Calmness of mind. Does that mean calmness of everything else, too? Does my body—my heart, my nerves, my sweat glands—does it all need to remain calm in order for me to possess that gem of virtues, equanimity? If so, I’ll never be adorned by its fineness, the sublime mist which showers grace upon the just and unjust alike. Equanimity is a gift to everyone standing near. Not that I don’t aspire to possess equanimity. I do. I practice all the appropriate disciplines. I sit in quiet spaces; close my eyes; breathe. I listen carefully to the minutest of sounds—the radiator tink-tinking, the cat as it jumps down off the bed—and do my best to watch my train of thought be just that: a train headed into the hills out of sight. I earnestly try to pay attention wherever I find myself, whether it’s in the kitchen with my daughter or out by the curb checking for mail. Everywhere, smells, sounds, and sights abound. If I am present in the right frame of mind, everywhere is wherever I am. These are fine moments, shining with the ordinary presence of eternity. But what about during calamitous times when anxiety spills steadily from the collective unconscious like water from a dislocated faucet? What happens to time when it is flooded with fear and denial and anger and anguish and no part of the day is without its own share of damp? That’s when my heart gets involved, sputtering like a gas burner trying to ignite after the pasta has boiled over. That’s when my nerves are so overstimulated even a long spell of silence can’t quell the thrum. As for sweating, I’ll only hint: the laundry is piling up. This time of extraordinary worry—however painful, however horrible—cannot obliterate the ordinary which rests settled at the bottom of its raging riverbed. Plain pebbles, everyday moments, remain for the sensing even as we seem swept away in a torrent of difficult feelings. This is my current strategy: When I am ready, I step straight into the day prepared to get pummeled. I drag my feet, keep my senses open to what is clustered underfoot. There, ordinary moments await, dim but alight with eternity. There is no bling. Nothing to hold onto. However, in the absence of calm, I can be content with that. Karen Jessee Please join the conversation. . . and invite your friends to visit www.searchandknow.org.
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She sat me down in her kitchen, searched for blank paper under the school release forms for a field trip now canceled, and handed me a pencil. My friend—not quite a survivalist, what you might call a preparedist—accurately predicted the mounting number of people in self-isolation, those contained and quarantined which we are now seeing during the COVID-19 crisis. Two weeks ago, she had said with peculiar confidence, “Write this down. These are the supplies you will need. Shop for them soon. The stores will run out, and even if they don’t, eventually you won’t want to go out to get them.” Living in North Carolina, hurricanes are the disasters I usually plan for, or ice storms with power outages that last a week. These upsets belong to a class of irritation called “inconvenience.” They garner a long sigh and a prayer for anyone who might actually be suffering from the situation. In truth, my townspeople and I get a little giddy anticipating the unexpected, preparing for a few days without a freezer, like going camping. However this time, going to the store with my list, I felt something only scenes from movies and history books have ever conveyed: plague. I know my life isn’t a movie. It’s a Tuesday and a packed lunch and feeding the cats and going to work. More recently, it’s been last minute shopping off that list, gallows humor shared with friends who also use humor as a defense against dread, and lots of questions: Is the concert cancelled? Should we go if it’s not? What about our son’s school? Maybe it’s time to think about staying home. All this anxiety and excitement amongst my friends with college age kids has turned from motivational water-treading into dramatic, declarative action. We are retrieving our young adult children from colleges closed until further notice. My own daughter begins packing today for a trip home which may last months as she completes her next term online. She and I have both been focused and energized making the decision to get her out of her badly managed college town, one becoming an ideal environment for contagion because of negligent public policies and governance. Now that I am sure she’s coming home, I find myself becoming slowly aware of a feeling as unexpected to me as the public crisis itself: sadness. My daughter’s dearest school friend is a young woman—fresh, sweet, kind. . . .almost naïve—who comes from South Korea. It’s been difficult for H_____ to understand that even if it made sense for her to go home, doing so could risk her losing the chance to finish her education. The college hasn’t guaranteed re-enrollment for students returning from Level 2 and 3 countries. H____ just hasn’t been able to process this. Last week, our family offered to host her, bring her here to our home while she sorts things out. It must have seemed like a preparedist gesture to her—surreal, premature. Not until the college announced the cancellation of all on-campus classes for the coming term did H_____ begin to understand: she’d been dropped on the curb of her junior year with only the money in her pocket and no place to live. We may be privileged to have her come stay with us after all. During last week, as my daughter plead ineffectively with H_____ to come here to North Carolina, I heard her heart breaking with fear for her friend. “Doesn’t she understand? The seriousness? The truth of this?” When H_____’s denial began to ease, my daughter’s voice eased also, relaxing with the relief of having orchestrated a successful rescue. But what of the international students at school who are stuck in the one remaining open dorm, living all too close together in a town, city, country, oblivious to their crisis? What about the financially poor students on scholarships who literally have been kicked out on the street by their institutions with no financial assistance for travel or food? Suddenly, we have a new class of homeless in our society—young, motivated, intelligent people who lack resources to be independent, who need. These fresh, positive, hopeful young people who promise Time that all is not lost--they are lost. Right now. This week. My house is not big enough to house everyone who is being displaced by COVID-19. Perhaps my heart is. Perhaps my heart of sadness is large enough and open to all the young people and their worried parents. Perhaps your heart can fill with the teachers changing all their plans and the beleaguered administrators who have to make impossible choices. Perhaps our neighbors can hold the health officials, the doctors, nurses and pharmacists, journalists, baristas, and grocery store clerks. Perhaps, together, our hearts can provide a cradle of safety for those who most need it while we consider what else we can do. And we will need to do something. There will be lots of mess to manage and sort through. When I’m in doubt, I’ll go back to my list: Find interior quiet, equanimity, an abundance of compassion—as much as you can get. You can never have too much of these. Hoard up. They never go out of date. Karen Jessee Please offer your own thoughts by leaving a comment below. Invite your friends to Search and Know!
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