Last night I lay in a hot bath in the bright lights of my bathroom, watching a woman on TikTok, a stranger to me, a blond therapist with a soothing voice, assure me that in her lifetime, and in the lifetime of her parents, who are also therapists, none of them can remember a time like this.
And so if you’ve been feeling tired or foggy, she continued, her eyes resting on me, if you find yourself drifting in circles around your house looking for the list you’re sure you set down somewhere, and which will dictate your next move. If you’ve veered from some sense of purpose, she says, if you find that your appetite for conversation and company has dwindled, and two hours with anyone is just about all you can muster…
If you find yourself, I murmur aloud, as I lay in hot water, eyes closed against the brightness, if you find yourself declining dinner invitations because you are speechless, and there’s nothing left to say, if you find yourself at home alone, night after night – not because you’re afraid of a new variant, but because these last two years have taken the chat right out of you. How last week, you found yourself speaking aloud to yourself in the car as you drove to meet your friend, Laura, for a walk around the lake. “I’m well,” you practiced saying, “you know, working and…” the words stumbling out of your mouth as you readied yourself to be with another person again.
If you find yourself looking forward to another episode of Bridgerton so you can get lost in the world of candy-colored dresses and exploding bodices, if you find yourself opening emails from your friends at William Sonoma reminding you that Easter is upon us, and by the way, here’s a recipe for carrot cake, and some pretty easter bunny plates you won’t want to miss. If you find yourself downloading the recipe because you want something sweet, and because you’re going to need it for the email that comes next: 50 people killed at a train station in Ukraine, bags packed, this close to getting out of town.
If you find yourself spending three full days last week reading opinion pieces and watching TikTok videos to help you understand why Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, and all the layers of that heartbreaking mess, a welcome distraction from the podcast about how Russia is the biggest supplier of fertilizer in the world, and how, because of the sanctions, that fertilizer is stuck in Russia and farmers around the world can’t feed their cows, which means less meat, which is a good thing, you think, less meat, except, what do you know, you’ve never milked a cow or killed a chicken or depended on your very hands to survive.
Then again, maybe this is a good time to give up meat, and you’re remembering that time at dinner when someone offered your friend Billy meat and he declined. “Are you a vegetarian?” our host wondered. “No,” said Billy, who meditated 10 hours a day throughout the entire first two years of the pandemic, “I’m just doing my part to save the planet.”
If it’s becoming clear that everything is connected, and that farmers in Ukraine can’t farm their wheat because farmlands have become battlefields, and farmers have traded pitchforks for guns. This wheat, which is estimated to be 11.5% of the world’s wheat crop and which also feeds the poorest countries in the world – the people who will go without before me and you. And there you are at 2 am thinking about your taxes and where they go, or wondering how long until you fill your gas tank again, or whether you should put a hot tub in your yard given the climate crisis, even though the salesman reminds you that you only fill it up once. And what about the tree in your garden that, if you brought it down, will bring so much more light into the yard.
Will the tree feel the axe? Will the yard feel the sun? If I stop eating meat can I help save the planet? How many children were on the train platform in Ukraine?
If you finally leave your house at the end of the day and are surprised by how balmy it is, and that even amidst all the horror, someone has managed to grow lilacs on your street, so you stick your nose into the blossoms because beauty is beauty wherever you can find it. And because yesterday when your mother Face Timed you she looked more tired than usual, the way she spoke to you from her bed in the middle of the day, eyes closed. How you found yourself memorizing her face; her still rosy cheeks, the white of her hair, that beautiful patrician nose.
If you’re still wandering around looking for the list that might tell you how to live in the world as it is, with everything you know, and everyday is an excruciating attempt to pay attention because it matters, even if you don’t know what to say about it. “Don’t worry,” the TikTok therapist tells me, “you are not alone.”
Listen to Laurie read the post here …
For the last 100 weeks, I have been writing alongside a community of people called the Wild Writing Family, folks who have been Wild Writing with me for 100 weeks straight – since the pandemic began. Generally, we only open registration three times a year, but to celebrate 100 weeks of writing together, we’re welcoming new folks in for the next 10 days. If you’d like to join us, we would love to have you. The Wild Writing Family is an opportunity to throw your nets into the water, and to write through these times together, as a chorus of voices, speaking into what matters.
