I’m not going to lie. The last couple of weeks have been a roller coaster. Mostly because of the unceasing feeling of something awful and big intruding on all our lives. It feels personal, yet it’s global. I wake up every morning feeling fine. And then I remember. Oh yeah, global pandemic. Fuck. 

Everything is “fine” here. My home is safe and warm. I have support and infinite resources on how to thrive in this crisis. However, I don’t want a pep talk. I don’t want shrill cheerfulness. I don’t want advice on my workouts. The people insisting on business as usual are all rubbing me the wrong way. I want something else. But what?

I get up and go downstairs. The first thing I do is look out the window into my back yard. The deck is cavernously empty of summer furniture. The cardinals and blue jays are singing and flitting from branch to branch, oblivious to our human problems. I look to the blue sky, which is eerily empty of planes. This does not feel like a bad thing. But, then again, maybe it is.

Here in Southern New Jersey, it’s still too cold to venture outside so early in the morning, so instead of visiting the trees I view them from a distance, looking for clues on how to be. They are my mentors these days. They stand still and strong, not bothered by the need to stay in place, nourished by deep roots and crisp spring breezes. Hints of luminous green ride the branches, their color a hint of what is to come. They are ready, undaunted, to begin a new cycle. They sway, they grow, they unfurl their beauty at their own pace.

I too feel something new beginning in me. It is something pressing forward, something that has been waiting. I try to feel into it, but it’s not time. Soon. But, not yet.

First, there is other work to be done. It is the work we turn away from. It’s the uncomfortable work of sitting quietly in the present with what is. It’s a strange thing for all of us, all at once, to be forced to stay home. Many of us are being pressed into the ‘service of being’ versus the ‘release of doing’. When we most want to do something, anything, we’re told to stay home, eat our vegetables, and go for a walk. It’s like a universal mother energy finally fulfilling her promise to ground us if we don’t behave. Remember being grounded when you were a kid? It’s an interesting choice of words these days.

We alternatingly embrace the resulting isolation, reject it, are horrified by it, depressed by it, anxious about it, tell jokes about it. All in the space of an hour, a day. It’s a lot. It’s everything, all of life, jumbled together. Every friggin’ day.

We can’t help but be restless for what’s next. We don’t want to sit still with our thoughts, dammit. We don’t like the uncertainty. We don’t like not being in control. We don’t like seeing familiar things fall away. We don’t like feeling helpless like this.

Sidelined, we watch it all progress, unable to stem the tide. We’re told we’re doing our part by just staying home. It. Sounds. So. Simple.

And yet, it seems orchestrated somehow. In the midst of panic, there’s that motherly benevolence. Perhaps not to those closely touched by this, to whom I close my eyes, bow my head, and breathe into my heart. I’m so sorry. Perhaps not to the health care workers, the grocery store front-liners, the delivery people. I’m staying home in honor of you. It’s what I can do.

But still. Behind it all, I feel a call. A call to be different, to do different things, to live in a different way. I hear Mother Earth insistence that business as usual is not sustainable. I am being called to listen more deeply, to live more mindfully, to become more fully myself.

At this point, I’m not an advocate of much. To me, hustle feels wrong, doing a big project feels like it could be useful, but creating a goal feels like trying to grab and hold smoke. What feels right for me is getting quiet. When I get quiet, I can hear something deep coming forth. Ideas float up, but burst like bubbles when I reach for them. Maybe they are hints of a bigger whole that’s simmering beneath the surface.

There is no right or wrong in the age of corona. If you’re springing into action, awesome. If you’re finally working on something that has been on hold for a long time, way to go! If your house is organized and super clean … high five! If you’re having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, maybe you should rest. If you’re making yourself comfortable with food, wine, and movies, that sounds good too. We’re all going to do it differently.

We’re in this together, alone. What will be created will have gone through the gauntlet of the pandemic. It will take on a shape that is unfamiliar to us now, yet will be familiar to us all on the other side.

There will be an after. We just don’t know what it looks like yet. We’ll get through this together. We’ll see each other on the other side.

In the meantime, here we are, alternating our night pajamas with our day pajamas, furtively checking our corona hair in the mirror. We’ll each, in our own ways, be making friends with uncertainty, wrestling our fears and anxieties in our individual dark nights of the soul. We’ll be seeing humor in it and sharing it with others. Some of us will be devastated in some way. It may feel like we’re alone, but really we’re more together than we’ve ever been. Perhaps there is some comfort in that new truth.

May you and yours be safe.