Rhapsodizing

Hello Lovelies! Life is so strange right now. Nothing is "right-side up". Nothing is even "black and white" OR "right and wrong" any more. We can't judge by the same gauge that we used to any more because the whole of EVERYTHING has changed. There are shades of gray everywhere. And sometimes it does seem like those shades are closing in on us and blocking out the light. Myself I have to fight against the darkness nearly every day. But how did Gertrude Stein put it? "The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence." An antidote. Not a toxin. So drowning my despair in alcohol is not the answer. Forgetting my despair in a musty green cloud of marijuana smoke is not the answer. And injecting or swallowing mind-numbing medications to sedate all of my emotions into a vapid black hole is NOT the answer. You can't run from life forever. You can't miss your life trying to avoid it. You have to face it. It's a beautiful, sunny, cloudless day! Even if it might also be a little desperate. Even if the open windows let in all the allergens that stuff up my nose and cloud my head and make me sneeze. The air is fresher and clearer than it has been in quite some time--and I can hear the birds! And I've just made the strongest "Monday cup" of coffee I can remember making in my old-fashioned method. I pour boiling water over coffee grounds through a filter secured with a rubber band:) Truly takes a long time, but that first sip is worth it. Sweet and strong and electrifying! Am I rhapsodizing about coffee? Why not? Our lives have been severely minimized lately. Only small things matter when you're stuck at home in your own world and inside your own head for weeks. But if you look at it right, that's not a bad thing. If you look at the way things were through an objective lens, life was pretty loud and complicated and frenetic before. And those are exactly the things this Lockdown season has scaled back Finally. For what I like to call "closeted" introverts like me, pretending to be sociable for so long just to stay afloat in the old days--the word was WAY overdue to slow down and reset. Now is our time to absolutely shine. To remake the world as it suits us, and in a way that makes even the "outed" introverts AND the extroverts happy. Indeed, it's not like I don't miss going out. Seeing that the things I used to love about the world are still there. Is that restaurant I loved around the corner still running? Is the coffee shop ever going to begin to serve again? What about the library? The museums? Life is so much smaller now. Necessarily. I have to stay in most of the time and only venture as far as the lobby to get my mail/packages when they finally arrive. Sometimes as far as the curb outside to discard by garbage. But on a day like today, I don't mind at all. It's delightful. I can take it. Thank goodness for the little changes we've made that truly define our new parameters. Zoom meetings, online church, and even having a pen pal or two in these quiet days has meant the world to me. Also phone calls, of course. And text messages. But they have always been a part of life as I knew it; they've been the constant. So I don't put them in the same category of connection as I do all the other technological means of staying in touch:) Last night I was watching Facebook Watch videos (another of my new rituals) and someone quoted the late, amazing Maya Angelou; "God put a rainbow in a cloud." Even on your worst days when things are completely the opposite of normal, when nothing is as it used to be--deep down inside there's always something about that moment worth cherishing.Something that will eventually burst forth LIKE a rainbow in the sunlight, for everyone in your life and especially YOU to admire:) Isn't that wonderful thought? That Zoom meetings and livestreams and "Thinking of You" cards--great though they will only take us so far toward happiness--are temporary? Just a means to an end? Eventually the world will right itself.