The almost-post-pandemic cliché question arose at a gathering I attended online, the spiritually-minded people each at home cross-legged on cushions. I sat more comfortably on a couch. Recently, my nerves have been bundled and frayed at the ends like severed electrical wires. When someone posed the question, I was understandably afraid of catching on fire. All year long, I’ve been putting my best face forward, seeking out opportunities for in-person visits at a safe distance, joining groups on Zoom in the hopes of learning something, of feeling connected to a world I can’t touch anymore and can barely see. I use the telephone like I used to in the ancient history of my youth, when phones attached to the wall were all we had. Back then, all long-distance conversations were faceless. “What good has come from this pandemic year for you?” Which face on the screen had asked this? My eyes were closed when the voice needled, soft-toned and sincere, into my ear. Now my whole body tensed, some master switch tripped off inside me. I couldn’t feel a thing. But I was wearing my best face. Not my less-than-optimal face, my dysphoric face, my reasonable-to-be-indignant-and-full-of-rage-at-the-world face: they held perfectly still. Perhaps my sudden stillness signaled spiritual progress, some growth in my practice of equanimity. Or, did it reveal denial of my true feelings? My resignation to the American cult of positivity? Within me, I heard myself protesting: “It’s too early for a question like that! Growth, shmowth. I’m still in this thing.” Besides, can we meaningfully describe effects of the pandemic on people as good simply because they are not horrifying, terrible, exhausting? Judging experiences as good or bad simplifies life and its richness into opaque categories. It belies complexities. “There has been so little to plan for,” I offered, when it was my turn to speak. “I have truly learned to live one day at a time, each day seeming complete within itself, a chance to live truly into the present moment.” “Like Groundhog Day!” someone chirped. Yes, absolutely. We all know the story: the plight of a cantankerous reporter caught in an idyllic town, his alarm clock flipping into action every day, the same day, at 6:00AM playing the same song. But who knows how long Bill Murray’s character lives trapped in this psychic time warp of one day repeating itself? The answer is clear: until he learns to appreciate his life, to respect and be grateful for the people he knows, to love his girlfriend. What we always seem to forget when we speak so fondly of this film is that, at a certain point in the drama, our hero takes pains to kill himself. He tries, over and over and over again. He experiments, continuing to commit suicide in alarming ways. Yet every “next” morning he wakes, incredulous. In hell, life keeps foisting itself on him. The nourishing elements of life he will become aware of later on already exist alongside the painful and defeating ones. They abide together in this day our friend wants so desperately to escape. Times of stress, of change, have always demanded I try to live one day at a time, bearing one moment at a time. That’s all we’ve got anyway, and it’s all I can handle. This year of the pandemic has been one long alarm, waking me each day to face myself, the insipid elements tangled up with the inspired. I try to take charge of my wires. I attempt to splice them with the junction boxes of patience and wisdom. What good has come out of this pandemic year for me? One more day. Karen Jessee Please offer your responses and comments below, then consider sharing this post with a friend.
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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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