Tag: empty nest

Shaken Up

There was a recent little on-line spat between a writer who wrote a depressing piece for Linked In, making an argument that New York City will never be the same again, due to this pandemic, and Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian, who rebutted this article, with his own opinion piece for The New York Times. Jerry was very sharp and angry and defensive, claiming that he himself will never give up on New York City. The original writer, a Manhattan comedy club owner, claims that many people have woken up to the idea that with today’s technology, many people can now live wherever they would like to live, by mostly working from home, and many people are finding other places to be cleaner, more affordable, and more restorative than living in New York City. The writer, James Altucher, suggests that the mass exodus from the city is not temporary.

I like visiting New York City. I have never had a desire to live there, but much like Jerry Seinfeld’s biggest argument about why New York City will make a roaring comeback, I know that there is a resilient, teeming, revitalizing energy in New York City that is seemingly non-replicable, anywhere else. I have felt it every time I have been there. This force of energy is, overwhelmingly, the best feature of the city, in my opinion.

That being said, I’m not going to write another piece about the redeeming and not so redeeming qualities of New York City. That is done and written ad nauseam, by more qualified writers than me. I think what struck me the most, about both of these articles, was the longing and the sadness which both men seemed to express about the loss of vitality that the city is currently experiencing. If, for argument’s sake, we want to call New York City, the energy center, the heart, and the pulse of our country, than New York City is currently being assisted by a early model pace maker with extremely weak batteries.

What I think a lot of us are deeply missing right now, no matter where we reside, even in our own bodies, is a sense of aliveness, liveliness, exuberance and vibrancy. When you feel limited, it is hard to get excited. When you can’t make plans with any sense of a good probability of the plans coming to fruition, it’s hard to muster up enthusiasm. Energy goes where energy flows and right now, many of us feel stagnant and restless, when we are not mired in apprehension and fear.

When we dropped off our youngest son at his off-campus university apartment last week, I got a little spoonful of that excited energy back. Much like NYC, there is a sizzling, underlying buzz that occurs, uniquely, in college towns. The energy there is youthful, hopeful, sometimes blindly optimistic, but full of wonder and desire and ardor and confidence, bordering on cockiness. It’s the kind of energy that fuels the flames in everyone’s heart, no matter what your age.

I am a believer that there will be a lot of changes in how and where people live and learn and work, even after a vaccine helps to tamp down the coronavirus. I think that this pandemic has been an eye-opening experience for the whole body of the world. But, even though science was never my favorite subject, even I know the first law of thermodynamics:

The first law of thermodynamics, also known as Law of Conservation of Energy, states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; energy can only be transferred or changed from one form to another. (lumenlearning.com)

We may think that the world has become listless and lifeless, but I believe that the energy, the very Lifeforce that sustains all of us, is alive and well and flowing. Energy cannot be destroyed. It is flowing fervently in the minds of the scientists and the medical experts as they race to find solutions to stopping the devastation of the virus. Energy is whirling in the passionate hearts of teachers who are having to find whole new ways to reach their students, and to help them to learn. It’s pulsating in the creativity of innovators who are changing the way they do business, in order to stay afloat in uncertain waters. And of course this Lifeforce keeps our medical teams, physically and emotionally resilient, as they put in long, hard, taxing days, doing their best, to save lives.

I think that on some of these seemingly endless days of the pandemic, when I feel lethargic and listless, and maybe even slightly depressed, I am going to envision that my energy stores are flowing somewhere else, where they are greatly needed. I am going to pray that my energy is giving vitality to where it is much demanded, such as for a coronavirus patient, struggling with everything they have, to just hang on to life. Remember, what we give, is always returned to us. I imagine that the good, good feeling of visualizing my own energy being used where it is needed, will restore my own coffers more quickly than I could have ever imagined, opening my mind, and my heart and my soul to possibilities which I would have never thought of before. Maybe the world’s energy has been shaken and stirred by this pandemic, like a horrendous storm or a planet-sized snow globe, but when everything finally settles down again, the world’s energy will be balanced like it has never been before, and we will be in total awe, of the easy flow of it all. I hope so, with the most fervent energy still left in my heart.

