In 2018, I wrote about making offerings. This morning I looked at my list of possible topics for this week’s post, but realized none of them really grab me at the moment; I’ve been thinking again about making offerings.
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The reason offerings are in my mind is because I’m struggling, like so many of us, to find new routines and priorities without expiring from boredom, losing my mind, or allowing futility to paralyze me. It occurred to me, as I did my daily wipe down of our kitchen with bleach wipes while the bacon was cooking this morning, to think about what seems like endless disinfecting as an offering, or perhaps even a prayer, for my loved ones and for all of us on the planet.
As I go about my days, fear for my loved ones, near and far, dogs me. I know it’s not useful. I know watching what’s happening in Montana, Colorado and New York, as well as here in Maine, is not helping them. But what do we do with our love for others, near and far, during times like these?
I’m sure I’m not the only one who already feels that they never want to clean, wipe or disinfect anything ever again. I’m sure I’m not the only one marveling at how many thousands of things we touch a day (including ourselves) and feeling overwhelmed with trying to avoid this tiny, invisible, persistent, deadly virus.
While I cleaned the counters with the smell of bleach in my nose, while I rubbed away at the fridge, the freezer, the washing machine, the microwave, the toaster oven, the coffeepot and the teakettle, I imagined millions of people all over the world at home, at work, in hospitals, in businesses, doing the same thing, day after day. I imagined all those people with fearful and heavy hearts for their loved ones, doing their best, taking whatever steps they can for themselves and those around them, day after day.
Later, after breakfast, I disinfected surfaces in the bathroom, another new daily chore. Then I came up to my attic aerie and here, too, I will wipe down every surface I can with bleach wipes before I go to work.
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At work, though only staff have used the pool for the last couple of weeks, I will don gloves and pitch in to do our daily disinfecting of chairs, benches, handles and knobs, light switches, soap and hand sanitizer dispensers, keyboards, telephones, counters, desks, chairs, fans, remote controls, pens, handicapped door buttons . . . We did that yesterday. We’ll do it today. It will be done tomorrow.
Is there any point? Is it helping? Will it keep us and those around us well?
So many questions, and no answers.
I know some people can shrug and say whatever will be will be. I recognize the truth in that, but I can’t not try. I must do what I can, even with no guarantee it’s useful, even without support from others (emotional labor, anyone?), even though I myself sometimes wonder why I’m working so hard. It’s simply what I can do.
And I’m not alone. There are people in Montana, New York and Colorado, people just like me, perhaps with loved ones in Maine (!), who are making their best effort, dogged, determined, and putting one foot in front of another. Or perhaps I should say disinfecting one thing after another, washing their hands, and social distancing. They undoubtedly are asking the same questions: Is there any point? Is it helping? Will it keep us and those around us well?
So, today, as my choice is to once again disinfect surfaces here at home and this afternoon at work, wash my hands over and over again, and social distance from my partner, my friends, my colleagues and strangers, I’m allowing myself to dwell on my loved ones as I disinfect and wash and distance, to remember their faces; to pray for their safety and health; to love them as hard as I want to; to cry, even.
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Perhaps in the moment I’m washing my hands in Maine someone in Montana is washing hers, thereby sparing my asthmatic adult son. Perhaps in the moment I’m social distancing in the line in the grocery store, another person is staying six feet away from someone I love in Colorado.
Let my fear be an offering, and my tears. Let my work be an offering. Let my chapped hands and the smell of bleach and disinfectant be an offering. Let my love, my reverence for the cycles of life and death, my faith and my hope be an offering. Let my self-care be an offering. Let my willingness to do whatever it takes be an offering.
I have a friend at work who, in the moment of an unexpected event, says, “This is happening!” as he copes on the fly. The phrase (and my friend) makes me smile, and it keeps running through my head as our world changes.
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We’re all affected, and we’re all saturated with news, statistics, opinions, thoughts, predictions and our own feelings about current events. We’re all sick of the subject (no pun intended), but it’s hard to talk about anything else.
