Both Sides, Now

Everyday I feel like I’m being split into two sides. I see everything one way and so clearly, another. Things like the internet. I have never been so grateful and fearful for what’s online. We need the humor to keep the heaviness light, but the news and information flooding in, fills me with a lingering sense of dread, an incessant drip, drip, drip like a faucet of worry inside my mind.

In one minute, I’m chuckling over a fake personal ad—

Women with hand sanitizer seeks man with toilet paper for good clean fun.

The next I’m reading about a single mother of 6 who survived stage-4 breast cancer, but then died from this virus.

It’s so serious, it’s sobering.

In one breath I believe: we can do this. My family will adjust. We can lay outside on our backs and stare up into the sky and do as Joni Michell suggests, identify each cloud,

“Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons every where”

But even the clouds aren’t what they seem, like so many other things these days, we really don’t know anything at all.

My closets and cupboards have never been so organized, but because my kids remain indoors, my home looks chaotic, like I’m hosting some sort of multi-family yard sale.

I am a more present parent; we have endless time for reading and cuddling. I surprise myself with my ability to wear all the hats. We are moving along and suddenly, my kids refuse to bring their dishes to the sink, and for some inexplicable reason, that is the last straw. Those dishes coming directly to the sink and needing their complete unwavering compliance, was the tiny thread that was holding up my last shred of patience that day. I weathered 11 hours of indoor literal bouncing off the walls, homeschooling, the baby eating crayons left on the ground, again—but those plates, that was it.

We are sharing moments together that otherwise would not exist, some are sacred and some I know would have served us all better at school.

I’m staying active because outdoor runs and Zoom virtual Fit4Mom workout videos are my only escape and I need them, like we need the sunshine. And yet I am mindlessly downing coffee and chocolate because worrying about caffeine and calories seems insignificant.

This, right now, is our metaphorical 6-mile walk to school uphill in the snow. Even social distancing has two sides, for us at home the sacrifice can be minimal. For others, it’s cost everything.

Somehow, we are maneuvering the wire between two spans of time. There will only ever be before this and then what comes after. So we are here, together, yet not together, writing the pages of future history textbooks, and it feels like we are on both sides, now.

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The Thinking Corner

I am currently osculating between denial and acceptance pretty consistently every other day. Yesterday was a particularly dark day in my mind. I gave myself permission to be saddened by the idea that my daughter will likely be robbed of her last quarter of her kindergarten year. I thought of the economic crisis we are only just skimming the surface of. I wrote about where I needed my thoughts to go, because a brave face in isolation with children is heavy (you can read it by clicking below). 

But today, I have opted to change my internal perspective. A dear friend sent this message, which helped me shift my view:

Photo credit Brooke Anderson @movementphotographer

It got me thinking about opportunities to think differently, perhaps changing our perspective towards forced isolation with our families. If we look at it in the way we present our children with consequences, in our new-aged-parenting-wisdom, we don’t put them in a chair or on a timeout, we sit with them in a “thinking corner”.

Maybe we could view this as an opportunity for introspection.

I feel like every home-bound adult has been forced to look inward as our pace of life has shifted. 

Before we were in isolation, my baby wasn’t completely sold on walking. But in the past five days, she is committed, and confident. She’s a walker. I am wondering, if she’d been previously stalled because we were always rushing around when I had her strapped to my body, in the stroller, and car seat going from place to place. 

See, I thrive in the busyness. 

But maybe she doesn’t. 

It’s something I could have only learned here; in my thinking corner.

The weight of the patience I must carry now, for my daughters, is heavier than before. Yesterday, it felt like a burden and today, I’m grateful for this chance to place things into their right categories of urgency. We have been handed a paintbrush to label once petty things “unimportant”.

It’s been six days, but I can say with complete confidence that when we come out on the other side, we will love each other differently.

We will love each other better. 

If absence makes the heart grow fonder; I can only imagine the fondness we will feel, when we can finally all come back together hand-in-hand.

Photo credit: Michele Meze with Fit4Mom Davis-Woodland

Please Pull Over

I remember when I was a kid being fascinated that, as a society, we’d pull off to the side of the road to allow an ambulance or fire truck get to where it was going, faster. As a child, I appreciated the altruism surrounding the act of pulling over, even if I couldn’t quite grasp the magnitude of it. I didn’t know who they were rushing to help, but maybe the few seconds we saved them, made all the difference.

Cut to mid-March of 2020 and most of us as drivers are able to symbolically pull off the road by staying in our houses and practice “social distancing”. Like so many people, it took me a moment to recognize the severity of this situation. I hoped maybe this was an over-reaction, I believe I even referred to my own sister as a drama queen when she told us our day-to-day life would have to change drastically. Social distancing to this extrovert, sounded unpleasant. The idea of being confined to my house with my three children for upwards of a month feels claustrophobic and uncomfortable.

But what’s more uncomfortable is the spread of misinformation that this isn’t serious. I’m not sure who still needs to hear this, but this is about as serious as it gets.

If it helps you to visualize it, think about all the at-risk people you love inside the ambulance and you are sparing them the ride, just by pulling over. Just by staying in your home.

The purpose of staying home, avoiding others, metaphorically pulling over, is significant. We must flatten the curve, because our healthcare system cannot stand the weight of what’s coming if we don’t listen and follow directions now.

If we are doing it right--when we listen from inside our houses, we won’t hear sirens. It will be silent.

An alarming image we can all relate to is what’s happened in our local grocery stores; all the basics have been stripped from the shelves—things like eggs, soap, and paper towels. Everyone rushed out and took what they needed. Now imagine this at our hospitals--except it isn’t toilet paper that’s unavailable, it’s ventilators.

We have all been stripped down to the very bare essentials, and what we are left with is a primal reliance on each other.

At the heart of humanity is trust. While it may be the law to pull over to the side of the road and wait for the sirens to pass, we also want to be helpful and part of the solution. I may not know you, but we all know someone at risk we would never want inside an ambulance.

So please, pull over.