Life, Interrupted
So, how are you all? You may have heard the old curse: 'may you live in interesting times' (att: China)? Life is certainly interesting. We are locked down in the UK, staying home to help our amazing National Health Service cope and to protect the most vulnerable. How quickly normal life falls apart is quite extraordinary.
With age and experience perhaps it is easier to step back and sit with the waves of shock, anger, grief as they come. After years stuck in a small apartment in the Middle East with young children during the shut down scorching Ramadan summers, I am drawing on those old stoical resources. It is strangely nostalgic.
I feel lucky to have a small patch of garden, now, grateful for sunshine and spring blossom. I feel for parents of young children. I feel for whoever is currently living in the tiny basement bedsit with bars on the windows I first lived in when I moved to London. I feel for my son who should be surfing and out with his mates in the Easter sun. I feel for my daughter who has had the end of school snatched away. I feel for my Mum, locked up alone. I feel for the pilot, locked out of the country and the work he loves. That's just our little family. How's yours?
Life has changed. We will not go back to 'normal'. Life will go on, and it will be different, and we will adapt. 'All Shall Be Well' is something of a mantra. As is Rilke's: 'Just keep going/No feeling is final'. We may be locked down physically, but maybe this fallow time is a good moment to reflect on what really matters to you. There is no need to be up doing PE or learning Swahili or cooking cordon bleu meals if this isn't what you normally enjoy. Being kind to yourself, and to those you are holed up with is enough. Read what you love, write what you love. Watching what you listen and read, being mindful about the things you let into your mind is important. In the words of the Desiderata: 'Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit' - that includes the shouty doom- monger on Twitter. Instead try to notice the good coming out of this - the rainbows painted in cottage windows, the virtual choirs, the bravery of the people helping in the front line. Notice kindness. Resilience. Love. We'll get there, day by day.
"This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.
Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning."
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning."
John O'Donohue
WHY NOT: Write your own Coronavirus journal. Acknowledge your emotion - grief, anger, fear, boredom, frustration - write it out, and let it go. These are unprecedented times. No one can predict the outcome, and there is no wrong or right way to feel about it. One of the great things about writing is it lets you release and process emotion. It is alchemy. Take all that raw and messy material - everything 'interesting' and turn it into gold.
Stay well, stay safe x
