I have a dull, insistent pain at the top of my left shoulder that sometimes rides onto my neck—and I’m blaming it on October.
It’s been a good month--I’m not complaining. By the magic of Zoom and with the support of caring organizations I’ve had the opportunity to speak about writing across a foot of airspace into my own face or into others’ flattened faces suspended in liquid crystal. Poets as far away as Oklahoma, Ireland, and Washington State speak about keening in poetry while I listen and watch in New York. Boys call a “watch party” and “share a screen” to view the World Series. Weddings are livestreamed. We are staying connected via Zoom or FaceTime and in so many other novel ways.
My oldest son, an educator, calls this a year of forced professional technology development. Teachers and students are reinventing teaching and learning on Google Meet and Breakout Rooms on Zoom. Book groups meet on glass. You can breathe deeply learning Tai Chi with strangers. We don’t know the full impact of what we’ve given up…hearing the tone in which something is said, unintended thoughts, craziness, letting go. We’re sinking into our masks.
I am worried about the cold winter cooped indoors, about children and teenagers and their special needs for human exchange. About the visual arts and theatre that normally require visceral, physical contact. We are adapting, as humans will.
Some things I’ve come up with to help me stay healhy and connected:
Nature Is healing. Walking outdoors with hubby or a (masked) friend.
Call a friend or family member.
Online games with grandchildren where the aim is having fun together.
Focus on new challenges. I have set up two goals for myself. I do need to spell out goals to keep me moving forward, especially now.
Put a limit on things possible via Zoom or streaming (or Netflix). You can be everywhere all the time and end up nowhere.
Get lost in a book—still one of the best ways to travel to other worlds and sit in someone else’s heart..
Self care. Keep moving. I’m hanging on to my Yoga and Tai Chi classes for alignment, for easing the neck and back, for deep, healing breathing.
How are you planning to get through the winter?
Or the holidays and rising infections?
(…and there’s something very big, left unsaid, right up ahead.)
Please take care of yourself.