September Blue

In mid-July I had my first routine doctor’s appointment since quarantine. After navigating the COVID-19 intake procedures – wait in vehicle, take temp, wash hands – then reclining in the space chair for a howdy-do chat, my podiatrist, Dr. Garbus, talked to me about the “new stress.” His eyes were emphatic above his mask.  “People are stressed-out with all the free time,” he said. “They’ve over-tasked themselves to clean out their closets and attics, to learn a new language, to write a book.”

“Yup. I get it. Me too. Literally,” I said and thought about it while he scraped the barnacles off my feet. In the months since the shutdown which for me started on March 15th when my job disintegrated and my daughter moved home from Brooklyn, I have cleaned out my closet and basement, renovated our bathroom, expanded our gardens, designed a website, created a writing course, facilitated four ten week sessions of that course, and began writing a second book. My daughter and I have tie-dyed more than forty shirts, painted rocks and terra cotta pots, and made soul collages. As a family, we’ve done regular online yoga classes, taken daily walks and hiked trails I didn’t know existed in our county, cooked every meal, effectively enhancing our culinary skills and our waistlines, and we’ve watched or re-watched multiple seasons of multiple TV episodics and now we’re onto movies. Plus, we completed a 1000 piece puzzle with a lot of white space. 

I didn’t realize it until my little chat with Dr. Garbus, but I had instantly shifted my Type-A human-doing into quarantine overdrive. Why? I wondered. Was I avoiding my fears about the modern day complexities of this mortal coil that have been exacerbated by a pandemic? I didn’t know, and decided to dial it back to find out. 

So, at the end of July, I signed up for a free 21 day Deepak Chopra meditation challenge and a free 40 day Course in Miracles crash course and started listening to audio books on Mindfulness while folding laundry and cleaning the house. By the end of August, I’d awakened my chakras and managed to breathe my way into moments of bliss. I’d learned to forgive my transgressors, detach from expectations, and accept all that is including the chipmunks ravaging my garden. But then the calendar flipped, the courses ended, and I dropped into a funk. 

When I told a friend I was having a hard time getting out of bed, she identified and said she felt that a sort of torpor had set in for many of us.

I countered, “Yeah, but I generally feel excited for Autumn, the sense of harvest and the coming holiday season. I love the blue September sky, but this year…”

“Well, yeah, this year there’s no looking forward. There’s no planning. We don’t know what to expect from day to day.” 

She was right, the to be or not to be-ness of COVID-19 semi-quarantine had gotten to me. So what’s my point? 

I’m reminded of the Zen proverb: Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. 

I don’t have a point. I only know that I got out of bed to write this blog post, and that’s reason enough for me today. Now it’s time to breathe and stare at the sky.