Category life

We’re all in this together (alone)

caravanofcomposition 2 Comments

Despite my propensity to dance, sing off-key, or challenge strangers to pushup contests in public, I truly am an introvert at heart. I know this because if given the choice between going to a party or snuggling up with a book/cat/cup of tea, I choose the latter. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy hanging out with friends and having fun, but at the end of the night I need to be alone and recharge. Raised in a loud, outgoing, Italian-American family, I often hid in my room during parties, scribbling in my journal, feeling simultaneously content and depressed for missing out on the festivities. Therein lies the conundrum. I like to be alone, but I’m also desperate to feel included. Ah, the dilemma of a socially awkward, attention seeking introvert.

The pandemic has been a blessing and a curse. Okay, mostly a curse. The up side is extra time spent with my family, being able to do my job with a cat on my lap (when we return to the office I may have to bring him with me), and considerably more free time now that everything has been canceled. The down side is, of course, that everything has been canceled. No more activities for the boys means they never leave the house, and now that our area is seeing a rise in cases, hybrid school became remote school once again. Coupled with the colder weather means they truly never leave the house. Ever. Or change out of pajama pants.

I worry, pretty much on a constant basis, that the next few months will make or break us. We survived the initial shock of the pandemic, the phase I like to call, “Fear overload.” I watched daily news briefings, tracked cases and deaths on a spreadsheet, and sanitized everything. I cried in the parking lot of our local grocery store after watching a teenage clerk in full PPE look completely shell-shocked as he wiped down the checkout lane. I worried about getting sick, about my family getting sick, about losing our jobs, about the people who had gotten sick/lost their jobs/lost their family members. It was a downward spiral that landed me face down in my pillow nearly every day.

When things began to improve, both the weather and our numbers, my worry subsided. We took advantage of a soccer-free summer and enjoyed extra time at the lake. I finally started reading again, something I hadn’t been able to do since the pandemic started. But I missed my friends, my co-workers, eating inside restaurants. And in the back of my mind, I knew things would get bad when the weather changed.

It has. Our county is breaking records in daily cases and the hospitals have filled up yet again. My nurse friend assures me that it is better this time around because they know what they are dealing with, but the media and government push out fear like candy. We’re back on lockdown again, not completely, but on the cusp, and with the long, dark, cold winter months still ahead of us. Before? I didn’t know a single person with the virus. Now? Every week someone else in our circle tests positive. Thankfully, they are all surviving, but it feels like the walls of inevitability are closing in, and I’m worried I won’t be able to keep my family safe anymore. Or sane.

How do we stay positive when everything is constantly so bleak? I don’t have the answer. I’m taking each day as it comes, and looking for ways to find joy. I’ve started volunteering at a local cat shelter because it gets me out of the house once a week. (Also, cats!) I try to walk outside when the weather isn’t terrible, but that’s getting more difficult with each dropped degree. I joined our local online Buy Nothing group, a movement that encourages the free exchange of goods among neighbors. It’s helped me declutter a bit and also provides the opportunity for safe social interactions. Last weekend I watched a movie simultaneously with two friends and we chatted along the way via text. It was a tiny shred of normal, and it gave me hope.

The isolation has changed us, or at least it has changed me. I will never take my local coffee shop for granted, ever. Or the library. Or any of the front line workers who face this beast every day. I make a conscious effort to be kind to any human I interact with, because we are all carrying worry and heartache, some far beyond what I can even imagine. What we need now isn’t government control, or mudslinging commentary. We need compassion. Empathy. Patience. We need to unite for the good of humanity. We need to get through this together (alone).

Peace to all my friends, family, followers. Stay safe, and be kind. ❤

The importance of real pants

caravanofcomposition 2 Comments

Social media memories are a blessing and a curse. I love looking back on times when my boys were cute and cuddly and my face had fewer wrinkles. But during a pandemic, it is heart wrenching to wake up, click memories, and be instantly reminded that we can’t do those things right now.

Three years ago today, the weather was beautiful, and we had a packed Saturday. I hung out with my family at our town’s annual Oktoberfest, where the boys participated (and ROCKED) a keg rolling contest, and then headed to our local library to celebrate the launch of my friend’s latest middle grade novel. We ate snacks from a communal table, sat next to each other, and hugged.

Hugged.

Now, I’m not much of a hugger to begin with, but I miss that human connection. I miss Wednesday night writing sessions at Wegmans and Friday afternoon gab sessions at Spot. I miss launch parties. My book releases next week, and I don’t have anything planned to help launch it into the world. Many of my writer friends continue to self-quarantine, and the thought of doing something virtual does not exactly thrill me. While I appreciate their ability to connect us safely, I am pretty burnt out on web-based social gatherings.

Our local writing group held its first meeting of the season (virtually of course) earlier this week. It was a craft session, which is always fun, 80’s themed – double bonus points, but I just couldn’t get into it. I missed the collective energy normally felt in a room full of writers. I stared at the blank page as it mocked me.