Path of Least Resistance

When life gives you a crazy ride with a pandemic, make jeeps!

I loved reading this news story about teachers who are trying to make this school year a little less scary and a little more fun for their students. At the “meet the teacher” event at the elementary school pictured above, the teachers handed their students “keys” to their individual cars. What a gift teachers are to this world! Today, my daughter starts her junior year of high school, in her bedroom. I am so thankful to her teachers, who are doing their best to make this hybrid “in-person/online” classroom situation work out for everyone, the best that they can, on a daily basis.

I’ve been reflecting on the idea that it is the shared love that we have for things, and people and places and passions, in our lives that really connects us. Think of what a unifying feeling it is, to share love for the same people, the same team, the same country, the same pets, the same state, the same school, the same hobby, the same favorite musician or band, the same ideals, the same religion, the same books, the same home, the same beach, the same profession, the same car, the same food, the same restaurant . . . . It is so refreshing and happily reflective to find people who share in our loves. It multiplies our joy.

Love really is the connector that lifts us, and sustains us, and gets us through our journey of life. And just because we feel a special connection to the people who love a lot of the same things that we do, we can still have a respect and a happiness that other people get zeal and joy from the things and the people and the places and the passions, which speak to them. We don’t have to convert others to our loves. We can just feel gratefulness that other people have found their own loves and their own passions, because the bottom line of it all, is that if we stay in our own lanes, there is no traffic. (I read that quote on Twitter recently and it has become my much-needed daily reminder mantra, as a well-intentioned, but highly overprotective woman/mother/wife/friend/family member during these strange and ambiguous times.)

If we are all riding on the easy street of flowing with our own loves, and our own passions, and our own inspirations, and our own well-being, and we are all living in the faith and the trust that others are capable of doing the same for themselves, and that there are enough pathways for all of us in this world, traffic jams and accidents and mass casualties, are a lot less likely to happen. If we trust that we can find what sustains us, and allow others to do the same for themselves, love flows. I think that life is meant to flow along the easy, light, beautiful, nourishing, sustaining energy of Love. It’s certainly the path of least resistance. And the path of Love is always wide open.

Soul Sunday

Good morning friends and readers. I hope that this post finds you in a peaceful place. Sundays, are a free flow of words in poetry. Sundays are poetry workshop days at Adulting – Second Half. I write a poem or I procure a poem from one of my readings, written by someone else. I strongly encourage you to add your poems to my Comments section. This is a no judgment zone. This is just a place to freely express what sits on your heart. Have a restful, rejuvenating day! Here is my poem I wrote for today. I am sending lots of love to you out there. I hope that you can feel it and that you can shelter in the cocoon of Love, at least for today.

What Lies on My Heart

I’m so scared, I want to stay holed up in a ball

In the safest confines of my home.

I’m so bored, I want to jump in my car, and take it,

To go to wherever my boldest imagination,

Finds an intriguing dot on a map, and then some more.

I don’t want to get ill and more so, I don’t want to be the cause

Of anyone’s pain nor terrible, breathless demise.

But you can’t live a joyous life, without a dash of risk.

But, but, but . . . . . . . . back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back

And forth . . . . . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nobody talks about their “daily doings” anymore.

Because Everyone has become judge and juror.

Nobody wants to be “cancelled,” and therefore Everyone is “cancelled”.

Cancelled from expressing our true authentic selves.

But how do you learn from what can’t be acknowledged nor revealed?

It’s lonely when you can’t be real.

And those who are still expressing, tend to take it too far.

They have absorbed all of the energy of the unsaid,

And all of the energy of the unfelt,

And it explodes and it bursts and it erupts out of them,

Too forcefully.

