Be-ing in Covid-19: Another Monday

The days are melting together like ice cubes on the table.

It doesn't feel right.

Was it meant to be like this?

Just sitting there, not where it belongs, refusing to leave.

Until it has succumbed to the atmosphere, outside it's element,  and gives up its existence.

The days are melting together like ice cubes on the table.

This is another Covid-19 Monday.  I think I'm beginning to lose count of the days. My daughter said she feels like she is in an endless loop of Groundhog Days. When do we wake up from this nightmare?  When do we know that we can start the day and not be greeted with news of yet another one passing? When do we get to open our doors and be human again, together?

There have been attempts to try to keep a normal schedule. I certainly have. Morning greets me with her gentle kiss and I begin the days in hope. My routine begins and ends with coffee, time in meditation in the ancient wisdom and poetry of the Hebrew Bible, and ends with a nod to the day. I begin, I sit at my laptop and I begin.

I thought it would be no different for me, I work at home anyway. How hard would it be to sit here and do what I do, Monday-Thursday?

It is harder, each day.

Harder because Zoom is exhausting.

Harder because death looms in the air and you wonder if the one who Zoomed with yesterday is like you, praying for the life of someone dearly loved?

Harder because what was supposed to be has come to a crashing stop.

So, we try, every day, to look out at the trees and see something new.

The wisteria started to bloom, that's nice.

Sunshine is trying to peak through the morning cloud cover that is this Midwest spring, that is nice.

The birds sang their morning praise, that's nice.

Life is still happening.

The occasional delivery truck quickly brings sustenance to cloistered homes and zips back to safety.

Dogs still have their morning constitutional and masked walkers try to hurry them along.

It is quiet, though, on my street.

Almost too quiet.

Is that the point of all this, that we are supposed to just sit here, sit in the stillness and ponder what we took for granted? The nonchalance with which we went to the grocery store for more than the hope of toilet paper and bread. The casual meetings at the coffee shop over beans we neither picked nor roasted and easily plopped down $5 for a latte. The mall as meeting place for consuming more to make us feellooksmellbe better.

Did we collectively take it all for granted?

What if I didn't complain about the three-hour-practices during track season that interrupted my time - at home?

What if we didn't begrudge driving across town for that one hours meeting when the time it took to prepare and drive was much longer?

What if we actually cared for the people we met every day while out in the world?

How do we consider being new?

What does that even look like?

We have never been here before.

And, perhaps that is the point the universe wants us to know. This is the great unknowable.

We may never know, so we have to trust.

Trust in ourselves to remember to do what we can to be healthy, trust in our neighbors to do the same. We have no choice, we are not in this by ourselves.

So, we start another Covid-19 with weary parents teachings students subjects they long forgot. Or meetings planned where we hope the virtual background works because we didn't invite our coworkers into our homes. We start again, counting how many rolls of toilet paper and bars of soap we have until we have to put on the ask and go out into the world.

We start again, every day. Every one is new and different and necessary for us to bring our whole being into it.

#AloneTogether is the new hashtag that is circulating through social media and commercials. We are being reminded of this.

And one day, we will open our doors again and hopefully, we will emerge ready to embrace the gift of each other and of be-ing in community together, and never take it for granted again.