Month: April 2020

I would like to start again with a story. The other day my partner and I woke up to clear, sunny skies and set out on a long walk that turned into a hike through a regional park in the area. The sun beat down on our backs incessantly, and without any other hikers around we were given the luxury of removing our cloth face masks for a few glorious minutes.

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As I mentioned in my previous post, when it’s spring and it reaches the big 6-0 in Minnesota everyone is outside! So, it was quite a treat to walk through the forest with only birds as our backdrop and the endless pines. We even ended up pulling out a blanket and a lawn chair and sprawling out in our small backyard for a happy hour before the sun set.

Skip ahead to Sunday and it was a totally different scenario. Flurries, gusty wind, less than 30 degrees blanketed by a grey sky. At least we had no plans or places to be. But, still. Ugh. It was a cold, snowy day that made you feel more like all the spring/summer clothes you pulled out of your closet less than 24 hours ago was a total waste of time, not to mention that it seemed yesterday was 30 days ago!

Now, I don’t bring up the drastic shift in weather just to complain about it (even though I’ve been told this is talent among those who live in the Midwest 😉).

It struck me that the extreme change in looking outside my window from one singular event, along with the feelings that came with that change, felt so familiar to the situation we find ourselves in today during these “quarantimes.”

Life looks different.

Life sounds different.

Life feels different.

Life is different.

Life is a bit more anxiety-filled/uncertain/ [insert your choice feeling word here] than it used to be.

This week I turned to places and people and ideas that bring me comfort to find a bit of solace in this strange, new way of life we are currently in. Just like “comfort food” evokes a certain kind of ease that is both soothing and nostalgic, so do songs, conversations and practices.  Here’s the dose of “comfort food for the soul” I found myself savoring this week:

Comfort Listens

Music – My go to artist this week has been Chastity Brown. Her work is a wide range of melancholy, joy and quiet contemplation. Also, she is a local artist based out of Minneapolis with roots in Tennessee.

And, this! It is nearly impossible not to have the infectious joy (the good kind of contagious, mind you) rub off on you from listening to Coldplay’s Tiny Desk Concert featuring the Harlem Gospel Choir.

Podcast – “Home Cooking” podcast hosted by Samin Nosrat and Hrishi Hirway

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I recently discovered this podcast after watching Samin’s limited series on Netflix called Salt Fat Acid Heat. I thoroughly enjoyed “Home Cooking” for two reasons, first because who doesn’t want to hear about useful ways to use beans or lentils or rice and make it taste delicious? Second, Samin and Hrishi are down to earth and just plain fun to listen to. In the first episode, “Bean There, Done That” they spend a pretty significant amount of time answering questions from listeners who want help figuring out how to use split peas in a soup other than “split pea and ham” and are trying to find ways to get creative with what they have already in their cupboard. I love their fun, down to earth and no frills approach to cooking. You can check out the website and episodes for their podcast here.

There’s also a handful of other podcasts I’ve been finding a lot of joy out of that I wrote about in an earlier blog post you can check out here as well.

Comfort Mind/Body/Spirit Practice

A few things I kept coming back to in this past week:

a) During regular times, folks are often too hard on themselves. Especially now, it is so easy to be hard on oneself for the ways these quarantimes have interrupted new year’s resolutions, goals and plans in general.

b) I am no exception!

c) Now, is a pretty good time as any to try to be a bit kinder, a bit gentler, a bit more forgiving to yourself

So, I decided to go on little meditative walk with the help of a Labyrinth.

For those unfamiliar with labyrinths, according to The Labyrinth Society, “a labyrinth is a meandering path [often in a circular design shape] with a singular path leading to the center.” Labyrinths have been used across religious and secular traditions for “personal, psychological, and spiritual transformation”.

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As I stood at the center of the Labyrinth and looked around I noticed the sounds of the birds in the nearby trees.

They kept making music, kept watching, kept listening, kept living, anyways*. In spite of all the chaos and destruction and death in the world around them. Instead of tuning out, they kept tuning in to those around them in need. Instead of hoarding and fighting over food, they fed those around them and trusted there would be enough for everyone.

“Wow”, you might say, “that’s a heck of a lot to gather just by listening to some birds and going on a walk”.

And, I would say in reply, “Yes, yes it is”. But, maybe we need a little more sensitivity to the world around us right now. Maybe we would all do a bit better, be in a better mood, and be a bit kinder to ourselves, if we did.

May we all be as brave as the birds we listen to.

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To find a labyrinth near you visit the World-Wide Labyrinth locator here.

*The sentence above (and this blog post) was largely inspired by a sermon on Easter Sunday by Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Rev. Michael Curry. His sermon “It’s Easter, anyways” can be found here

If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need to hear (again) about the importance of washing your hands, or a breakdown of what we could have done, what the current U.S. administration failed to do to help prepare us before this turned into a full blown pandemic. So, instead I would like to share a story and some lessons I learned from my week.

Lesson #1: “What the #?@:(?!” Life Right Now is Not Easy…For Anyone

This past Monday was a gorgeous, sunny 60 degree spring day here in Minnesota. When it reaches the golden big 6-0 here everyone and their grandmother’s sister is outside, after all us Minnesotans have been cooped up for the past 4 months biding our time just waiting for one of these perfect spring days.

