April 1 – Work From Home [COVID-19 fooled you!]
We’re all losing track of time anyway. Sure, I planned to have the focus and energy to write every single day, and now regret is growling at me from outside, but I didn’t write, and regret isn’t getting in. Not today.
A few things I’ve noticed this week.
I thought we were all in this together – but – no. One acquaintance is complaining, thoroughly irritated, that she can’t sit to eat in the food court. Another’s delight in receding pollution (don’t get me wrong – it’s a good thing coming out of a lot of bad things!) contemptuously disregards human suffering and fear.
Two people I know well continue to go to gatherings and out to dinner, the latter because service is fantastic now that restaurants are empty.
Some of my acquaintances believe that their place of worship is some kind of a free pass, a bubble zone that starts from the moment they walk out their front doors until the moment they are back inside. God will obviously protect them. He cares about them!
I wonder, but don’t ask on Facebook, what opinion they think God has of those who have died. Or the health care professionals who ended up sick themselves after too long taking care of sick people. I wonder what kind of f*cked up childhood they must have had to make them worship and claim love for such a dick of a god.
And – I notice that if someone were to observe my judgy little brain cells’ party, that person might, possibly might, suggest that I’m a bit self-righteous, or at the least, that letting those thoughts occupy my attention and energy is not helpful, not contributing to the maintenance of good health.
~Right. That lesson again. The only person I can change is myself, and right now, the only change in me that matters is learning to always find and follow the path that nurtures health and goodness.~
A few days later
How can I be more tired, busier, now than when I work at work? I do have an explanation – when I go to work, coming home is coming into a chill zone. I’m too tired (I tell myself) to focus on much else.
But working from home means that I overestimate the time and energy I have and insist that I can do ALL the things. Hey, I don’t have to get dressed, my jammies are the most comfortable ever, my harp is right next to me and my fiddle on the other side, hours to rest into writing that otherwise would have been eaten up with people, and commuting, and chilling…
Not yet. At some point, I will write again, I will learn many new tunes on the harp (or maybe even on the squalling fiddle), I will build my new website, I will.
Right now, my brain and my heart would like some time to release, relax, empty themselves of the things that do not serve, do a deep clean of all the neglected corners and dusty shelves.
More days later
My balcony is heaven right now. Bare feet! Windy but not too much, crows and geese working out spring deals, the forest still a leafless charcoal sketch over melting ice on the river. All I need is my yoga mat and cushions to make an office for my work-from-home hours. It’s still hard to let myself take a break, but when I do, meditation and yoga are ready for me.
Some music friends and I tried a jam over Zoom. It’s weird motion-sickness, time-sickness fun trying to clap together. Playing instruments together – yeah, no. Established that there’s a reason people make music jamming software.
Lessons
When you’re quarantined with someone else, there is only one pathway that isn’t blocked with fallen chunks of stone and years of baggage. It’s the path that has helpful signs posted everywhere:
- Learn to listen.
- Learn to really listen.
- Say I feel instead of you do.
- Breathe before you speak.
- Make your intention in every conversation that you want the other person to feel loved.
- Most of your opinions aren’t that important after all.
- Listen. (There are a lot of these signs.)
- Ask instead of tell.
- Argument is for philosophy class.
Making music together can happen differently for now. I took part in one of Deborah Henson-Conant’s free harp playalongs on Zoom. Deborah is one of those people, the kind who are so vibrant, so comfortably real, that they come right through the webcam. It felt like we were all playing together even though we were on mute, so that I heard only Deborah and myself.
How did she do that?
Ok, it helps that she’s brilliant. But it seems to me we can all be the kind of brilliant that lets us be ok with the music we make, however we make it. Who’s up for a weird zoom jam?
Afterward, a bunch of us stayed in the Zoom room and got to know each other. California, Canadian Prairies, and the east coast of Australia have a lot in common. It was nice.
And now, it’s April 4
If this hadn’t happened. I would be walking by the ocean right now, having dropped off my fiddle and knapsack at the hotel. Or I’d be already heading to the first session of my week in Halifax, looking forward to harp lessons, fiddle lessons, ferry rides, islands, and cold salt wind.
Like the rest of the world, I’m not sure how to start thinking about that, about the difference between what would have been and what is. (Oh, and speaking of…we had lots and lots of snow and it’s -15 and I’m not on my balcony.)
I’m pretty sure, though, that thinking about it isn’t helpful. On the theme of everything you need to know you can learn from a kids’ book…
“To know what would have happened, child?” said Aslan. “No. Nobody is ever told that.”
“Oh dear,” said Lucy.
“But anyone can find out what will happen,” said Aslan.
I’ll let you know next week (more or less) what did happen!