The headlines are grim. The maps are grim. The future is uncertain. I’m writing this on Saturday, March 15. What will Monday bring? Where will we be on Thursday, when I publish this?
Nobody knows.
Last week I wrote about making choices, and discerning between the places we have power and the places we don’t. It was a timely post.
We can choose to see our current situation as an opportunity.
Before you start throwing rotten food at me, understand I’m in no way minimizing our stress, anxiety, fear or loss. I’m very concerned, more for others than myself, but for myself, too. I don’t want to get sick and die. I haven’t finished my books yet, for one thing.
On the other hand, I admit to a sort of horrified fascination when it feels like everything is falling apart, either for me, personally, or on a larger scale. Chaos, in my experience, is filled with possibility, with sudden shifts and changes, with unexpected twists and outcomes. When we surf the edge of chaos, we’re in terra incognita, and anything might happen.
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We’ve all been hearing about restrictions, limitations, cancellations, curfews, lockdowns, and other draconian measures as the pandemic sweeps across the globe. It’s not a good time to travel, have elective surgery, spend money frivolously, run out of toilet paper, or do a thousand other things.
It is a good time for … what?
I work in a hospital rehab center in a nonessential position. We currently have 30 confirmed cases of Coronavirus in Maine. I suspect there are actually many hundreds of cases by now, but testing is limited up here, so it’s hard to say. The hospital has put protocols in place, and we are now closed to the public and serving rehab patients only. I’m an hourly worker, so if (when) we shut down the rehab center, I won’t get paid.
My partner is at high risk due to his age and health history.
Just like everyone else, I’m anxious about how fast things are happening and what might happen next, and I have the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that says we’re freewheeling, out of control. ‘Normal’ is MIA.
I always have my eye on power dynamics. We could make a long list of everything we can’t control right now, all that’s not in our power.
But what about what we can control? What is in our power? Again, I think of my post last week, and how many of us honestly feel we don’t have time to engage with what matters most to us in our normal lives. But now we’re living not-so-normal lives, and we may spend some time doing that.
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In my own life, when it’s all fallen down and I find myself wandering through the rubble, I’ve always found transformation. Pain, grief, tears, terror, yes, all of those. And transformation.
We each have the power to reach out to loved ones. We can’t choose who gets sick or who recovers, but we can communicate with the people we care about heartfully and honestly. It’s easy to lose touch, or interact superficially on social media and call it good. It’s easy to drift apart and become disconnected. Quarantine, isolation and lockdown are opportunities to strengthen connections.
Don’t forget it’s spring. We can choose to enjoy the return of the birds, the lengthening days, the sunshine, and the abundance of new growth and life around us. We can take a walk. We can make it a daily habit.
We have an opportunity to enjoy creativity. Listen to music. Read a book. You have time now, all you TLDR (too long, didn’t read) people! We can forget the toilet paper and buy ourselves a new box of crayons or some finger paints. Here’s our chance to nurture our creativity. If we’re in quarantine or lockdown we have time to play. No more excuses. Creative folks are reaching out to others in all kinds of nontraditional and beautiful ways right now.
Have I mentioned it’s spring? It’s a great time to clean and declutter our homes. Not only can we make daily cleaning of all surfaces we touch easier right now, we can lighten up our lives and homes for the future. Let’s open the windows and let the sun come in. Let’s get rid of the stuff that doesn’t matter. Let’s clean our cars, our phones, our keyboards.
While we’re out walking, we can wave to our neighbors. We can smile. We’re all scared and worried. This is where our power is — with the people around us. We can check up on neighbors. If we’re at less risk than an elderly friend or neighbor, we can offer to run errands for them when we have to go out. We can find a dog to walk. We can practice social distancing and still connect with and care for those around us. We’re all in this together.
We can do ourselves and our immune systems a favor and rest. Relax. Laugh. When was the last time we checked in with ourselves? Are we happy? Are our needs being met? Are we pleased with the shape of our lives? We can take naps, or sleep in. We can exercise, eat good food, drink lots of water. We can challenge an addiction or a time-wasting habit. If not now, when?
When did we last give our intellect a fun thing to do? We could explore something that interests us, learn a new skill, play with critical thinking. We could exercise our brains. We could take on a daunting project we’ve been procrastinating about.
How’s our spiritual life? It’s a great time for prayer, ritual, or to begin a meditation practice. We could create a daily gratitude practice and focus on that instead of fear and anxiety.
Resilience equals survival. Resilient people make conscious choices about how they use their resources, especially in the face of unexpected disaster. We’re faced with a lot of unknowns right now, but let’s not obsess over the unknowable, including the future. Our power lies in our ability to choose in the present moment and let the rest go.
We know how to work, spend money, distract and be busy. Life is about more. Now we have an opportunity to simply be with the moment, with the world as it is, and with ourselves. Let’s remember how to live. Part of living is the necessity to come to terms with death.
Take good care, everybody. Love yourself and your people. Stay with your power and surrender the rest. We’ll get through this.
Pandemic
What if you thought of it as the Jews consider the Sabbath— the most sacred of times? Cease from travel. Cease from buying and selling. Give up, just for now, on trying to make the world different than it is. Sing. Pray. Touch only those to whom you commit your life. Centre down.
And when your body has become still, reach out with your heart. Know that we are connected in ways that are terrifying and beautiful. (You could hardly deny it now.) Know that our lives are in one another’s hands. (Surely, that has come clear.) Do not reach out your hands. Reach out your heart. Reach out your words. Reach out all the tendrils of compassion that move, invisibly, where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love— for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, so long as we all shall live.
When I underwent emotional intelligence training, my coach asked me the question, “Chocolate or vanilla?” over and over. Now, my partner and I use that phrase frequently as we live our life together. It always makes me smile.
Life is ridiculously complicated. At other times, it’s ridiculously simple. Our experience lies in the heart of this paradox.
Chocolate or vanilla is about choice, and the recognition and reclamation of our ability to choose is the core of emotional intelligence.
Choice is about power.
One of the many seeds that inspired this post was this article that appeared in my news feed from The Guardian: “A Dirty Secret: You Can Only Be a Writer if You Can Afford It.” It caught my attention because my reflex now is to question all these kinds of assertions, whether they are a result of my own beliefs or someone else’s.
Is that true? I asked myself.
Upon reading the article, I discover the author is making a point that earning a living by writing is difficult. Agreed. Does that mean one is not a writer if they don’t earn a living writing? That depends on how one defines what a writer is. This circles around to identity. What is a writer? What is a real writer?
Why does it matter? If a person is compelled to write, they do so. Debating what a “real” writer is, making rules about what “counts” as writing (editing? Tech writing? Poetry? Published writing? Unpublished writing? Writing for money? Blogging for free?), gathering statistics about the high costs of publishing, editing, hiring an agent, advertising, etc., seem to me distractions from writing, even if it’s only for twenty minutes a day.
Is the issue about choosing to live creatively or about managing our expectations of such a life and feeling disempowered by the attendant difficulties in earning a living via our creativity?
The tone of the article bothers me because it’s focused negatively. It’s about being creatively disempowered because the world is the way it is. It’s all the reasons why writers can’t be successful (whatever that means) unless they have a certain amount of money.
I don’t accept that.
Photo by Jonathan Simcoe on Unsplash
Why not think about what is possible? Where is our power? The author states space and time cost money. Is that true? We all have the same 24 hours in a day. We make hundreds of choices about how we spend that time. Some of our choices are unconscious, and some are not. The minimalism movement speaks to this. If our lives are so busy, noisy and cluttered that we don’t give our creative longings (or whatever else matters most to us) time and space, we’re the only ones who can fix that. And make no mistake, we can fix it. We have the power to simplify our lives and identify what matters most to us. If we want to. If we consent to.