And the meaning is lost in the angry noise.

And the rest of us stay safely quiet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My mind whirls around in jumbled circles, these days.

Everything is a decision, a weighing of chance.

Everything, Every Single Day.

Everything.

Every. Single. Day.

Again and again.

It’s exhausting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But my heart does tell me that everything is going to be okay.

My heart tells me that everything is okay.

My heart says for me, to just be quiet, and to be still.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still. Know.

I am.

And then I take a deep breath and I’m peaceful again.

Sky-Blue Pink

“My dad invented a new color for us: sky-blue pink. It’s what he called the blending of day and night in the evening sky. It was his favorite color, and so it’s been mine. ” – Kate Craw

I took the photograph, seen above, while driving home, just me and my husband and my daughter, from taking our youngest son up to his apartment, close to his university, where he will live, with his best friends, while taking his sophomore college classes, online for this semester. We helped him to unpack (as much as he would let us do it). We went to the obligatory grocery store trip, to make sure that our son started the fall schooling season, all stocked up with nourishment (which made us feel better about the ultimate good-bye), and then, we sat in the apartment with our youngest son and one of his friends and our other son, who is a senior at the same university. We ate take-out burgers and cupcakes and we laughed and we lingered until we felt the obvious energetic itching, from all of the boys, for us to leave, and to make our way home, to our own fall schedules and individual lives.

I felt strangely quiet, yet peaceful, on the way home. I knew that this was the right decision for our family, to allow our boys to have a go, at a makeshift try, at a less-than-normal year at college. It makes a mama’s heart happy, to see her children excited, and joyful and bursting at the seams for a little more freedom, a little more independence, and a little more hope – at any age, but especially during these difficult times.

As I stared out of the window, at the beautiful sunset, it felt like the perfect gift from the Universe. The sunset was a lovely closing curtain on what has been one of the strangest, longest, scariest, yet in many ways, most meaningful summers of our lives. This beautiful sunset officially closed out Summer of 2020, for me. I will never forget this summer for the rest of my days. None of us will. But I have a strange inkling that how I am reflecting on all of the events of this past summer now (the long summer that really started for us, in the middle of a shell-shocked spring), will soften and change, as I survive past it and I absorb the lessons that it has brought to me and to our family and to our whole world, for that matter. I have a deep, knowing sense that the jarring events of the summer of 2020 will blend more perfectly with the ultimate destinations of each of our lives, and that this blending will happen in an unusually, entirely unexpected, beautiful way. I think that ultimately I will remember 2020 as a sky-blue pink year – a year that was more beautiful than I initially thought that it was, mostly because it was so vivid, and jarring, and colorful, and unexpected and memorable. It will be a year that reminded me and my family and my friends and all of us, about the fragility (and therefore, the breath-taking preciousness) of the gift of living a life. If there was ever a year that made us soak in the individual quiet moments, 2020 would be it. If there was ever a year that asked us to reflect, 2020 would be it. If there was ever a year that made us give up the idea that we had all or any of “the answers”, 2020 would be it. If there was ever a year that asked us to just sit still and to breathe in a sky-blue pink sunset, 2020 would be it. And in some crazy, weird way, I think that I am grateful for it. Only time will tell.

Merry Friday!!!

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Happy Friday!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! Happy Holidays! HA! New readers, on Fridays, I am not serious. On Fridays, I keep it on the surface, in the material world. Fridays are called “Favorite Things Friday” here at Adulting- Second Half and that is when I list three favorite songs, books, products, whatevers that I have enjoyed experiencing in my life. I strongly request that you add more to the Favorites, in my Comments. This year, sometimes it is best to keep it all on the surface, as much as you can. The deep waters run really deep this year. Today, it’s Friday, so let’s just float! Floaty Friday! Remember, too, to check out previous Friday blogs to see more favorites.

