#3 Postcards from Quarantine: Sound of Resilience
During this extraordinary time while self-distancing and WFHing, we want to capture the voices around our community in a singular spot.
This quarantine experience has inspired my creative writing muscle, I am being motivated to share my thoughts and emotions to encapsulate this moment and offer encouragement for what’s next.
I will publish blogs as I am stirred to put thought on paper and invite you to read and share them. But it’s not just about me, our social media feeds are full of many voices being published but I can’t keep up.
We invite you to publish your voices here on BrightSpot as a repository of hope. We are looking for encouraging messages and stories to build us up as we seek to rise in these uncertain times.
Simply contact us through our “Contact Form” and let us know you’re interested and we will communicate with you directly. We look forward to hearing from you.
April 6, 2020
Sound of Resilience
It’s Saturday afternoon, ending a long week of Pandemic hysteria, ongoing news feeds, phone calls, reading press releases, interpreting emergency acts, and hearing about billions… then trillions of dollars being tossed around like candy. I am exhausted. And it’s not my family or work that’s causing the fatigue, it’s the inundation of information and an inability for my human brain to keep up.
I am exhausted both intellectually and emotionally. I go to bed and fall asleep fast then something wakes me, an insecurity, a fear, then I have trouble falling back to sleep, restfully. I wake the next morning and fall victim to temptation to check my phone news and social apps while stimulating my brain with coffee.
I am attempting to be calm and simplify my life as we learn to live at home with limited interaction with the outside world. I do a workout with my wife and daughter and become nauseous because I haven’t worked my core like that for months (probably years to be honest). Then I am hungry either to medicate my emotions or soothe my stomach.
Later in the day, my wife and I take our dog for a hike in the local hills. It’s a weekend and the trails are busier than my weekday sessions, but it’s different. I see a lot more families, little kids, college aged adults, and we’re friendly when we pass each other, giving safe distance, of course - in this new reality. The friendliness reminds me of being on a lake when boaters wave to each other as they’re passing by…the “we’re all in this together” kind-of-friendly. Not the usual mutual head nod because “we’re too-busy and too-focused” to be friendly. It is a genuine gesture of kindness.
Something about this experience brings awareness and as we drive back, the sporting fields are empty and the streets have less cars. I see more people on the sidewalks, entire families walking together, biking together. We make it home and start doing chores around the house and I hear laughter. I see kids playing on the street outside our window. I see people, lots of people, in my community that I have been oblivious to because I’ve been too busy to notice.
This awakens memories of my childhood in the late-70s and early-80s, before the web or personal phones. We rode our bikes or walked to our destinations, we weren’t driven by our parents. We showed up at friends homes unannounced and it wasn’t rude - but expected. We played outside in the dirt or board games when inside because video games at home were for the real nerds. Unless, of course, you were at the bowling alley or skate rink, then video games were cooler to play.
Now in my 50’s, I have years of experience under my feet since those childhood days, and I have been blessed and humbled by those experiences. One of the lessons I have been taught along the way is to make friends with my problems, give it a name to diffuse its influence and to take ownership over my situation.
I knew nothing about this Coronavirus a few weeks ago and now this microbe is bringing the globe to its knees. My primal tendencies tend to be more fight versus flight and I was angry and fearful at first. After reflection, I remembered I need to give it a name, to belittle its impact and as I look around and hear sounds of love and families together, I think we could call it the “love bug.”
This might seem inappropriate because this virus is anything but loving and has caused much heartache. But the human spirit is stronger than the virus. While we grieve together the loss of family and neighbors and step up to support those in need, it is love that motivates us. The love stems from our hearts to not be defeated...and the laughter I hear in my neighborhood is the sweet sound of human resilience.
Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash