Still Working on a New Routine

There were people who went to sleep last night, 

poor and rich and white and black, 

but they will never wake again. 

And those dead folks would give anything at all 

for just five minutes of this weather 

or ten minutes of plowing. 

So you watch yourself about complaining. 

What you're supposed to do 

when you don't like a thing is change it. 

If you can't change it, 

change the way you think about it.” 

~ Maya Angelou

This time four years ago I was close to despair over the election results. I reread the posts* I wrote then with some surprise and absolute recognition of what we would be facing. But the country and the world survived - battered, changed, meaner (?), wiser, more skeptical, less trusting....

I did not foresee the pandemic. And I did not see how completely my life would change. Everything has changed. Everything. 

Over the past 5 days many of us held our breath, lost sleep, eaten too much and (probably - me anyway) drank too much while we waited to hear that there is hope for calm and respect and decency to return to our government. It's a lot to ask. We will have to all do our part. I'm tired, but I'm ready. 

And it has brought some hope...and the thought that things will be a little less chaotic. It might make it easier to do with personal chaos when the fear of some crazy tweet causing a war or doing some maddening damage to the environment or a group of unsuspecting people. [Honestly - I woke up every day thinking, "well, the world is still here. Let's get on with it."

My chaos is pretty straight-forward: dismantling and rebuilding households, divesting clothes and books and possessions. {After all, how many plates and mugs, tables and chairs does one person need?] 

What hobbies and goals have I to address? For many reasons I am out of the clay for now. I do have writing and art and gardening on the agenda. Zelda must be walked. Bitty must eat. The wild waits. The world waits. A new routine awaits, but I'm getting there - little by little, cautiously, masked, distanced, I am getting there.

Maya Angelou and my mom were of the same generation. Perhaps it was living through wars and economic depressions and all the challenges and changes that provided them a similar philosophy. Mother always had a way of looking at life that marked me. She would recognize what is - the reality of a situation, the depth of loss, and the magnitude of grief. She would speak its name. Then with her next breath she would somehow see the positive and put that into words as well. That ability to see both sides was just one of the gifts she shared. 

She didn't not ignore tragedy. She worked through it and kept going. A couple of times her health was so fragile we thought we would lose her. A massive heart attack almost killed her when she was the age I am now. But she fought her way back and enjoyed 20 more years of life. And when Daddy died she told me, "I realized I could lie down and die or get up and live. I choose to live."

How can I do otherwise?

NOTES:

*https://walkinthepark-padimus.blogspot.com/2016/11/for-my-readers-from-overseas.html

https://walkinthepark-padimus.blogspot.com/2017/01/and-so-we-pray.html