I had to finish a project in March/April due to a deadline, but since then? I’ve written once. And only because one of my Pennwriters friends organized a virtual write-in, and I felt like I had to write something in order to not be a complete fraud. I pulled out an old project, added about a page and a half, and that was it. The sum total of my writing output for the past six months.

There are projects. There are ideas. There is also a very tired mama who doesn’t wear real pants anymore. Who thinks, do my stories even matter? With so much hate and hurt in the world, what could I possibly add to the narrative? I keep waiting for the proverbial lightbulb to go off in my head. For the magical idea that will send my fingers tap-tapping again. Do you know how many blog posts I’ve drafted in my head these past several months? The sleepless nights I spent thinking, “This is what I have to say,” then instead of getting out of bed and writing it down, allowed my nay-saying brain to dismiss it all?

(A LOT.)

The world needs stories, especially now. Cheerful ones, sad ones, true ones, and fictional ones. We need to step away from social media, from the negative energy of everyone spewing their anger and ideals and also from the memories of all the things we can’t enjoy right now. I’m confident those days will return – the days of launch parties and writing/gab sessions. In the meantime, we need to keep doing the best we can, no matter how low the bar. This morning I put on real pants. They are uncomfortable. But I needed to send a message to my brain that this is serious. Life must move forward. Fingers must hit keys in order for words to get onto the page. They don’t do anyone any good swimming around in my brain like lost tourists.

So here we are. Doing that thing where the journey starts with a single step. Mask up and join me.

Time won’t give me time*

caravanofcomposition 10 Comments

With all this extra time I should be writing more, right? I should be reading more, binging more shows, baking, organizing my house, learning a new skill. I’m not. I don’t know where the time goes, really. In the beginning it was spent watching daily news briefings, mindlessly scrolling through social media, and feeling hopeless. Recently? Who knows.

I’ve become an expert at wasting time.

Does that count as a new skill?

I’ve started a blog post in my head more times than I’d like to admit, but nothing ever gets to the page, and I wonder if perhaps it is because my brain can’t seem to handle more than bite-sized information lately. I no longer plan meals for the week, no longer coordinate who needs to be where/when, no longer need to hold a hundred things in my head because those hundred things have all been canceled.

Last night my critique group met for the second time during the pandemic. I’m embarrassed that I have had nothing to share, nothing to show for my three months with hours of empty afternoons to write. Part of the issue is that the space where I normally write became my home office, and as much as I love my day job, its accessories and post-it notes are not inspiring. The other part? I’ve been tired, and sad, and listless.

But I want to write.

I need to write.

My novel waits, eager for the next scene. It has become impatient.

Today, I set out to write something, anything. I wrote a journal entry that turned into a poem, and while somewhat gloomy, helped shake off some of the cobwebs and remind me of the healing power of words. I’d love to hear what you think, and to hear about all the things you haven’t been doing with all your extra time.

BRUISED

Sometimes,
the weight of everything
crushes me.

Husband asks what’s wrong
and I try to explain –
but the words all sound
trivial.

Each tiny problem
seemingly insignificant
until you pile them
all together
and begin to
suffocate.

He wants to compartmentalize –
take each one and solve it,
or if we can’t solve it,
push it aside like the basket
of bread at dinner.

He tells me to
control what I can control.

Therein lies the quandary.

There is so little
I can truly control.
So little predictability,
routine,
normalcy.

The only thing left are my reactions,
which – if I’m being honest –
are out of my control
most days.

For some,
these tiny,
insignificant things are
much larger,
much heavier.

Loss of work,
Illness, death,
Fear that pulls like a riptide.

I have suffered only one of these.

I am lucky.

But, whenever I stop
to think about that luck,
the weight of other people’s suffering
sits on my chest and refuses to budge.

We will crawl out
from under this.

We must.

With scars and bruises that may
never truly heal.

 

*the title of this blog post comes from my favorite Culture Club song, Time (Clock of the Heart)

Alphabetic Exploration of a Virus

caravanofcomposition 1 Comment

Last weekend a friend and colleague who teaches Creative Writing sent me a challenge:  write a poem where each line begins with the letters of the alphabet in succession. Back in my teen angst poetry writing days, I did something similar as a dedication to a good friend. It rhymed, was full of goofy inside jokes, and had the sappiest ending:

Y is for You at Cornell in “Vet style”
Z is for NaZ where I’m missing your smile

When I sat down to write the abc poem last weekend, I knew it had to address what’s been going on in the world — the dark, hopelessness we are all feeling. The uncertainty of each day, of what the future holds. Here is what I came up with:

Alphabetic Exploration of a Virus

Alone. The only way to
be safe, to stop the
contagion.

Don’t trust your neighbors.

Everyone is at risk
as we are all
forced inside.

Gone are feelings of
HOPE.

Instead we
journal our deepest fears,
keep our
loved ones distant, hold onto
memories like moments that may
never happen again.

Once upon a future,
when the danger has
passed, when the
quiet streets
return to their
steady pulse of life, only
then will we
understand how deeply the
virus changed us.

Humans full of
worry, a global community turned
xenophobic.

Can our
youth—the risk-taking Generation
Z—help us rebuild?