Oh this is everything Laurie…
Yes; me too.
2 years of isolation and finally covid entered our home somehow.
I haven’t lived my life for 2 years.
I have lived in fear for 2 years.
Not going out; but it came anyway.
I survived, unlike so many.
I need to walk and watch the tulips bloom,
The magnificent magnolias.
The cherry blossom.
But I am trapped by another fear…
How do I get out of my front door?
How can I get past this?
I live in a country that is in relative peace,
I have opportunity to walk barefoot on the beach,
To breathe the sea air of the cliffs,
But Fear holds me back.
How much greater the fear and pain in Ukraine,
Such strength, such courage, such hope amongst despair…
And I can’t even leave my house to walk in peace and safety on the shore.
I can’t even make a list 🥺🤍
Wow Laurie, just wow, no words but love and thank you.
Absolutely gorgeous writing again, Laurie, from the moment you cast your net and your words into the world and share them with us so we can feel a bit less alone. Thank you, Writing Goddess you are!
Oh my you captured so many things that I have felt and am feeling. I have found that it can be very hard to go to events as the last two years have been spent in so much isolation. I go through the motions with zero energy. Thank you for the permission to just be as that is a great gift amid all the chaos and sadness in our world. Our collective grief and our interconnections including the feelings of the trees and animals and their grief. Alway love your words as they leave me much to ponder and I don’t feel so alone❤️
the heaviness and beauty in all this. thank you Laurie. love you Laurie
Laurie,
I too have no list.
I just had a yard sale!
That was very lonely, I almost felt like I was trying too hard!
I made $400 and my whole body aches! But I’m proud of my self for emptying 2 storage units up in the delta, only to have to more expensive/convenient ones down here in Alameda, away from fire and flood risk, I think!
I’m in town and can’t push this stuff on anyone else!
But what am I doing? Saving archives, fine trays , linens for that party , one day.
I love your real time talk! I needed that today as I try to pack again!
Is there a joint, a drink, a gummy that will bring back compassion? I’m a bit selfish and self serving and I feel rich! I am more stressed just thinking about what direction I am moving, so I stay present to stillness. I am rich with stillness!
Yes, and nodding, my heart feeling truth if your words all the way through your blog…THANK YOU🙏🏼Now I do feel more connected, with how and all you shared, the gigantic and the granular, love prevails too. Thank full🙇🏻♀️♥️
Oh Laurie, thank you for this. Thank you for casting your net wide enough for all of us to fit in.❤
These words paint the picture of the room I inhabit.
Beautifully written, thank you.
Thank you Laurie. These are exactly the words I needed this morning. ❤️
I have no words. But yes—all this. Sigh. 🤍
❤️
Beautifully put, Laurie. Captures the despair & fatigue & inertia so many of us are feeling… pandemic, climate, a far away but still connected war.
Calming to read as it reminds me that I am not alone in all that I see in the world. Thank you 🙏🏼
This is so beautiful, Laurie. Thank you
Your gorgeous words so aptly narrate what we’ve all been living. Thank you, Laurie for shining a light, your light, through the tunnel. So much comfort in this oh-so-fragile piece. 💜
Laurie, thank you for helping us navigate a difficult world to live in. You make the Wild Writing Family comforting in a time of so much loss and we need the beauty as well to keep us going.
So true Laurie. Well said and beautifully expressed as always
I have no list but here I am today- off to New York in two days and watching the news where there was a subway shooting there today. It is also the place where I will visit Ethan, whose cat just gave birth to 5 healthy kittens – all black – in his tiny upper west side apartment.