As I observe myself and others navigate through their lives, it’s easy to pick out those who feel powerless from those who acknowledge at least some power. Note that power does not mean control. Power is “the ability to do something or act in a particular way.” Control is “the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events.” (Online Oxford Dictionary) Power is intrinsic. Control is extrinsic.
It strikes me when we feel disempowered about one thing, we frequently expand that feeling to our whole lives. We feel victimized, stuck, fearful, hopeless and helpless. Often, we’re enraged by the unfairness of life. We desperately try to find a sense of control. Our default is to stay focused on all the places we have no power, no matter what the situation.
Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash
That focus is a choice. It might be unconscious, but it’s still a choice.
Chocolate or vanilla?
I know we each have obligations, complicated lives, and most of us need to earn a living. As a single mother of two boys, I worked a full-time job, a part-time job, did volunteer work and took online courses to complete a college degree. Believe me, I know about being overwhelmed in life. During those years I also danced, told stories, wrote, and created visual art, because that’s who I am. I didn’t earn money with my creativity, but it was what kept me going in all the other areas of my life.
I understand sometimes we are disempowered by addiction and/or other health issues, and we are unable to make choices because of it. In that case, we need help, and we can choose to get it. Or not.
Chocolate or vanilla?
As for space, writing can happen on a bed, on the floor, on a park bench, in a car, or in a Starbucks. In my life, I’m not at all sure where the boundary is between writing and living. I seem to always be doing both, whether or not I’m actually at the keyboard or with a pen in my hand.
Being creative is not the same as an ambition to get rich and famous via our work. If the goal is riches and fame, we’ve stepped out of our power. Then we’re going to need money, influence, professional support, and a lot of luck. Even if we do achieve fame, financial security and glory, however, let’s not kid ourselves. We’ll still need to manage our money and time, and we’ll still have exactly as much time as everyone else does.
We’ll still have to choose between chocolate and vanilla every minute, and if we refuse to choose, somebody else will choose for us.
We can’t reclaim or effectively hold onto our power unless we’re willing to question everything, and questioning everything is not supported in this culture. If we’re not living the life we want, there’s one important question to ask:
If we feel disempowered, do we want to feel differently? Do we consent to change?
Most of us will immediately say yes, of course we don’t want to feel disempowered! What a stupid question! BUT we can’t, because we have no money. We have no time. We have health limitations. We can’t find work, or we have work, but our boss hates us. Our commute is too long. We don’t have the space we need. Nobody loves us. Nobody cares. We’re alone. We’re too old. We’re too young. We’re too tired. We’re the wrong color or sex. Nothing and no one is the way we need them to be in order for us to live in our power.
The truth is our personal power has nothing to do with the people around us or the way the world works. Only one person can fundamentally disempower us, and that person looks back at us out of the mirror.
Another unwelcome truth is many people who feel chronically disempowered are getting some kind of a payoff for staying stuck in that place.
Photo by Ludde Lorentz on Unsplash
This hidden payoff is a hard, hard thing to admit and excavate, take it from me. Our defenses rise, our feelings boil, our beliefs become more fanatical, all our old wounds bleed. Hidden payoffs are buried deeply in psychic war zones. Many of us never go there unless we’re forced to by some kind of a catastrophic, life-and-death situation.
I started this post on a Tuesday morning. I was sitting at my little workstation in my attic space next to an open window. The air was fresh and cool. It was misty out, and I could hear the spring birdsong. I opened my laptop and skimmed headlines about politics, COVID-19, and overnight killer tornados in Tennessee. There was the seductive content on my screen, manipulated by the media, Google, and advertising. Then there was the world outside my window, gentle, lovely, moist, and promising the new beginning of spring.
Chocolate or vanilla?
I shut the laptop, picked up a clipboard and pen, and began this post long hand, the old-fashioned way, in my chair in front of an open window.
