This is my symphony

Great Pause #8

It’s been a while, has it not?

And in the midst of a global pandemic where life as we know it has slowed to a crawl, I find it rather odd that I’ve not blogged more.

There’s definitely an emotional health aspect to this whole experience–one, I think, that is too often overlooked in our focus on face masks and social distance and hand-washing and Lysol wipes.

So I’ve sometimes had to do battle with my own demons: loneliness, isolation, fear. That unfocused feeling of moving from one thing to another to yet another without a real sense of purpose.

I’ve always lived by to-do lists. I’m a planner. I keep my ducks in a row. Every day has its own agenda and each task builds on the next.

But now?

I do some hand-stitching. Make a few masks. Bake a rhubarb crisp. (Or two!) Listen to NPR while I embroider. Dust a bit. (Well, maybe not so much …) Hang laundry on the line. Take a walk.

Don’t get me wrong. This “discomfort’ is one that only the privileged among us have leisure for. And my gratitude knows no bounds. I have a steady income. A house to call my own. Health! Friends who care for me.

Thanks to my husband the gardener our backyard is flush with zinnias and cosmos and gladiolas and butterfly bush and coneflower. The other day I watched a hummingbird flit from zinnia to butterfly bush and back again.

Her path wasn’t linear. Her flight seemed erratic. She hovered by each flower for only a second or two before zig-zagging off.

Kind of like me for the past two hundred and some odd days.

But no one on God’s green Earth would ever think less of that incredible little creature for her flight. Would never criticize her for lacking direction or being unfocused.

So I’m extending to myself the same grace. I’ll make like a hummingbird and flit through my days, moving from laptop to the kitchen sink to sewing machine and on out into the garden–without judgement. Compelled by whatever Inner Knowing pulls me forward and keeps me airborne.