Notes from January, Wondering about Spring
February 1, 2021
My house has been quiet this winter.
I work from 9 to 5. Before work, I work out. After work, I work out some more. I turn up the music, and sing along, but when the playlist ends, I can hear Sophie sigh in the basement.
I’ve been reading a lot of books, and I can hear my own breath, and the sound of each car that passes by, from my chair in the corner of the living room.
My daughter, Katy, keeps her door closed, but she doesn’t mind if I visit. When we talk, we use quiet voices, like we are sharing secrets. At this point, we don’t own any secrets, and there is no one around to overhear.
When I’m wiping the counters, or folding the laundry, I think about what I’d say to this friend from Quincy College, while we walked to Starbucks for lattes. I remember conversations with friends from church, while I sipped coffee, and munched on something dipped in hummus or cream cheese during social hour.
I think about who I should call, and when the call goes to voicemail, most of the time, I hang up because I don’t know where to start.There are big things going on the world outside of my own. I feel foolish and small because I don’t read the Times every day or, some weeks, at all.
All I can contribute to conversation is another story about Sophia that’s highpoint is she ate her dinner and wagged her tail. Since she was dying six months ago, that is a big deal, but I’ve told that story about fifty times. Though I am still filled with wonder, the miracle feels a little worn.
I watched a concert on my phone on Saturday night, Jason Isbell and Lyle Lovett, live-streaming from different corners of the world. They swapped stories in between songs, they laughed. Lyle went on about how brilliant Jason is on guitar, and Jason stood up and applauded a song Lyle wrote about his daughter. They were friends being friends, and I was as grateful to watch that part of the show as I was for the music. And the music was pretty damned good.
I am lonely, but I am blessed that the people I am most lonely for still call, text, and remember my birthday, (which is not good because I never remember anyone’s birthday.)
It is the night before snow falls. Tomorrow, when I walk, my steps will be muffled by snow.
I will think about spring, the season that is coming soon, the one with the daffodils, sunshine, allergies, when colors shift from black and white to shades of green.
I will also think about another spring, the one we are all waiting for, alone, and together.
Or maybe I won’t think at all. Maybe, I will just walk and enjoy the morning.
We will get to where we want to be.
I will try to appreciate the quiet of staying at home, with the people I love.
(I hope they still love me when this is over- the workouts are pretty noisy, and I’m not always mindful of the fact that not everyone wants to hear Britney snarling “you gotta work, bitch” at seven am on a Monday or anytime, actually- that will be another miracle.)
Deep sigh…I don’t know where to start.
I started a new job that requires eight hours a day of training, in a tiny office just off the tv room, next to the pellet stove, five feet away from the back door. I work in front of one lap top and two huge monitors, one of which is pushed to the back of my desk and is dark. The training is challenging, the others in my class are rock stars, my leader is patient, funny, and patient.
I start every morning at 8:50 am, and am in my chair until 5. Lunch is glorious, and usually consists of avocado toast, eaten during class time so that during my allotted hour, I can take Sophia the Amazing for a walk, clean the kitchen, or workout in the living room, while Sophie watches from the couch or tries to climb up my thigh.
Dinner is a work in progress, either oven fried chicken, (Sophie’s favorite,) smoothies, (Katy and I ate too much at lunch,) or whatever looked good the night before when I googled recipes for what we have in the fridge.
Most nights, there is a workout, just because my body and my soul feel the need to jump around after spending the day in a chair learning things.
When I’m lucky, there is tv with Katy, at the end of it all. We watched Anne With An E and have moved onto Designated Survivor. I miss commercials, sometimes. Sometimes, I remember the pause button.
Sometimes, I wish life had a pause button, and then I remember it does.
Bed is early. Before sleep, I watch The Office, because it’s leaving Netflix, and there is pressure. I read.
From time to time, I collapse on the mattress, find the sheet, turn out the light, and fall asleep, like it’s easy to sleep, these days.
In between, I floss, sweep, check the headlines, call my mom, fold laundry, wander around Amazon, sip coffee, ask Sheldon if he’s ok, use my water pick, sweep, argue with Katy over the state of her room, how to load the dishwasher, or whether or not it is bad manners to not respond to a cheery “Good morning”. She says any response, even if it’s a sigh, behind a door, under sheets, blankets, and a cat named Maurice, counts.
I miss Facebook and Instagram- looking at pictures of what everyone else is eating for dinner, hearing about bad days, and victories, checking out dogs, cats, kids, and home renovations.
I miss likes, conversations, writing things out, rewriting, saying something, and being heard.
We are all missing so much right now, and making adjustments.
My life is good, and different. I am lonely as hell, contented, scared, and grateful.
How you doin’?
Afternoon of Day One Corona Virus Milton Massachusetts
March 21, 2020
Afternoon of Day One-
A sock project created havoc in our schedule, but I can say with confidence, our socks all match.
