I am blessed.
I am blessed because of so many things...
- I live in the mountains
- I have a strong community, a hard working spouse and beautiful, intelligent children
- We have enough essentials to get us by
- We are warm, fed, entertained and loved
- We have resources at our fingertips
- We are healthy
- We are alive
Now, I know that my gratitude and positive tendencies may make some feel nauseated or cause the eye-roll reflex, but I can't help but feel that I am blessed when the stories around me are full of chaos, struggles, and hardships.
Now that the world is being bombarded with a viral pandemic, my gratitude is gradually more soulful and on a deeper level.
As more and more people are getting sick and some are dying, the pain of sickness and death leaves many of us with a sense of fear (many realize that life can change in an instant) and awe (when we realize that we are at the mercy of something that we have no or little control over).
In the past week things have changed in our community drastically.
We started our week with knowledge of a sickness that was spreading, but we held a lack of reality that our mountain community could ever be reached or touched by such. We ended our week with home study curriculum from school teachers, shopping for essentials to last us for a couple weeks, and an obsession for information of what might come from this pandemic.
At first, I was overcome with fear.
I have read many "dooms-day" novels and watched too many movies that portrayed such catastrophes that my imagination went wild and the "unknown" was possessing my mind.
Well, thankfully, with prayer and the ability to take a step back and focus on the positive has helped me tremendously. I, myself, have a compromised immune system and the thought of my body not being able to fight off the infection of this virus became a real notion as I heard of the venerable becoming victims. But, then I had to step back and think.
Am I afraid of death? No.
Am I afraid of getting sick and suffering. Well, I don't want to suffer, but No...I'm not afraid of that either.
What am I afraid of then?
Where is my fear manifesting from?
When I really annualized the source and the seed of my fear, I realized that it came from a life (which is my life) that may be cut out from this world without accomplishing the goals and dreams that motivates my dreams and life in general.
So many of us have had dreams that have been cut short because of the motions of life. Some of these motions are like crashing waves. We try so hard to swim out to the island of our dreams, seeing the palms and glorious beauty of the island our dreams are made of, only to be smashed by persistent waves that eventually cause us to give up, look back and settle for lives that those who are at the beginning of our dreams say are "good enough". We look at our feeble bodies, our flaws and we think that the dream island is impossible. Then we busy ourselves with what's around us, only looking every once in a while at the distant island to see that it is just as far away and "impossible" as it always has been.
I don't want to be that person.
Not anymore.
I want to do and pursue the dreams that I have had since I was young.
I needed this time of isolation to sit, ponder and see what is important, and see that dreams pursued are dreams accomplished.
If I were to get sick...right now, what would I leave behind besides my collection of arts and crafts, my amateur writings of poetry and short stories, my books I've read and the numerous journals I have filled? In 100 years no one will remember me. My footprint would be little to non-existent.
Am I going to be okay with that?
Do I have the ability to change that?
What control do I have anyways?
So I have to plunge through my waves of distractions...waves of trauma, pain, setbacks, denial, etc.
I don't think that I will regret getting through the rough stuff once I'm on my island.
So, I am writing. I am going to write so that I can get out my unimportant ideas, opinions and thoughts. Maybe someone out there will be bored enough to read my murmurs.
Maybe someone will feel that their thoughts are shared?
Maybe one day my thoughts will be "The Cookbook" (Lady in the Water) for someone who will make a bigger footprint in the history of humanity.
I can dream, right?
Back To Reality...
Yes, there are still people getting sick, and Yes, there are still dying...this virus is serious. I am no stranger to sickness, death of loved ones or suffering the angst of trauma and tragedy. I have learned, though, that it is essential to be able to stop, step back and look at life when we are in the midst of storms and beg the vision of higher perspective.
In this action facts and possibilities become real and hope-filled.
We will overcome this!
We will survive this!
We must be diligent!
We must be wise!
We must not give up!
If it means that we are stuck at home teaching our children, making meals in our own kitchens, forging and trading as primitives, than so be it! No matter how bad we think things might get, we have to take a step back and look at things realistically and rationally.
We must take precautions, but we must also remain empathetic.
We are in this together as humans, and the only way that we will get out of this humanly is if we remain wise and empathetic. There are many who are on the front lines of this reality of sickness. Many are at risk and many will be getting sick.
We must do what we can to help others and to protect each other...even if it means that I am alone with my kids for a while.
Truth being...if isolation was ever to be mandatory, this is the time and age to be in. We have social media, television and electronics up the wazzuu to entertain and educate us with hardly any limits. We even have Ebooks to feed our minds in our constant cravings of information and escapes from reality.
I took a walk outside this morning with my children.
We were so blessed to be able to walk in the crisp morning air and fill our lungs with no fear of the virus that looms in the minds of so many at present.
We were able to climb a hill with no one around and behold the beauty of the mist floating amongst the redwood forest that surrounds us. We saw wild turkeys and pigs, heard many different species of birds singing and talking.
We are blessed to be able to slow down in this time of fear in our vulnerable state and enjoy little things.
Now I will fill my time with my children, slow down and watch what they are doing, enjoying and feeling. I will help them understand what is going on in our world and help them try to understand what this means for our future. I will brush up on my organizational skills and my home-cooked meals. I will read deeper material, and write more mindfully. I will feel my way through my days without judgement or criticism of society (well, besides you beautiful people).
I am going to focus on the present, and all I can say is that I encourage you to do that too, as hard as it may be.
What little things can you enjoy?
What are you thankful for?
Even in times of pain, sorrow and grief...what good can you see?
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