At first, I thought that isolating and being careful could afford many great newly discovered things to do.. I did them all in a week, now on and one it goes and I am covid weary. How about you all?
I had harvesting and canning to do and that kept me uber busy for sure. Now the canning is done and stacked neatly out in their shelving. I have a box of tomatoes out in the garage that were the last of the green tomatoes and now are ripening so quickly I am going to have to do some more. I resent them. Lol
I am baking apples as quickly as I can. So many people gave us apples and now I am over-appled. I have made grandma Schnurr’s apple pudding cake, apple crisp, apple cranberry crunch ( oh, yes, my brother in law and his wife brought us five gallon bags of fresh cranberries from the coast). I have made dried cranberries, frozen cranberries, cranberry salsa and collected all sorts of recipes for cranberry everything. I have put up squash and pumpkin, peaches, pears, dills, dilled everything (and I have a bottle of Frog’s Balls,,, yes, frog balls that The Bee Man’s niece canned ( Brussel sprout pickled). I ha to clean out the veggie drawer in my fringe of things I simply am not going to use. I have made jalapeno jelly and I am eating that so fast that I may not last the winter with those.
Change is so difficult and creating new art projects should keep some of the covid angst away. I am developing a healthy routine of art in the mornings, pre-planning dinner, watering, slowly bringing everything in from the gazebo art studio so that we can take the top off so snow does not crush the frame. I am winterizing the rock garden flower area, I am winterizing the rocks I have gathered and am almost finished acid-washing all my rocks and storing them. I have plans to go to the rock clubhouse and cutting and polishing rocks to make jewelry this winter, and rock chains, and moosehair tufting and pine needle baskets. I am going to sign up for some sewing classes. Yes, I have winter planned. But, little by little I feel my joy dissipating. Where do we access resilience? This covid is not going to go away any time soon.
I am certainly one of those punch ball thingies that, when you hit it down, it pops back up, Where the energy to pop back up is wearing thin, here, it would only take a big punch and the whole resilience thing would deflate and lie crumpled in a plastic heap. My ability to respond to things that need resilience is deflating, yes, but I have begun to realize that resilience is something within, not something we do, not something we can buy, get, or pray into being. It seems to be a spirit thing where it is there to draw on even when things wear thin. Adapting, surrender, acceptance is about the only things we can do to build resiliency, I think. The body is weak, but the soul is infinite and gifts abound in that quadrant of our lies. We may not have been more aware of spirit/soul gifts. How we coped, typically, when life was ‘normal’, is put to the test. Breaking free of procrastination habits is one of the first places I have had to stop and look at. We COULD do everything tomorrow because tomorrows will look like todays, but, then we may slip into idleness. I have never been an idle person and I cannot start being so now. Keeping busy is imperative to my mental health, for sure.
IO have begun to go out for coffee, alone, or meeting with a friend, and just changing my environment for a short time to help stimulate my ability to keep social connected and conscious. I the ‘olden’ days, I would never just call someone and say, “Let’s have coffee!” because all of us were too busy to even take a break. I am taking and making time and places in order to o so now, so I do not start feeling isolated from people. Being alone is debilitating. We are not meant to be alone. We are tribal people since the beginning.
In a time of such huge change in society, in our homes, in our hearts, we now have time, and should take time, to be grateful for everything we have. How easily what we have, what we do, can be taken away with new restrictions. I have been doing some winnowing down, paring down, chucking things that I do not absolutely need. VV Boutique loves me. Our whole life is pared down. Things we simply took for granted now carry new meanings. People we used to hang with are now being as careful as I and our friendships are pared down. (As I blogged earlier, two of our friends have passed this last while, so dealing with our own frailties could become obsessive). It doers become “Love the Ones You’re With). I feel my relationships carry more weight now. Expressing that in personal ways is easier now. c
Acceptance is huge. No conspiracy theories, no denial, no burying feelings. It would easy to become a flat personality. But, numbing oneself only leads to anger, to resentment, and to low level depression in the healthiest of us. Yes, there ae things we change about ourselves but the desire to change others to suit us, is not ever a given nor a right. Trying to keep some sense of dignity is something we can all work on. Building a sense of pride in self is something worthy as well. I sense a great deal of learning happening during this time. I take one day at a time. The last thing we need is boredom because out of boredom is born chaos. It might be physical chaos, intellectual chaos, emotional chaos and/or spiritual chaos.
Somehow, we need to find joy to find comfort, to find and tap into resilience, and this is a daily work of mine. We need to find ways to have adventures. Mine has been to jin the field trips to the mountains to fin beautiful gems and rocks. And, as I have said, earlier, find new hobbies you can do. I constantly go on to youtube and find new projects, take new painting tutorials, and this helps with brain food, as well as gives me spaces of time that I am totally involved in something. The possibilities to learn something new is endless with the internet at our fingertips.
Yes, resiliency is there, we just need to tap into the kinds of things that build on that resiliency in ourselves. I wish you lots of things in your life to keep your joy abounding. I wish you reach out and help others be resilient. Boredom may be our greatest enemy right now, not even covid. I wish you joy and excitement and adventure.
©Carol Desjarlais 22.10.20
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