My regular readers know that my family has three dogs. We have Ralphie, the Labrador, Josie, the rough collie, and Trip, the Boykin spaniel puppy. It has taken me a while to find just the right kibble food for our fur friends. I did research online, I asked friends for suggestions, and I checked in with my vet. For at least a year, I have been feeding a mix of three dog foods that miraculously, all three dogs like to eat. All of our dogs have healthy skin and fur and none of them are overweight. I can order all three of these bagged kibble foods on Amazon, and I can have them delivered right to my door, which is a total back saver. Here is my magic mix of my three favorite dog foods (and of course, I often add in some cheese or broth or chicken or salmon, on occasion).

Hill’s Science Diet Dry Dog Food, Adult, Sensitive Stomach & Skin Recipes – This one boasts prebiotic fiber and chicken meat. I think this is the food that has helped firm up the stools, which is a plus in anyone’s book. My lawn appreciates this dog food.

Victor Dog Food Grain-Free Active Dog and Puppy Beef Meal and Sweet Potato – This dog kibble is particularly suited to active, sporting dogs, which my dogs all are – unfortunately, we don’t count any couch potatoes among our fur family. This one also has a formulation to help with their immune systems, and who doesn’t need a good immune system, this year in particular??

Wellness CORE Natural Dry Dog Food Original Turkey & Chicken – This is another one full of protein and omega oils. This is the one that supposedly boasts a great taste. (I haven’t personally tried it, but my dogs do empty their bowls.)

I have a big container in my garage where I mix all three bags of dog food together and these three bags last me a good month of feeding our fur babies.

Have a great weekend, my dear friends and readers!! Start making out your Christmas/holiday lists. It’s good to have something to look forward to, in the near future!!!

The Book in Your Heart

This has been a strange, limbo-like week for me. I’m still getting over my chest cold. My kids have been leaving our home, for their fall plans, in dribs and drabs. We will take my youngest son up to his apartment, on his college campus, this Friday, and my daughter starts her online classes for her junior year of high school on Monday. The other two boys are already away, doing their thing. My husband just ordered more home office equipment, as what has always felt like sort of a temporary situation – this working from home, is five months into being semi-permanent. I guess that our “official fall schedule” will start on Monday. So, this week, I feel like I am just treading water. This good-bye to summer is dragging out. I’m a little over this “long good-bye.” I’m ready for the next thing. As it is said, the best is yet to come, and I am ready to swim towards it.

Earlier this week we watched a show called, Street Food Latin America. This was a tricky challenge for me, to watch a show centering on delicious food, because I am trying to not eat after dinner every night, as an attempt to shed some of the pandemic pounds that I have put on. Still, the show was a good watch and the most intriguing cook on Street Food Latin America, was a woman named Pato Rodriguez. Her food stand, in the middle of the busy central Buenos Aires mercado, was obviously her life’s passion. In the show, she says that her customers ask her why she doesn’t have any children and she says, “You, my customers, are my children, and you are very spoiled!” And her customers were obviously spoiled. Her concoctions looked amazing. Even though she runs an unassuming food stand in the middle of a giant mercado, Pato Rodriguez has attracted famous Argentinian food critics to come to her stand, and to write about her amazing delicacies (the same writers who do the reviews for Michelin rated restaurants). When someone is absolutely “one with what they do”, so obviously living their passions and their dreams, their joy just oozes out of them. It can’t contain itself, and that joy is so contagious. I instantly liked Pato and I wished for her, nothing but a life filled with continued zeal for her cooking and sharing it with others. I could feel her deep enthusiasm for her life’s work through my TV screen. Here is a quote that she said, that was so right on the money, that I made my husband pause our viewing, so that I could write it down verbatim:

“I realized that people eat first with their eyes, then with their mouths, and then with their hearts.” _ Pato Rodriguez

That quote really made me ponder about how much it applies not only just to food, but to anything that we end up loving in life. At first we see something or someone who intrigues and captivates us, we devour our experience with that thing or that person or that place, and then, no matter what the outcome, whether the experience was a decidedly good one, or a mostly negative one, the moments of our focus on that particular happening in our lives, are imprinted on our hearts forever. The book of our lives, chapter by chapter, is kept in the cozy, safe, warm library of our heart. And we can open the book up and we can read it, and we can savor the experiences or at the very least, learn from the experiences, again and again and again. Our heart stores it all for us. As summer is closing, let a new chapter begin, and may it be one of the very best chapters, in each of our books!

