A Soliloquy

Isn't that what a blog is, really? An outlet based on the presumptuous idea that someone out there would like to hear what I have to say regarding some deep philosophical issue? Maybe you find my shared thoughts insightful, helpful, drole, or maybe you hate me and everything that comes out of my head. Either way, Shakespeare's soliloquys were often my favorite part of any of his plays. Here's mine for today. Hopefully I can avoid virtue signaling or shame or anything upsetting about this subject that seems to have deepened the divide in our country.

But I guess it's time to be presumptuous that you'll care what I think.

I'm keeping my child home for at least the first nine weeks of school. I could give you quotes and figures and scientific studies, but then it would seem as if I were trying to convince you that our family's choice should be your choice too. What's more, it might seem like I was judging you, which I am not. Mostly, I'm saying these things so others know they aren't alone in this choice. Thought it's likely that you are cut from the same cloth as me and aren't too concerned about the aspersions cast at you by others.

There are parents out there who need to send their child back to a physical classroom. There are students who need the physical classroom. I don't have a regular job that requires me on premises. I currently have zero event contracts and am not teaching yoga anywhere. My child is a fairly easy learner, save for the scourge of elementary school known as multiplication, so sitting at home to learn with me as an aide does not present any insurmountable challenges. It's a time when I can use my privilege as a mostly stay-at-home mom to actually help others and remove my child from an already burdensome situation. This also removes him as a vector for contagion.

And if I am being honest, I am actually concerned about what Covid might look like in my own body. I'm young and healthy and take good care of myself, but my experiences with illness haven't been good this year. I started out January 1 with the flu, and it made me sick in a way that was terrifying at times. In my usual hit-it-hard great work ethic, I was back to teaching multiple classes before I recovered, and was still trying to take classes on the side to work towards fulfillment of requirements for my RYT certification. (Which I'm currently dragging my feet on... oof) Following a cold camping trip I contracted bronchitis and strep, which hit me hard. I had a significant falling out with someone I had come to think of as a friend during that time, while a design project spiraled out of control. All of those things combined to leave me sicker than I've been since 2016, when overtraining left me laying on the couch for months at a time. 

A couple of weeks after treatment for strep, in the midst of the foggy exhaustion that plagued me for most of April, I woke one morning and couldn't taste or smell anything. Leading up to this, I had been suspicious the antibiotics had not completely killed off the strep, and had other strange symptoms alongside, like pain in my armpits and dry eyes. Of course, I was tested for covid. I felt sicker as the day went on, and hunkered down in the bedroom and even made Luna, my very fluffy cat, stay out. The next morning I received a call saying my results were negative - huge relief - and returned to urgent care. We ended up retreating my strep, and I was feeling much better by that night. I still struggle to smell little things, like a lip balm I regularly use, and don't really have any explanation. 

Rightfully so, I'd like to avoid getting sick. I'm not willing to self sacrifice. Nor am I willing to risk my child's health - he's my only one, and we are casting our entire lot on him, all of our love. I want to avoid the risk of causing others to be ill, too. Facts and figures aside, my gut tells me that this time of discomfort is a way for our family to contribute to the greater good by continuing to limit our exposure to uncontrolled public gatherings. When disagreement led to the disbanding of a friendship, I told that person I wanted to get out of their way. I'm doing that now, too.

The Crash

I adore Brian Cox. Talk physics to me. Whisper it in my ear.

It was bound to happen sometime.

We learn Newton's first three laws in school. Entropy, that sneaky little secret knot at the end, ties it all together.

Everything falls apart.

Life is a constant battle against entropy. We mow the yard, wash the dishes, sweep the floor. The ants fight to bring the nature back inside while we try to bar them at the door. Out in the woods, where things make sense, the trees are growing to die to grow again. It's cyclical. The fourth law tells us entropy is constant, and whatever we do will eventually be laid to waste by forces beyond our control.

Does depression makes its place at your table when you read that? Sit with it. Make a place for what you read instead of the sadness you feel. The trees are not sad.

My body has gone the way of the lawn that's been mowed too much, the horse whose wind was broke.

It's broken for a while. Where this will take me, I don't know, but I'm learning to make a place for the reality instead of all the feelings when I respond to the sensation.

I'm reminding myself that movement isn't cancelled. It has been changed. Smaller, slower, stiller. But I am still me, movement doesn't make me. The stress that led to this isn't me, even though my mind and body struggle to identify real threats - lions and tigers - from modern threats.

This was coming for a while, evident in the moments when the words I needed were like red balloons released from a toddler's hand and drifting out of reach to the sky. The tiny pieces of sand added up to make a beach, drops that made an ocean, until I was so full and still didn't listen.

The pattern is easy to see when I look back. In the same way constellations would be hard to see if we were in the midst of them, I can't blame myself for running myself down with stress and activity. Now... now, I must be still, so I can chart my course to whatever the next destination will be. Never has there been a better time to seek stillness, quietness, smallness, than now.

Being ill - with whatever is actually it is that makes me feel this way deep into the tissues that never see the light - has forced me to be willing to allow myself to evolve. Can I embrace whatever new me lies ahead? Yes. I hope I can carry so much of the old me along.

