Day 30 of “Hi, you can’t leave your house because you are sick or other people are sick.”
Spotify has paid for itself these past weeks and has supplied me with a never-ending larder of plucky guitars with thoughtful, raspy female voices leaning into their bluegrass roots and powdery-voiced men whistling an accompanying melody to their so obviously heartfelt lyrics.
I’ve danced with myself in the kitchen a few times. Twirled in circles while imagining that my apron was a long broomstick skirt and that maybe my hair was waist length with a crown of daisies plucked fresh from a cow pasture at sunset.
I’ve stared out the window as tears rolled down my face, worrying about my dear Julie who has the virus and is currently laying in a hospital bed while a machine breathes for her. In the background, someone named “Nanci Griffith” sang about “Boots of Spanish Leather” and how she was sailing away in the morning and was there something she could send me from across the sea? Of course I imagined that Julie was somehow telegraphing her messages to me from across the brainwaves and that I, alone, would have to carry out her wishes if she didn’t make it.
Thankfully, I’m just a giant crybaby and she’s still fighting, asleep in a Propofol coma while the whirring and cranking of some manmade machine decides, second by second, that she is alive.
This whole thing has been so surreal and upending, as expected, but the surprising part is that there are moments of real fear. It’s an emotion I don’t quite know what to do with because I’m just not that girl. I know joy. I know rage. I know resolve. But fear? What do you do with that?
I’ve made lists of all the things I should do with my time. I’ve actually done some of those things but I’ve mostly avoided the things that I’ve already avoided when things were “normal” so in case you were wondering, dear reader, tribulation is not a motivator.
Still, I’ve built a few websites and boxed up my winter clothes and sent off some paperwork and done a few good deeds without telling anyone. I’ll still sit here at this desk, wondering what to do with myself more often than I would like but I’m mostly ok. I’m mostly ok. I’ll say it again because it sounds so strange…I’m mostly ok.
A few things have been decided during this lockdown. I won’t ruin my momentum by writing them down here because that’s usually what does it…speak that shit into existence and I’m sure to avoid it. Instead, I’ll keep it close to my heart and just do it because the truth is, my best motivation is when I’ve got a secret. When that secret is close to my chest it’s like a hot little stone sitting right at the base of my throat and it burns there until I swallow or scream.
I’ve swallowed a lot in my life.
But it’s time to scream.
xo