Free It!

I want to thank one of my regular readers, Carla, for the book recommendation Return to the Sea by Anne M. Johnson. It is a really good, interesting book and it was a perfect part of a healing day, as I spent a lot of time resting, and slowly absorbing this book, yesterday. There is one chapter in the book that really stood out to me, called “Channelled Whelk”. In this chapter, the author reminds us that all of our emotional experiences happen from within us. They are not created by external things, as much as we want to believe that fact. Our joy, our sorrow, our excitement, our fears, all bubble and churn within us. We react to external things with thoughts, and those thoughts in turn, create our feelings.

In “Channelled Whelk”, Anne Johnson describes a little lake cabin, owned by her husband’s family, that she loved to escape to, and to nurture herself in, for maybe a week out of any one year. She talks about the fact that so many of us, have that same fantasy place. We all have that private, little, peaceful lake cabin, either in reality, or in our imaginations, that we long to go to, in order to disappear from it all. We tell ourselves that if we could only just have some time in a private little faraway cabin, that is where we could really relax, and finally get back to our own selves and to our own peaceful centeredness. We spend a lot of time longing to really get in touch with the deepest part of our souls, and we often think that we have to disappear to some private, little getaway with no distractions, in order to get back to our peaceful, centered selves. But what if there is a storm right over top of the cabin? What if a family of birds has found a way to nest inside of the cabin and they chirp away and loudly, and fly back and forth from the high rafters? What if we get to our private little paradise and actually find the experience to be lonely and fearsome, and not quite what we expected?

Everything that we feel, comes from an internal place. A warm puppy, a sleeping baby, a placid lake, doesn’t make us feel comforted and tranquil. It is our internal response to the puppy and to the baby and to the still waters, that make us feel harmonious and right with the world. Think about it. You probably had a loving vision of a puppy or a baby or a beautiful body of water, when you read my words and you probably had some sense of quiet joy and bliss, yet there was no physical representation of any of these things, on your computer screen or your phone. Right now, you are just reading my words, but your feelings are probably swelling with some peace and comfort.

Do you remember The Wizard of Oz? Dorothy and her companions travel all over Oz, looking for the external things that will give them the feelings that they all most want, like courage, and heart, and intelligence, and the feeling of “home”. What they find out, in the end, is they had these all of things, all along, right with them. These feelings were their internal birthright, and these attributes were planted right inside of them, from the moment of their creation, like a well-spring, constantly replenishing itself.

What are you craving externally right now? Are you sure that a private, cozy cabin far, far away will bring you peace and happiness and security and relief? We live in a very strange time period, right now. Nothing feels certain. Nothing feels simple. Nothing feels safe. Maybe that is because right now, the world is so focused on the externals and trying to solve the external problems, with more externals. But the truth of the matter is, every single one of us is a walking well-spring of the same beautiful matter, capable of bringing the highest sense of peace and calm and beauty and comfort and joy, to the surface of ourselves, and to our surroundings, and to this world, right now. This matter, this energy at our core, is the same in all of us. It is Creation. It is Love. And it resides, continually, in the deepest part of Every. Single. One. Of. Us.

It’s just that we always forget that fact. We get distracted by the externals. We think that if we just get this particular job, or a particular relationship, or car, or piece of jewelry, or faraway vacation, we will find our bliss. And we might feel a temporary, fleeting bliss with some external things, which keeps us hooked, much like gambling does. But the true reality is, we carry the ability to bring our bliss to the surface, all of the time, wherever we are, and regardless of anything going on outside of us, even during worldwide pandemics.

