Distilled

We are becoming distilled
down to what really
matters
BL 5.2.20

May 2. By then we had a sense of it. Five-plus weeks into lockdown, we were feeling something for sure. A little crazy, a little down, a little loopy, a little lost. Obsessed by whatever caught our attention and held it. A song, played on repeat, repeat, repeat. A food. An activity. We picked our poison or it picked us, and we went with it. For weeks. And we had a faint light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel mentality that was willful, blind innocence.

Didn't we all pick our people to hunker down with? The need to check in, check on, hear from them that day, that moment, is everyone okay. Are we good. Alive. What can we feel and how fast can we feel it and are we feeling the same thing? I had my small handful, and they were the ones that got the sudden laugh and had a healthy mix of dark humor and optimism. My poison. Life is shit this second but tomorrow or even in five minutes it might be startlingly welcome - let's go with it.

Time dragged on and froze and sped up, is it over I need it over and yet now I don't want to leave my home. I couldn't wait to leave my home and now I need to be back inside as soon as I can. I breathed an audible sigh of relief walking into my home office after being away all day at the office in June. My eyes scanned the skies day and night. Are we okay?

I saw the sun begin to set and I had to see it drop below the horizon, urgently. It was an imperative, I went to the car and I drove until the view opened up and I could see the sun meet the line of demarcation that was the world and in that moment all the worry fell away. Again, I need it again. That was the repeat. Again again again. When I have it again I will make it through this minute and then this day and then I will have another day. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Again, again, again.

And when we learned that no matter what we personally did to take care and care for others, the community well-being would hinge on what others did? Well. That our "next" would be determined by what they did toward the well-being of the whole? When we realized the thought of other's safety escaped so many that were selfish and maybe clueless and most certainly willfully oblivious? The next chapter, and we are in it. Man, are we in it.

Are we still asking if it will get better? Do we all know things will never be the same? Some things should never be the same. We are being distilled. Allow me to introduce myself.