Swaddled in layers, with a lunch bag of hand sanitizer, lysterine, and wipes, we went back over the beach and then the Marina.
Tonight, there are vegetables roasting in the oven, for vegetarian enchiladas. I’m washing my walls, and waiting to call my mom for the third time. I’m hoping Colin will call, and really hoping he’ll talk to me about more than whether or not I’ll wash his sneakers. I will wash his sneakers, but I like to keep him guessing.
I want to turn this time for reflection into something more than the opportunity to try out new mindfulness apps, more than frantic walks down the beach, dragging Sophie, who has had enough walks for the next six weeks, and field trips to the grocery store for honey and chicken.
I want to find a way to slow down, to settle in to our space and the state of things. It is time to be still.
Still is hard for me.
I think still is hard for all of us.
That is why I will start the day again tomorrow with a meditation.
I will put my phone away by 8 pm.
I will take Sophie around the block, and hike up a mountain.
I will recognize these are guidelines, and that things change.
I will recognize that when one is told by the universe to slow the #$$%^^ down, one gently applies the brakes.
There’s time to practice.
Places I Have Been To
September 10, 2013
I went to church last Sunday. It was the first Sunday of the church year. Everyone came early for a pancake breakfast hosted by the youth group. I’d actually been at the church since Saturday night since I had been one of the chaperones for the pre-pancake breakfast youth sleepover. (I am either a very brave or a very stupid woman.) As I moved around the halls, directed guests to the bathroom, and found a sugar bowl for somebody in the kitchen, it occurred to me- I feel at home here. I am a member of the club.
You know the feeling I’m talking about? When all the sudden you look around whatever space you are in and realize- you know where stuff is. You know the names of people around you, you even know if they are people worth knowing, and you move thru hallways and rooms with ease.
The church is the latest in a long series of places I made my own. I’m sure for many, school is the first thing that comes to mind. Not for me. As a matter of fact, for all the time I spent in school, my memories are mostly of feeling lost. Literally. I have a lousy sense of direction, every year classrooms are different, they were usually located on different floors. Kids in classes changed, and every few years, buildings changed. To make matters really difficult, when I was 12 my family moved from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
I suppose, on a much smaller level, I got a sense of it over at friends houses. Going over to Leslie’s and being able to drink from the water jug in the fridge reserved for family members. Over at my first boyfriend’s house, I was entrusted with the location of spare key, and knew the names of all of his cousins. He only had three cousins, but I’m not that good with names. And of course, the Stanfields. Their home became the back up home to many teenagers in Mountain Lakes. I knew where to find the corn nuts, and what bedroom was likely to be unoccupied, or mostly unoccupied. Of course, so did about seventy five other kids between the ages of 15 and 18. But it was nice, knowing my home wasn’t my only home. Especially since things weren’t always so easy in my home growing up.
Skip forward quite a few years. My first true sense of belonging to a group, and knowing where I fit in, was when I settled in Boston, and discovered the club scene. And the bands. (And the members of bands. Whole nother story.) And the drugs, and the right ratio of drugs and alcohol for just the right buzz. I remember how it felt to saunter up to the front a line, nod at the bouncer and walk in a front door. How I felt so damn special to be granted entrance into a dark, crowded smoky room, with minimal bathrooms, insane lines- to buy a drink, pee, even to grab a seat. I became familiar with the bartenders, did my research and sought out the johns no one else knew about, and became particularly skilled at lurking behind someone getting ready to leave, then swooping in for their spot at the bar before they’d even picked up their keys. I knew where the stairs were, where the elevators were, where the back doors were, who bartended on which night, and who might be willing to pay for my drinks.
And the best part… Everybody knew me. By name. After years of feeling pretty damn anonymous, I had circles and circles of friends. I had friends to go out to dinner with, friends to sleep with, friends to stay up all night with, friends to play scrabble with… I had lots and lots and lots of friends. I spent piles of money, had, from what I remember a damn good time, and woke up from it all when I was pregnant with my first child.
Then I went back to feeling like I had in school, a little bit lost.
When I sat down to write this, I was going to list all of the places in my life that weren’t my home, but that felt like home.
And this is what I found out- there were the clubs in Boston and Cambridge in the 90’s, there is the space between my two kids anywhere in the whole world, and there is my church. My church is a place that practices something called “radical hospitality”, and I guess they really, truly do. At least in my case. My church is a place where we have twenty minute conversations about which class will work for a nine year old who is more mature than most, but needs to make more friends in his grade. It is a place where there is always coffee, though I often have to make it, or find the filters. Where the minister is my friend, and I swim with the Youth Advisor most mornings, (not at the church, it’s not that nice.) And where when the conversation turns to Social Justice, and it often does, it is not in the abstract.
I’m glad I finally found my way there.
julierichmond 