Right now, think of three things/people/places that you think make you happy. There, you are feeling better already, aren’t you? Notice that those things didn’t make you feel happy – you did. You brought your happiness (the happiness that’s been churning and bubbling underneath all sorts of layers of fears, and responsibilities, and beliefs, and racing thoughts, and false fronts) up to the surface. You have the ability to do this for yourself, all of the time. You choose your response to external things and happenings. You choose what you focus on. Thus, you chose what internal waters are going to flow to the surface, all of the time. Don’t block the flow of the real you, that has been in your vital core, since the moment that you were conceived. It is the only part of “you” that remains eternal. Don’t chase this love/peace/joy feeling outside of yourself. This feeling is safely at your core, untouchable and un-harmable, by any outside force. You are the only one who has the power to keep your well-spring tamped down, and you’re the only one who has the ability to release it. You can release this peace/joy/calm at any time, and as often as you like. It is yours. It is replenish-able. It is infinite. This center is the real You. It is your beautiful spark of Love and Creation which allows you to have this living experience. Don’t deny it. Don’t keep chasing after it. It is already yours for the taking. And here’s the kicker, once we all really, really let this reality sink in, and we start going to our own internal cabins of peace and joy whenever we need to, won’t the world be a better place for it?? Won’t decisions and solutions be easier to conjure? Won’t everything flow more naturally? The internal creates the external. We can do our part to create a more beautiful external world, by keeping the stream of our our most beautiful internal waters, flowing to the surface. When we make an effort to keep these internal, healing, cleansing waters always in our consciousness, all of the time, the world can’t help but to be shown in a new light. It will be shown to be the beautiful, miraculous creation that it truly is. Love is. It just is.

Modern Day Doctor’s Visit

So, I went through a modern day scare yesterday. The backstory is this: Saturday morning I woke up with laryngitis and not even a bad case of it. My voice was just a little raspy. I had been swimming in our pool the night before and I had slept deeply, so I assumed the cocktail of chlorine activated lungs, mixed with some likely mouth-breathing during my deep sleep, helped to create my hoarse, gravelly sounding voice. I had plans to meet four of my dearest friends at a local park shelter (socially distanced, of course) on Saturday morning, so in a text prior to our planned meet-up, I mentioned my laryngitis, and I also mentioned that I had no other symptoms of sickness. No one seemed too concerned and we all had a wonderful visit, keeping our chairs a good distance apart from each other. The rest of Saturday, I felt fine. However, by Sunday, a cough had developed and by Sunday night, I was coughing up a storm, and I was very tired. On Monday, I knew that it was time to call a doctor.

I had my first telemedicine call of my lifetime, late yesterday morning. My doctor is always a bit late for my appointments, and she remained consistent in her ways, but this time, I could go about my business in my house, and I received a text when she was ready to meet with me. In the beginning of quarantine, in a whirlwind of hypochondria induced panic, I purchased a high-tech thermometer, an automated blood pressure cuff and an oximeter, so I was able to give her all of my readings. Everything was good. I could smell and taste anything and everything, and I know this, because I was checking out my scent and taste senses, every five minutes. I had a normal temperature, and my other readings were all normal, but my major symptom was this annoying, persistent dry cough and a tightness in my chest. Before COVID, I would have just written this off as a chest cold and not even a particularly bad chest cold, but in the throws of COVID, I was starting to think about my will, and if my will was updated. I started panicking about my family members, and my friends who I had just met with on Saturday, and an overwhelming feeling of responsibility and shame, washed over me. Did I really need to go shopping last week, just for the hell of it? Was it worth my health, and the health of my family and of my friends, to check out the Steinmart liquidation sale? Yes, I had worn a mask, but are masks really full-proof??? What’s the latest science on masks say today?! Why did the FEDEX delivery man not wear a mask, when he needed me to sign for a package, and more so, why didn’t I insist on him wearing a mask before I did sign for it?? What was even in that stupid package?!? Oh yeah, it was a ridiculously overpriced, pretentious perfume sample that smelled bad. Was anyone’s death worth me trying out a stinky perfume??? Why do I even need perfume right now? The only regular outings I really go to now, are cursory trips to the grocery store, and occasionally to places like Steinmart. Before COVID, it would never have even crossed my mind to go to the doctor with my minor, pedestrian symptoms. I would have felt silly and hysterical. But yesterday, I was inches short of an anxiety meltdown, on top of my annoying, persistent cough.

