Though we do not wholly believe it yet, the interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world.”
― James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name
Statuses
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202// Gratitude Helps
Today was the most normal work day I’ve had in months. I’m still not back to the low-key work days I’m used to and there are still many more expectations and obligations, but it’s calmer and so am I. Gratitude helps. I’m grateful to be at work at all, and grateful to be allowed to do the work that I do while I’m there.
It wasn’t easy getting back into the groove after my vacation, but it felt good to be working back at my usual location and to know that I can relax into a routine for the foreseeable future. More and more I’m taking work home too, which was scary at first. I don’t want to have to war with myself about how much I am working or what projects I am taking on, but as long as I keep the same hours being here rather than there is a gift.
Tonight is my wife and I’s first wedding anniversary, but since all the celebration was used up last week, we’re just cooking a simple meal together and enjoying a glass or two of red wine. I’m looking forward to one more night of indulgence before returning 100%, physically and mentally, to the work and worry of reality.
More than anything though, I’m looking forward to another new beginning at home full of love, warmth, surprise, support, change, compromise, growth, healing, and happiness.
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The Way of Love
During the ’60s, the great majority of us accepted the way of peace, the way of love, the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living. There’s something cleansing, something wholesome about being peaceful and orderly, to stand up with a sense of dignity, and a sense of pride, and never hate. And Dr. King said over and over again, ‘Hate is too heavy a burden to bear.’ The way of love is a much better way.
And that’s what we did…Yes, I was beaten, left bloody and unconscious. But I never became bitter or hostile, never gave up. I believe that somehow and some way if it becomes necessary to use our bodies to help redeem the soul of a nation, then we must do it. Create a society at peace with itself, and lay down the burden of hate and division. Dr. King would say, violence and evil, it must stop someplace along the way, and we became disciples of the movement. Disciples of Martin Luther King, Jr., and of the great teacher, to do what we could to leave our society better than we found it.”
— Rep. John Lewis
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201// What I Needed
I was away for a few days and I only just realized I forgot to say goodbye. It wasn’t my intention but trying to wrap up work things and to prepare for a trip, all the while trying to manage my health issues meant a few things we left undone and unsaid. But I’m back now, and though I failed to make mention of my send off, I at least would like to take some notice of the return.
To begin at the beginning, last week we travelled out of town. My wife and I are celebrating our first wedding anniversary and felt the occasion coupled with recent stresses and successes warranted something bigger and grander than a standard date night.
Our first year as a married couple was both wonderful and still quite terrifying. After Our home has never felt more warm, safe, or loving, but the world around us has fallen farther and farther in the opposite direction, leaving us disjointed and unfocused. This time away was meant not to reconnect so much as to resettle. We longed to get back into our old grooves, to be the sun, and moon, and stars, the light, the calm, the way for one another again.
So, we went up into the mountains for a little time away from the city, from work, and as far from the pandemic as we could get, and it was all exactly what I wanted, needed, it to be. I needed nature. I needed spoiling. I needed to focus on myself and what was directly in front of me and directly inside.
We spent much of the last few nights drinking, eating good food, napping during afternoon rains and warming ourselves next to campfires. We hiked, and shopped, and sometimes we did nothing at all but sit, listen, and see. Our accommodations were stunning, and the setting was gorgeous. I was sad to leave it all behind but having the memories and the experience to carry with me means everything to me.
We’ve been back for a couple of days now and though we immediately had to return to life, to family, and to work, I’ve found I still feel relaxed. I feel refocused. I feel rejuvenated. I feel that by disconnecting from all the noise and reconnecting with what really mattered I can recommit to all aspects of my life once again.
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192// Still Turning
The world is still turning. I’m here and not, here and not. I’ve been off doing other things, but this space is never far from my thoughts. Fatigue, and worry, and heat, and overwhelm have kept me from it, and though I am here now, I make no promises for tomorrow or after.
Still, starting again is always a good sign. Being at this desk, typing, and even feeling the faint stirrings of old ideas and passions in the back of my mind is a sign that I’m feeling better. I’m feeling more myself. I’m mentally and physically stable enough to move outside of the present into memories and hopes.
For a short week this was certainly one of the longest in recent months. I was happy to be back at my usual location but coming off of a week spent away from work and coworkers and then returning to small talk, mask wearing, and expectation was jarring. I have another break coming up next week and after I think I’ll avoid taking time off for a long while. The seesawing between strict social distancing and this “new normal” are hard of the psyche.
And this new normal? It isn’t even agreed upon or settled yet, not by far! Every day new decisions are made and every day new anxieties are triggered. I’m dreading the start of the school year, but I’m also eager for it to begin. It’s going to be hard to find a way to stay safe and to keep both the kids and my coworkers safe too, but I’m ready to stop talking about it, fretting over it, speculating about it. I’m ready to get started!
Good things are happening too. I’m growing and learning how to delegate, how to teach, how to mentor others in my new position. I’m also confronting my flaws, bad habits, and toxic traits and working toward making space for others. I’ve spent so long fighting to be seen and heard that I have forgotten how to relinquish space to others. I no longer have to be the center to be secure or respected.
