Day after Day

I continue to be surprised at how the shelter-at-home rules have affected me. Having no demands on my time has led me to create them—not as many as my life used to offer me, but just enough to make me feel attached to life.

 

Yesterday, in response to yet another headache, I declared myself free of obligations for the day. I didn't even go near the sewing machine to make masks, which made it feel like a complete holiday. Instead I continued reading Richard Russo's Nobody's Fool, a 600-page tour de force of humanity and insight and humour as he presents us with the picture of a man and his town. I'm so engrossed in it that when I got up at 3, having been awake since 2, I read until 5 in the morning then went back to bed and thought about the book until 6. So there was as much Richard Russo last night as there was sleep.

 

In response to my reading this, DinoVino, whose film collection is peerless and endless, pulled out the star-packed film of Russo's Empire Falls, thus doubly immersing me in his very human world. But this one contains Paul Newman, and I later imagined that he was tucked away in the back of my mind ready to be pulled out on a whim, to star in my thoughts. Apparently film stars never die but linger on in our minds forever.

 

So where was I? I was abandoning my mask-making in order to read. Of course, I also spent time on the computer. Since the lockdown, the number of email messages has increased a hundredfold as every friend, relative, and acquaintance shares with me the latest articles or cartoons or bawdy songs or beautiful classical music concerts. Our hearts are so open these days that we are hit hard by the images and then of course we want to share them with friends. (Thank goodness I'm not on Facebook, is all I can say.)

 

A link arrives sending me to an a capella quartet singing a charming arrangement of "Smile" and I send it to two friends and the next day I want to send it to half a dozen more. And at each impulse to send I have to balance who the friend is, how much I might have sent her recently, whether the link I want to send is now so popular that everyone has already seen it (for even worse than receiving all those links is receiving them for the third time) and worse than that is receiving them for the third time from the same person, so I have to go to my Sent file and figure out what to send to whom and then in hesitation I don't send anything to anyone and I fret that this link might have been the one thing to bring joy to that person and it's all my fault that she didn't see it. And so my day goes: an agony of indecision and guilt.

 

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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Ups and Downs

My life follows a sawtooth pattern these days. Regularly I am up, then down; up, then down. I've given up railing about this. Instead I make the effort to surf (if I may mix my metaphors). I don't want to rant about being down, but I also don't want to ignore or (worse) deny it. So I've taken to allowing myself to feel what I feel (and it took me how many years to learn this?). If I'm too depressed to go for a walk, then I allow myself to nap for ten or fifteen minutes and if I still don't want to help myself by adding some fresh air to the mix, then I grab the least serious book I can find and dive into it. Yesterday was a rereading of one of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels.

 

I know that eventually I won't be depressed (the whole point of a sawtooth is its even ups and downs) and there'll be plenty of time then to do what needs to be done. And even on a day when I'm at the bottom of the sawtooth, there's always the kitchen.

 

I find it hard these days to make decisions about meals, so I involve DinoVino in the process. And after we devise a menu for the day, one of us has to remember to write down the plans or we'll have to start the process all over. But once the menu is set, I'm good to go. I chop and dice and grate wholeheartedly. These days almost every meal seems to involve an anchovy or two, and I love filleting those little salted fish, stripping out the bone so I can chop the flesh and drop it into hot oil, where it will dissolve into its sauce and make us very happy.

 

We are eating more and better than ever before despite (or because of) the fact that we aren't going out to eat. It's dangerous to make eating your new hobby.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00JI4758O

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Worrying

I told a friend just today:

Gather up those worries

("concerns" she had called them).

Acknowledge them, for no worry will put up with

being shoved into the cellar of your mind.

Then bless them.

Then let them go.

"Easy like pie," as my old Ukrainian boss

used to say.

 

Well, no. Not easy.

As simple as a circle,

but in no way easy.

 

You have to be willing to let go, for example.

And if you've built a happy home for yourself

in the midst of your worries,

if you are of the "worries R us" crowd,

then you might wonder what will remain

if you let them go.

 

So: not easy, no. What's needed here

is a little clarity.

How badly do I need and want those worries?

Figuring that out is step number one.

 

Oh, stop analyzing.

Here's the thing:

Collect.

Acknowledge.

Bless.

Then let go.

 

Easy like pie.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00JI4758O

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How Is Your Life?

"How's your wife?"

My father would present this riddle/joke

to anyone in the vicinity.

The answer, known by his children

who had heard it all before,

was: "I do."

 

And while you ponder that

I will tackle the more pertinent question:

How is your life?
It might be the case

that an enlightened soul's answer today

is the same as it would have been, say,

this time last year.

But for more ordinary souls

today's answer more likely reflects

the deep angst and endless sorrow

and recurring anxiety

caused by the disruption

of everything we thought

we knew to be true.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00JI4758O

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Hard Times

How difficult it is for so many people to be cooped up in this unfamiliar way with family. Surviving it will take wisdom and insight: two parents working from home, one or two or three children wandering the rooms waiting for the entertainment to arrive.

 

What came to my mind last night was kindness. Forget wisdom and insight, both of which might take years of therapy or meditation to develop. Just focus on kindness. When you are ready to throw the kettle (metaphorically) at your spouse, remember kindness. Remember that both of you are hurting, feeling deprived, put-upon, misunderstood. Just remove your hand from the kettle and settle for kindness. I'll even grant you some slack and say you don't actually have to manifest the kindness as a positive action. All I'm asking is a momentary flash of kindness that will act like the steam vent on a pressure cooker. Poof! The steam escapes and the pot can return to its slow simmer. No harm done.

 

All we can bring to each other during these stuck-inside days is kindness. No, that isn't quite right. The least we can bring is kindness. At better moments we can add in some humour (preferably not cutting humour or sarcasm), or some extra physical help. Or a hard-won serenity that will communicate itself to the surroundings.

 

But if you can't at the moment manage humour, if you are ready to pop, break, explode, murder, or maim, then take a breath (did I mention breathing?), physically step aside, and change the energy with kindness.

 

Change the energy! That's what I used to counsel one of my daughters when her small children were driving her around the bend: change the energy. Put on music and dance with a lamp-shade on your head. They'll be too shocked to continue their argument. Or if the energy is already frantic, then go outside or into another room, with or without the children.

 

I've long been aware, when on the subway, of how charged the energy is within the trains and the stations. But when you are in it you don't realize how tense and breathless you have become. It is only when you go through the station doors to the outside air that you sense the silence.

 

In our daily coronavirus pressure cookers, let us carry the tools with us: breath, kindness. Let us watch for warning signs and then do what we can to forestall the out-of-control moment.

 

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00JI4758O

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