As expected, my doctor ordered up a COVID test for me. I think by her witnessing my wild eyes and sensing through the computer screen and our wi-fi connection, my high intensity worry over exposing my family and my friends (all middle-aged women with families of their own, including husbands with pre-existing conditions, and one gorgeous, little grandbaby), she felt it necessary to order a rapid test for me. I had to jam a mile long q-tip up my own nose, which caused my eyes to water incessantly, but that was a good release for the tears that had been building for hours in my eyes, as my wild imagination had already conjured up images of hospital rooms, and plastic tubes all over the place, and funerals, and sadness, and shame, shame, shame.

Fifteen minutes later, the results were texted to me. Negative for coronavirus. Thank you for answering my prayers, God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. These are crazy times, indeed, bringing my own unique brand of crazy out, in all of its shining glory. Now, at least I can cough in peace.

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Welcome to Soul Sunday. Sundays are all about poetry here at Adulting-Second Half. Sometimes I write a poem and share it. Other times I share a poem by someone else that has moved me. I strongly encourage you to add your poems to my Comments section. Poetry is such a fluid, interesting, untethered use of words. Try it. You’ll like it. I found today’s poem as I was going through some piles of paper on my desk. It is a beautiful poem by the poet Ingrid Goff-Maidoff. Since our homes have been our keepers and our comforters throughout the pandemic, I thought that her words were particularly meaningful.

House Blessing by Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

This house is Love’s house.

It is a sanctuary, a garden,

a safe haven.

May it be delightful.

May it be a home that encourages

creativity and peace,

togetherness and private time.

May it be an environment

that celebrates life, untidy and ever flowing.

May simplicity be honored in this house,

valuing love above all else.

May daily chores and small moments

all be approached with reverence and with love.

Mistakes may be seen as lessons learned.

Kindness, forgiveness, laughter, joy,

and calm enthusiasm

will nourish all who enter through its doors.

May all who visit leave refreshed.

May all who live in this house

live in contentment and harmony,

dreaming many beautiful dreams,

rejoicing in the way things are.

How Bizarre, How Bizarre

Yesterday, as I was digging through my purse to find my keys, masks were falling out of my purse, all over the place, like it was a volcano spewing blue and white lava. Sometimes, when I reflect on moments like these, I sit in awe and wonder and disbelief, at just how completely bizarre my ordinary, suburban life has gotten to be. My friends send “Score!” texts when they find cans of Lysol or Clorox wipes for sale somewhere. Big Brother makes frequent, stern announcements over the speakers in my grocery store, to follow the directional arrows, in the aisles and when the announcement is made, everyone looks like sheepish robbers, while donning our masks, whispering apologies for having our carts pointed in the wrong direction. We’ve made the decision for our daughter to start out school online, fully recognizing that most of the high school teachers are my age and older, and thus, probably as adept with computers as I am, which is terrifying. Anytime anyone in our family coughs or sneezes or complains of a sore throat, the first step for me, is to practice mindful breathing, so as not to go into a full-blown panic attack. The list goes on and on. If we thought life was absurd before COVID, we are definitely in Wonderland territory, now.

“In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

“Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.” – Albert Camus