The Quiets of the world are in grief right now.
Someone is about to yell that that’s pure privilege, so before they yell it, I will agree with them, it is so.
But it is also the truth. I happen to like telling the truth.
To be clear, on this celebratory day of California’s big re-opening: I am so very thankful that those of us who were given the worst of financial blows can work and make money again. I am so grateful that the lonely can connect. I am so grateful we can hug. I am so grateful the economy is bouncing back. And that our little ones can be in school with their friends. I am so grateful that those of us who experienced devastating personal loss can go out and be comforted by our community, by our synagogues, churches, yoga classes, by the circles that hold us. I am deliriously grateful that live music is back.
Still, I am filled with sadness.
How can we all just go “Whelp, that year was intense, let’s just pick up where we left off?”
There is no picking up where we left off.
We are marked now. I am, at least. Changed. Our cellular structures have shifted. Our mortality has been shoved up under our nose and we can’t un-know the things we know now.
I like my current self, better. The fabric of her is so much softer. Her feet touch the ground differently, when she walks. Her songs have more praise in them.
So things must matter more, or matter differently. Energy allocated differently. Situations accepted or not, knowing that the only certainty is we all check out of this hotel sometime.
I am so happy we can hug again. But I need it to keep being OK to rest, and say no, and go slow, and choose. I need those things not to go away.
I need it to still be OK to ask if I am doing something because it will make me look good, or puff my ego up in some other way, or whether it actually feels good in the quiet of my bones.