If there is a lesson here, it's this: Stillness can be a movement, too.

Subtle Quality vs. Depth - Or, Why Is One Not Like The Other One

Life is odd right now. Can we all just agree on that?

YES.

Just say it, own it, admit it. Loudly, emphatically. May I encourage you to make it your rooftop ballad for the evening? Serenade your neighbors - we are all home anyway - with the song of your people. Own it. Because when we try to run from the fear of the unknown and shove our heads in the sand, the only one fooled is the person covering their head and saying nothing is happening. Everyone else knows you are lying to yourself. Can you embrace the nebulous state of the world and maybe even, dare I say it?, embrace your fear?

Look, as ever, I promise I am taking you somewhere. This will not be an eternal call to embrace being afraid. No one really wants the fear, the heartbeat racing, cortisol spiking, bad dream bringing, anger brining insanity of any of this. But we can't hide from it either. We all have our coping mechanism. Mine is: Move.

To quote Saint Motel (one of my all-time favorite hot Sunday at Bonnaroo shows), "Head, shoulders, knees, toes, Look alive, it's time to go..." Or maybe Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" is a bit more your speed.

All I am asking is, can you look a little alive and less like you're staring death down, because life is short. So I choose to make this happen with yoga. Yesterday I went a little off the track I normally follow - move, move, move, move, move, to slow down the rippling waves that bowl over the depths of my mind, the only way to get everything to just stop and be still, because if I am winded I can't think as much - and I chose a still-er than normal class. The class reminded me that sometimes when you are a pot of boiling water (raises hand) all that's necessary is to occasionally pull the pot from the stove so the water molecules slow themselves the hell down and stop being so excited all the time. It sounds like I'm talking chemistry now, and maybe I am, because aren't we all just built out of chemicals anyway?

Or maybe I am talking about cooking, because lately my insides have felt famished. Hungry for depth and complexity. But yesterday, I finally heard the call to be still and listen. It's not like no one has ever said to me,

"Honey, could you be still and listen to what is going on in that mind and heart of yours?"

For the first time, my brain said, "Oh, okay. This is novel."

On my mat in my living room, I saw that when I calm the waters, there's no depth needed. The ripples clear and everything is right in front of me and all I have to do is look to find the subtle qualities I seek in yoga, in my mind, when I write and paint and create. No, depth is not bad. But depth was perhaps not the destination at which I wished to arrive. I was cooking the wrong things, possibly, following the wrong recipe or mixing up the wrong compound when all I needed to do was take the pot off the stove eye, remove it from the flame, and let the air bubbles settle. Right there, just below the rolling surface, was complexity. I didn't need to dive deep for it.

Depth implies that seeing involves a struggle. Subtlety only asks that we observe.

I ask myself all the time, "How can I write like (enter author here)?" Perhaps the depth I seek from their work is the subtlety I can lend to my own work. Shall I choose rather than deep dives to sit with something small and explore it infinitely? Is that where my power lies, as a creator?

When Learning Feels Like Failing

Lately, I have found myself in some sticky, tricky situations.

I am learning that I know pretty much absolutely nothing.

No one tells anyone adulting is like this. So I am here to say it. 

If you are growing and expanding, trying things and accepting new responsibility, there will be a time when you realize you have no clue what you are doing.

Can we just set aside the shame? 

Can we say to ourselves, maybe loudly,

I am 36 and I don't know what I am doing. 

Ew. Did that feel yucky? That's ok. Of course, you wouldn't say you were 36. Unless you actually are, and that's a good time to figure out your knowledge fills a tiny pool. That pool might be deep and specialized, but it's still just a pool.

Are you hopping from pool to pool? Pool hoppers, I hear you. Hopping is easy, and you think you've really paddled around, but then there are all these fathoms beneath you. They're down there doing what fathoms do, stretching away into black, and this pool contains way more than you thought.

Whether you're someone changing the size of your own pool or you're a hopper sinking deep, brace yourself, because I have some crazy advice. You'll have to use your voice again. Clear your throat and maybe grab your phone.

ASK FOR HELP.

That's right. Most of these pools you land in have other occupants. There's no reason to feel frantic and alone. Ask a friend, ask a coworker, ask the previous director. Ask them to join you for coffee. Invite them to lunch. Send an email and admit it: you don't know anything about anything, even though you know something about something, and you desperately need some help to learn more about something so you can do your job really well. Accept beginnerness. Regardless of your age and the expectation that you should already KNOW.

If last year was my year to be ridiculously comfortable being uncomfortable, this is my year to accept that I know way less about nearly everything than I ever thought I did. Management, production, publishing, sewing a cuff on a shirt, teaching. My awareness has expanded (occasionally under duress!) to the point where I am clued into the massive collection of knowledge outside the circle of what I know. Is this the Dunnen-Kreuger effect on a grand scale? Likely. Does it ever get better? Unknown. All I know for sure is that I left safety and surety behind a while ago and to get it back I would need to go back to living smaller. And I want to grow.