Isolation
When everyone was out on Christmas Eve clinking champagne glasses, eating Tourtière, playing Crokinole and telling stories- I was in my room isolating.
After a couple of challenging months of death and grief and basement flooding- there was nothing more I wanted than to be caressed by raucous laughter and friendship.
But my fervent wish for a magical, restorative holiday didn’t come to pass.
Instead the company I kept for the last 12 days has been…
My coughing and sneezing, my body’s miserable chorus of chills and aches
Kleenexes crumpled and tucked behind pillows and wool socks
Vitamin C, D and Zinc, Ibuprofen, Advil, expired Tylenol
Covid tests kits- partly assembled
Immunity Tea, soaked and resoaked
Front pages of the Yukon News with headlines, “It’s really miserable: tenants”
Laptop with Netflix reruns of Schitt’s Creek and unfortunately, Emily of Paris
Empty packages of Turtle chocolates, for those rare moments I felt like one
Lifeline texts of friendly hellos and how-are-yous
Plates of toast crumbs and a bedside table crowded with at least four water glasses
Headlamps for when the power goes out (again)
Masks, on the ready, if a kid pokes their head through the door
Ivan Coyote’s Care Of
Suffocating in my own Misery
Over days, I watched myself both weather Covid but also become suffocated by my own misery.
Even though I felt gratitude (my parents and my mother-in-law had gotten Covid too and were doing really well)- my grumpiness was gluttonous. I into the sport of resisting my circumstance and nurturing a barrage of unhelpful thoughts.
My comparative mind was on hyper drive. Aided by little physical movement, I began busying myself with comparisons between Current and Future ‘Me’.
Get on your cushion. Appreciate the Now. Surrender to gratefulness. You’ve got it good, remember! Can’t you just admire the fancy avocado plate Michael just brought you!?
I was failing. Failing at being sick with equanimity. Failing at taking the gold of my predicament and being with what is. Jennifer, unable to turn the ‘holiday fiasco’ into an awakened lesson.
My suffering expanded until I got some luck. I wrote a sub-optimal poem.
A Poisonous expectation: “improvement”
I won’t share it here, even though it would make a lot more sense. It really wasn’t that good.
But where the poem came in handy was that it revealed what I’d gotten myself into- alone in my bedroom.
As Covid had its way with me- I considered every possible way I could better ‘take advantage’ of this time to improve myself. A poisonous expectation of what I should be doing with all this quiet, sick time.
To become more enlightened, awake, alive, creative, in-the-know, accepting. You should be writing! Planning the arc of Season 2.
I’m exhausted just admitting this to you.
There’s No Time to Waste
As I read my poem back to myself, my shitty draft freed me.
Not from the confinement of my room, my ritual of daily testing or the heart-ache missing of my kids and visiting parents.
It pierced through my misery and revealed what was MOST TRUE. Underneath all my resistance to being sick there was an unrelenting belief that there’s no time to waste.
My own handwriting delivered this Truth hard. Every moment should be used to “improve”.
A strange gilded world of my future perfection and the insistence to get there. You can become a person who always makes a delicious meal, skis every couloir, masters fear and irony, never hides desire, apologizes with grace, keeps in touch with everyone, teaches and coaches brilliantly with time to volunteer, faithfully meditate, and appreciate every breath.
Literally these were lines in my poem. Reading them I finally saw this baffling idealized human I’m both creating and clinging to.
And like that, once I saw it, the Current Me, still wrapped in 6 day-old clothes, relaxed.
Self-Deception and Future ‘Us’
There’s nothing like hanging out with your confined Self to get an honest whiff of what’s going on.
If I’d been clinking glasses on Christmas Eve, I’d never have been at wit’s end. Never written that poem. Never seen how my self-deception had mutated like the virus.
And once I did, I invoked an imaginary ritual.
I took my devotion to self-improvement and fed it to a Pitcher Plant. I let my earnestness become the flies and ants for a carnivorous being. I fed it every last drop and with relief, I watched it dissolve.
I’ve been through Covid now and I’ve uncovered another layer of self-deception. I suspect that the mutations will continue to arise in both but I might be better at catching them before they take root.
So my friend in 2023 may you discover the ordinary seeing that can set yourself free again and again. May you never discard the wisdom of Kleenex, prolonged misery, or your own resistance to it all.
Let’s remember that ‘Future Us’ will never resemble enlightened perfection but a migrating temple of resistance, mistakes, fumbling and sweaty acceptance.
Something always comes to life regardless…