My health is improving with a new medicine and meal plan that includes hours of intermittent fasting to give my system a rest and plenty of time spent in a state of so little movement and stress that I am reminded of the “rest cure” prescribed to “nervous women” around the turn of the 2th century. It’s helping though and slowly, as I can, I’m returning to my workout routine and personal pursuits.
The world is still more shifting sand than solid stone out there. There is chaos, conflict, and change happening everywhere at every moment and it’s so scary but so exciting too. I’m happy to be alive now, though the old grief of knowing there is so much I won’t get to live through is stronger than ever.
They say living in the present helps relieve death anxiety, but for me paying attention to the present only ever highlights the time ticking away. Luckily, I’ve long since learned to sit with this—and many other—uncomfortable truths.
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In Human History
Of course I have been writing as though society was an organism in which people were in harmony with each other, in which they cooperated with each other and in which they were not waging wars of aggression against each other and were not in conflict with each other. But in actual fact and in terms of human history such harmony has not been the case.
In human history, we see that society has been broken up into classes, into antagonistic ethnic and economic groups that struggle against each other for survival as each sees it. They enslave each other and make their living at the expense of other groups, special interest groups are formed, etc. So that in reality we have to look at our own situation, have to look at the situation that exists in the economic base in terms of the class struggle, also in terms of the ethnic struggles that have gone on.”
— Eldridge Cleaver, “Education and Revolution” The Black Scholar, November 1969
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Time Exists
Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once…and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you.”
— Susan Sontag, At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches
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That Discomfort You’re Feeling
Understanding the stages of grief is a start. But whenever I talk about the stages of grief, I have to remind people that the stages aren’t linear and may not happen in this order. It’s not a map but it provides some scaffolding for this unknown world. There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.
— Scott Berinato, “That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief“
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183// Something is Different
Something is different about today. Maybe it’s the new month, maybe it all the time I’ve gotten to spend reading, writing, and resting, or maybe I’m just coming out of an ugly funk I didn’t realize I was in, whatever the reason I’m lighter, more positive, and cheerful than I have in days.
Nothing interesting is going on today. More time spent at my desk, on the couch, in the kitchen, and in bed. I’m typing away, reading, cleaning, and napping profusely. There were a few phone calls and emails from work, but for the most part I have been free from any obligations since last Friday and look forward to more days like this through this time next week.
My wife and I are continuing to social distance and stay home as much as possible despite the city moving forward with reopening. Even just a week ago I was fighting the urge to venture out and enjoy being around people again but the more cases are rising across the country the more comfortable, the happier, I feel staying home.
We talked about our upcoming trip to the mountains in the coming weeks. We feel a little bad about breaking quarantine for a vacation.
It’s true we’re taking a risk but at least we are travelling to place less dense than our own neighborhood and we plan to spend our time either alone in our tent our outside hiking in the wilderness. What meals we eat will be takeout or on patios. We’ll wear masks and bring along hand sanitizer and wipes. We’ll do what we can to minimize the risk, but we very much need these days away from the city.
As the cases rise all around us, I’m looking further and further into the future and so much that we’d hoped to do and see just may not be possible for a long while to come. It sucks losing so much of your life to this virus (and to a White House administration that won’t take responsibility and guide the country through these tough times) but the change in perspective has been refreshing. Strangely, life spent in increased isolation with decreased consumption feels healthier.
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Justice
- Who has been hurt?
- What are their needs?
- Whose obligations are these?
- What are the causes?
- Who has a stake in the situation?
- What is the appropriate process to involve stakeholders in an effort to address causes and put things right?
— Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses
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182// Progress
Feeling worse today than I did yesterday, but I expected it. I ate foods I knew would be irritating to my gut and temporarily exacerbated my ulcerative colitis flare. I know I shouldn’t have, but sometimes you have to live for the moment and the moment was pistachio ice cream.
I woke up early but couldn’t make it out of the house for my morning walk. It’s actually been a few days since I’ve gotten out and around the neighborhood and I’m really missing it. I’m also grappling with feelings of failure and anger. I’m angry that I’m still feeling so cruddy I can’t even get out for a walk around the block.
On top of all that, watching my wife get up and get moving and knowing both that I am in a way being left behind and worrying how she may feel at having to move on and to do things alone because I have to rest, stay in bed, and not push myself, hurts deeply.
It’s helped to remind myself that sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to do nothing. If these last few months have driven home any lesson it’s that, right? It’s helps to turn your attention from what you can’t do to doing what you can and what I can do is write, schedule some “scrapbook” posts, and read and getting to lose hours to just these three small things has turned my whole outlook around.
I made a lot of progress this evening on the lengthy and unwieldy post I’d started and lost control of and then began to avoid over these last few months. For a moment I was back in my old groove where the words and emotions flow freely, where the path to the end is clear, where I know I am doing what I was made for, even if I’m not always a very confident or competent.
I do my best work when none of that matters. I don’t mean best as in happy. Writing is almost always a purely cathartic exercise for me and I feel best when something deep, painful, and or meaningful has been pulled up, examined, expressed, and expelled. That is my measure of good for now.
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Two Sets of Rules
Every system has two sets of rules: The rules as they are intended or commonly perceived, and the actual rules (‘reality’). In most complex systems, the gap between these two sets of rules is huge.”
— Paul Buchheit, Applied Philosophy, a.k.a. “Hacking”
Lisa Marie Blair 