Remember when I said, just two short weeks ago, that the way I get through the closure-of-the-world-as-we’ve-known-it is to stay disciplined? Ah, I remember the woman who said that, the one who who apparently got up every morning, clear-eyed, put on her lounge pants, grabbed her yoga mat, and proceeded into the day with Purpose. That woman, who liked, however subtly, to offer such advice. Who went on as if life were normal.
I don’t know about you, but I am not normal. I admit I have never been normal, and also I admit I don’t know what normal is, or was, or will be, but nevertheless, I feel less normal than ever. If I were to slap a label on the present moment, I would say “anxious”—as capable a word as I can come up with for this feeling of unspecified dread. My insides tingle. Prick me with a pin and I might hit the ceiling. I can’t settle. I keep reading mysteries, one after the other, because I can get lost in them and know that the bad guys/gals will get caught. Not so in life.
I could enumerate all the things that trouble the heck out of me right now, but you know what most of them are. I’m exhausted with my emails that begin, DOES FLEDA APPROVE OF MITCH MCCONNELL? FLEDA, FAILURE WILL BE OUR GRIM REALITY IF WE DON’T RAISE . . . “
There’s that. And then there’s this summer, children and grandchildren scattered to the four corners. Who will be able to come to the lake? When will we feel safe to travel? And there’s Traverse City itself, minus the Cherry Festival, the Film Festival, etc., staggering along as its business owners figure how many more months of this they can endure without giving up. Add to this the rest of the world, same situation.
When I go into a grocery store, I feel so abnormal I’m almost staggering, myself. For one thing, it’s harder to breathe. Literally, through a mask. And figuratively. I noticed the very first time I went in a grocery store in person (after using Instacart a few times) that I felt slightly breathless when I got inside. Tense. Hurried. Mostly I’ve made the choice to do our shopping myself, so I must not feel too threatened. But still: I’m surrounded or not surrounded by invisible virus. Other people in the store may or may not be safe.
Doesn’t go away outside the store, either. Is that person too close to me on the trail? On the big front lawn? I’m not paranoid. I don’t panic over it. It just nags me a little, that feeling.
I dwell in an alien land where time has essentially stopped. All my regular health and beauty support teams have retreated into the shadows. I keep snipping on my hair, never getting it quite right. As for my work, my writing, it’s in limbo—a new book of poems is coming out next winter (Yay!), and I have a collection of essays that will be searching for a publisher in the fall. So I have that floaty feeling I get between finished books, but it’s more than that. It’s a general limbo feeling.
I faithfully do Zooms. We do our family Zooms, and heaven knows they help. A few times we’ve gotten together with friends outside, at a distance. I have no complaints whatsoever, actually. But let me put it this way: you know those sensory deprivation tanks where you’re suspended in Epsom salt water at body temperature, to relax you? You can’t stay in there too long. I’ve passed the limit.
This is today. Tomorrow I may be completely plugged in again, excited about something. Or the next day. If I’m able to tell one day from the next.