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So, on Monday I decided after finishing up some work that I would take a nice evening stroll along the Mississippi River. The only problem was…everyone else had had the same idea! ☹ As I approached the area where I was planning on parking I saw more and more groups of people, biking, running, walking (all in shorts, mind you). I literally almost lost my shit. “What the #?@*# (choose your favorite expletive here)?!” Didn’t these people know we are supposed to be social distancing? Haven’t the hastags #socialdistancingsaveslives or #stayhome shown up on their social media news feed like 20 times a day? Alas, everyone and their grandmother’s cousin’s uncle was out (yes, this may be a bit of an exaggeration). I parked my car, but ultimately decided it wasn’t safe to go out. So, I turned around and drove home cranky and resentful that everyone else ruined my perfect springtime evening.

Later this week, and after a long venting session with my spouse where I refused to back down from my belief that I alone and not anyone else deserved a beautiful evening stroll, I realized something. I wasn’t wrong in feeling resentful/frustrated/annoyed/ready to pull my hair out. Everyone is grappling with what physical (social) distancing means for their life and trying to come to terms with it in their own way. This is not easy for any of us – totally changing your daily habits, patterns and ways of being in the world is just plain tough. This week that realization hit me like walking into a low hanging ceiling, it caught me by surprise and stung for a few days after. It essentially took me until just now to realize how much I really was caught up in the moment.

I stumbled upon a graphic earlier in the week from the Episcopal Relief & Development and a quote from the renowned Elisabeth Kubler-Ross on grief that I found helpful:

Just looking at this quote and this “Emotional Lifecycle of Disaster” graphic reminded me that we are all at a different place in this and for all of us, this crisis does affect us differently. For some of us, yesterday might have been the roughest day yet, for others that was 3 weeks ago. For some of us stress might look like trying to help everyone and their uncle’s cousin while for others it might look like excessively stockpiling food and TP. But, the point is we are all struggling and coming to terms with this in our own way.

Compassion, not just for ourselves, but also for others can go a long way right now.

Lesson #2: How to listen and observe (while 6 feet apart!)

Since the end of March, I’ve been going on walks and runs outside at a nearby regional park.

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I don’t know about you, but I have been realizing the subtle differences in interactions with people on my walks and runs. Typically, living in the Midwest, people tend to say hello or at least smile at pretty much everyone they cross paths with – since physical (social) distancing started I’ve noticed on my runs/walks how little this happened at first. As I would pass people from six feet away I would glance over to see if they were going to look and say a friendly midwestern hello. Most often than not they’d be looking down or away, incredibly focused on not only physically, but also socially being distant. It’s interesting because I’m sure most people aren’t intending to do this, but it seems the overall friendly exterior (aka ‘Minnesota nice’) has taken a hit in some ways.

The past few days, however, I have crossed paths with more people saying ‘good morning’ or just a simple ‘hello’. I wonder as I pass by folks what kind of day they have had, or how has their life has changed since March. Are they lonely and isolated at times? Are they getting driven crazy by their family members? How are they getting through this? Asking myself these questions about those I pass by on walks or runs has helped me in building a bit more compassion…and not trying to go outside when everyone else is has helped too!

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I’ve also been more mindful on my walks/runs towards the life around me. Birds chirping and singing songs to each other that I honestly have not really ever paid much attention to before make me wonder, “what are they saying?”. “Can they tell something is off with us humans?”. A friend of mine has a wonderful blog post on the different types of calls birds make and what they mean, check it out here.

In Jenny Odell’s article “How To Do Nothing” (from which her book is based off of), she references a book The Genius Of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman that describes just how intelligent birds are. She shares birds can recognize and remember human faces and recognize which of us are the ‘good humans’ and which are the ‘bad humans’; Jenny Odell goes as far as leaving peanuts out on her balcony for the birds to see how they would respond and if they would remember her as a ‘good human’. Odell explains in her article that eventually the bird brought along its baby to eat some of the peanuts left out and began following her around outside of her home when she was on walks. This to me is utterly fascinating!

I have been finding during these uncertain times mindfulness and overall being more aware of the natural world around me, has brought a certain sense of calm, curiosity and purpose to each day. This week I noticed the bottle of bubbles I had sitting on my windowsill and decided it could be a fun, solo, mindful activity to do in our backyard. It ended up being a great 10 minute break, even though I may have looked like a total dork doing it, no one else was around to have an opinion on that, and I really enjoyed myself!

I know for some of us it simply isn’t possible, or safe, to go outside right now. But, I encourage everyone to find a way to unplug from the news for a bit and tune into nature – even if it means people or bird watching from your window. 😊

I’ll leave you with a poem, some food for thought, and a meditation:

Poem by Sarah Kay, “A Bird Made of Birds”

“Doing Nothing in a world of addictive tech” clip featuring Jenny Odell, author of “How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy” which is one of the books On My Bookshelf this month!

Be Still, a guided prayer meditation by Phileena Heurtz

Be well, and stay sane, friends!