I gave up meat a year ago and wonder if it even matters – beyond my own heart health…
Sometimes all we can do is manage our own heart health, literally and figuratively. XXoo
My deep pink tulips are pushing up and blooming amid the brown leaves still in my flower bed because my yard guys haven’t come yet to clean up what the wind blew in all winter. It’s how we have to live our lives now amid our two year-long winters of covid, war and commodity insufficiency. I experience conversational ennui and getting out of the house anxiety and I wonder why. Am I just getting old … what? I thought I was the only one. Thanks, Laurie for thinking to write your soothing words about this, for identifying our currant human condition, for letting us know we’re not alone, and for inspiring me to find some words and harvest them here and maybe in a related post on my own blog. And don’t chop down that tree. I love trees and cry when they’re cut down.
current — not currant
What a beautiful piece Laurie. Your words speak to me. I am in the same space, the same place. I love how you express what so many of us are feeling and it warms my heart to be reminded that we are not alone. Thank you.
Thank you Laurie, I stopped Wild Writing a bit ago, felt like too much, but I think I need to come back. You nailed it so well in this piece and I miss you and the group.
Yes to all you wrote. Here in Boulder we have the wildfires and high winds and 1100 displaced families from the first one and we had to evacuate our house for another scary episode below NCAR two weeks ago. What do you take? I have no list. My brain froze, like I was in slow motion, weighing the relative value of everything I saw. Sewing machine or yearbook? Clothes or children’s artwork? When I started to pack food I realized the whole world is not burning (or is it?), just your neighborhood, potentially.
So yes, I want to come back.
Laurie, if our world in this time leaves us speechless, the pen moving across the page will remind each of us that there we still have much to say, even after we feel there was nothing left to say. Your piece reminds us to put pen topper,and to remember to seek the lilacs and their intoxicating scent.
Laurie, thank you for the 100 days of being able to write in community with you and our Wild Writing family. It is a life line in never-before-times like these. You are a gift.
Laurie, if our world in this time leaves us speechless, the pen moving across the page will remind each of us that there we still have much to say, even after we feel there was nothing left to say. Your piece reminds us to put pen to paper and to remember venture forth in search the lilacs and their intoxicating scent.
Laurie, thank you for the 100 days of being able to write in community with you and our Wild Writing family. It is a life line in never-before-times like these. You are a gift.
Thank you Laurie. Your inclusive, willing, rigorous noticing, “wide net” is such a gift. I’m grateful.
Thank you LaurieI Your writing is balm for the soul. And my mom and dad 80 years old say the same thing as the tik tok therapist…they have never seen or heard of anything like “these times” and thus…they are losing their minds. My dad bought my mom an iwatch for their 56th anniversary last week so that if she gets lost or falls “it will pick her up”..we are living what feels like a dark dense forest fog…glimpses though of soft, generous charteruse on all the wintered limbs that nudge me to breathe in again and smile. Thank you for helping me find a way to pay attention, write it down and let it be.
Thank you so much, Laurie, for this piece, and for the Wild Writing Family that has meant the world to me. After many years of not writing, your readings and prompts, compassion and encouragement have led me back to my writer’s soul. I am grateful beyond words!
Thank you, Laurie. I love how your words collect inside and then like a sonic wave, they move something in me. In that space after the pulse words start to form into sentences and I soon realize I am writing inside my head. Right through the fear, right through the rage, right through the complacency. So often I am late to the Wild Writing Family, still living on the edges of it but knowing all of you are there keeps me looking for my pen and journal.
Just found you via Meet Me At The Corner Blog. Synchronicity, too, as i was just writing my next post about all the questions that knock in my brain at 4 am. I also like hot baths for relaxing mind and body, though I recommend ditching the Tic Tock videos at that time! Enjoyed your writing.
Yes, Laurie – “drifting in circles” has been the direction of my world since the start of the pandemic. I’ve been trying to understand this change in me for sometime now, thinking it must be peri-menopause (which is possible), but maybe it has much to do with the wild swirl of pandemic combined with war combined with gun violence combined with …
Through reading your writing, I feel connected in a
disconnected time! We need each other. I need to build in time to rest from tragic information Of atrocities. Thank you for making this community and sharing your thoughts and writing, it helps!
beautiful and poignant…
Beautiful and heartbreaking. And as always, I love the sound of your voice.