<aside> 💭 Prompt: We’ve established things are bonkers. Seems hard to think about anything else these days. At times like this it helps to focus instead on the small slices of normal in our lives.
Think on any little bits and pieces of your life providing you with some stability. Objects or rituals you may have overlooked in their obviousness. Write about these.
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By Sean McBride
In this weird time, I seem to fluctuate between not bothered at all and mostly unable to do much but stare at my screen, whichever one is closest. What's on it hardly seems to matter.
For the first few days, as much as I hate to admit it, I think it was smoking weed that provided my "normal". The warm numb embrace of the fog made just being easier, but didn't feel great otherwise.
Then it was exercise, just get out, skate till I can hardly walk then shuffle home to see what I could do to pass the time.
Then came the work, I've got more Adobe stuff to do and sewing than I know what to do about, but focusing was hard. Finally I got into the studio and started creating some garments I had in process and it was great. Between the creative output, and physical exertion of getting out to skate, my days felt full and my brain felt active...but my heart and soul still felt a bit void.
Some of that was being away from my person. Though I and we, tend to avoid titles and expectations at most cost in our shared space, she really is my partner these days, in the real sense. We share ideas and emotions and dreams, we have adventures and creative times and most of all we support each other in ways I have rarely enjoyed in even my best friendships...and we were looking at navigating this apart despite living so close.
Through the kindness of friends staying up north, we found an apartment where we could safely SIP together, and we were (and are) thrilled. With the new surrounds, my studio is no longer at the end of the hall, and my favorite local skate spot is now far far away. There is a ton to skate over here in SF (we had to cross the bay) and I've got more computer work than I can handle to work on, but suddenly the normalcy seems faded and my brain is again mostly wanting to just wander as I think about our place in the cosmos, and now in human history.
At some level, its this uncertainty that is becoming my normalcy, for now its dependable and predictable, I have no idea where this will all land. Unfortunately work is about to start back up a bit and classes start on line, so I've got lots to do and not a lot of focus to go around. My exercise still brings me calm, peace, and normalcy, but it will be interesting to see how I find the rhythm in the coming, days and weeks, and maybe months.
In times like this work can be great, but sitting with the madness is important. Processing, decompressing, allowing ourselves to just "be". It feels like these are so important yet in our "regular" day to day lives, even the best mindfulness or self care, often leaves these things under tended. Perhaps we should all take this opportunity to train ourselves to find "normalcy" inside, to seek the peace and clarity we need within before focusing on the work outside.
These times will change humanity, and I hold out hope it will be for the better, but I sure am interested to see how it changes me, and the world around all of us.
By: Jana Barrett
Though I departed from my morning ritual for the first couple weeks of quarantine, today I started to find my rhythm again: I read today's message from The Daily Stoic, spent 30 minutes journaling, and meditated. I made my tea. I drank my juice. I managed to not hop on my cell phone immediately. I did a little vinyasa flow.