of our routines, so many of us are faced with what feels like an invisible wall…an as-yet-unanswerable question upon which hangs the future, the terrifying abyss featured in every horror movie, the suspense that creeps up one’s spine - the *anticipation* that conjures in our imaginations the specter of the unknown. What do we do with ourselves as circumstances beyond our control determine our individual and collective fates?
I start by getting out of bed. With the sound of the rain outside I imagine how great it’ll feel to slide each foot into those worn out fake sheepskin slippers that still have enough padding on the inside to support my tired feet in the miraculous act of holding up my creaking frame as I swing my skinny legs off the edge of the mattress and onto the floor. I shuffle down the hallway into the kitchen where the coffee waits to be ground, percolated in hot, freshly filtered water and poured into an oversized mug prepped with two fingers of half-and-half dosed with a heaping teaspoon of brown sugar. It takes a while…5 or 10 minutes feel like 20…but when the warm, pungent, caffeine-blasted liquid passes my lips, filling my head with its aroma, activating every blood vessel with instant euphoria.. I’m reminded that it’s worth the wait.
It’s in this moment that I confront my day. I’ll make a list of goals, broken down into manageable bits I know I can tackle one at a time. I am quiet, excited, poised and ready. In this frame of mind I not only think more clearly, but I notice things. I listen to myself and allow my heart to collaborate with my head in setting up the day’s priorities. It’s in this frame of mind that limitations become “parameters” - boundaries inside of which I can strategize and see details I may not have ever noticed before. Like the cardinals in the tree beyond my window, the rust-colored female and her bright red partner, each busting ass independently and simultaneously to build a quality life, in harmony, with whatever they can find.
When I was in Spain last fall, dear friends bestowed upon me a century-old bed sheet they had found in their pre-renaissance-era house. They let me take it home to turn into art, as it is semi-destroyed, frayed and filled with holes. It doesn’t make much of a sheet anymore…but the holes, to me, are magical. Their tattered edges are evidence; the holes themselves are windows. Structures - parameters - that help formulate creative decisions, wormholes into other realities, entrances to potential, never-before-considered truths. Though wrecked, they are opportunities. They are gifts.
So here we are, inside our walls, alone or packed in with roommates, kids, pets, husbands, girlfriends. We’re stressed out and scared. We don’t know what will happen in two weeks, two months or however long this goes on. We want to get back on our horses, bust out, go, do, make, love, *be*…
… but we still can. Here. We just have to be a little quieter about it. We have a chance to really feel what we have. To experience everything slowly, carefully, vitally. To take the time to look at things from new angles and appreciate the vitality of the seconds as they pass. We can make use of what’s at hand, explore what we’ve put off, and be grateful for who we are, right now.