It’s been a rough patch for a few weeks. Not that the last eight months has been a walk in the park but the beginning of November marked some kind of inside-out thing. It’s had the flavour of going down some random road in suburbia on a bicycle, hitting a pothole, tumbling onto the pavement, crawling upright just as a truck careens onto the scene in a near miss second smash, and the only thing that’s possible is to dive onto a freshly raked pile of leaves only to find it included a summers’ worth of dog shit. It’s safe, but messy.
Here in Canada the cogs in the land of politics and decrees have tightened their hold on the humans in all sorts of ways. We’re eight months into a two week lockdown to flatten the curve and there’s not only no letting up but all the signs and signals are there to indicate the screws will get tighter in the coming months. Even the Big Poobah at the World Health Organization said last week that we’re not going back to our former ways for the foreseeable future, what you’ve got right now is pretty much what you get. So what’s the difference in this recent rough patch? Well, a few things.
The American election, even if you’re not American, even if you’ve done your best to ignore it, has had that ‘butterfly-wings-in-the-Shaolin-temple’ effect. It can’t be helped. It’s partly a train wreck but I get this niggle that there’s more than meets the eye going on. I’m thinking that investing in popcorn and settling in for the ride could be in order.
The elderly, many of the ones in care homes who were able to see family during the summer months, are now into a round of isolation they’re unprepared for and ill equipped to challenge unless they have strong family and great advocates. Go stand at the window if that’s the only way to have contact. Bring music and children, deliver cookies with a special plate for the staff. People who are loved get better care. People who are loved give better care.
Businesses have either successfully pivoted or gone under and the fallout from that hits home, literally. If they’ve pivoted there’s new dimensions to tackle, if they’ve gone under there’s new dimensions to tackle. It’s all well removed from the ordinary.
Relationships of all kinds have either up-levelled into new commitments or dissolved. There’s not much of the halfway in-between in love, friendships and work relationships when the layers fall away and the underneath shows up and plunks itself in front for the world to see. Once seen, can’t be unseen. Keep letting those layers fall and keep moving in the direction of the real.
The ones who were anxious before are in the thick of it now. Fear and anxiety are two different things: fear is like lightening, it’s quick and sharp and just about to show up in the moment whereas anxiety is more like slow, rolling thunder the kind that doesn’t seem to have a source point or an ending. Don’t wait for the anxious ones to ‘reach out’ for support. It’s your job as friends and family to keep in touch. Call, write, send a card, deliver cookies or better yet, arrange to go for a walk in the sun to some wonderful place in nature where there’s space for a private conversation and the healing properties of trees, critters and fresh air is available. Do it, pay attention.
There’s also those passionate types: the musicians, performers, the visual artists, the restauranteurs and the food crafters. The makers and doers of our culture are the ones responsible for how we gather in community unknown to each other until those moments or couple of hours in time when we do, then disperse. They don’t do these things solely for themselves, they do them because the group, the crowd, the audience carries a vitality and groundswell that can’t be had any other way. The people who live by their passions are down for the count and the referee has a comfortable kneepad and someone’s bringing him a drink. No let up for the near future that’s for sure. I see you.
I started all this because I was thinking about all the grandparents out there, all the Yiayias & Pappoús, the Nonnos and Nonnas, the Omas and Opas, and the Guidos and Babas who haven’t hugged the children in a very long time. Children don’t stop just because the world does. They change so quickly, grow at an exponential rate, it’s difficult to keep up in the best of times. Christmas and all those seasonal celebrations in mid winter are coming and my deepest wish is that you find a way to be together because the growing years and the wisdom years are precious, just precious.
I have a reoccurring dream where I see one of those Disney castles with an arched sign that says Two Week Lockdown Land. In the dream I get a ticket and wait in line. When I finally get inside, the ride is nothing but some crappy bicycles with bent frames. I see a a track that goes off into a dark vanishing point and that track is full of potholes. I can faintly see some suspicious piles of Autumn leaves heaped up in the distance and there’s the scent of fresh dog shit wafting about.
The good news is the January babies are being born now. These small bundles of raw human-ness are an elixir, so if you see one or get to hold one, smell that baby, cradle that baby, thank that mother, cherish that father, adore everything about that bundle of hope. There’s a presence in that kind of aliveness you won’t get anywhere else. Yay babies.
How can I be of service? Zoom, SKYPE available.
Unconventional-Methods: self empowerment at the speed of willingness
Lori Mairs MFA
Personal Growth Consultant
Ecological Artist/ResearcherI teach a system of inquiry (tools, skills and concepts) for people to discover their own answers and their own truths about what’s going on for them. I’m all about the relationship with the self and how that looks in the world. I willingly meet you at your starting point.
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The Land of 7:30 