Quarantine Diary – Day 60

May 21, 2020 – Day 60 of Quarantine

Last night while moving, meditating, and writing I realized that I am needing more daily comfort and care. This quarantine is wearing me down! I decided the one concrete thing I can do for myself each day is to take great care in creating beautiful and satisfying drinks and meals for myself each night. It will be time to slow down, create some beauty in the day, and nourish myself. Evenings feel like a gentle reminder that I have made it through another day. Why not use the time to create an amazing cocktail or pour a glass of amazing wine and make myself a truly satisfying meal?

This afternoon I ordered supplies from a local winery (yes, Brooklyn has a rooftop vineyard) that has beautifully curated packages with locally sourced supplies. I lovingly created my first Aperitivo spritz while my favorite frozen pizza cooked (baby steps, I made an kale salad for lunch, including homemade dressing). And you know what? It felt amazing to care for myself in this way.

Song I’m listening to today:

Quarantine Diary – Day 59

May 20, 2020 – Day 59 of Quarantine

I started and ended the day with a drink on my fire escape. Not a lick of makeup, unmanicured nails, definitely no bra, I think a brush made it through my hair at some point during the day but that is questionable.

This is my view while sitting out there (overthinking any and everything).

 

Song I’m listening to today:

Quarantine Diary – Day 58

May 19, 2020 – Day 58 of Quarantine

Wind whips through the neighborhood blowing into the open window causing a dress in my closet to sway rhythmically with the newly grown green leaves on the tree outside. It’s beautiful and ominous, and irritating. Today, everything irritates me. I’m cranky, which, I suppose is allowed, but my crankiness becomes just one more thing irritating me. I’m not interested in snapping out of my funk as it, just like the wind, causes everything around me to ruffle and sway. Even the cat knows to stay out of my way. I’m not interested in exploring what lie just beneath all the irritation and crankiness. So, I let work distract me. My students pull me out of my crankiness while I teach.

As I sit here attempting to finish this post my eyes are continually drawn away from the screen to the trees swaying in the wind. I marvel at the fact that at the beginning of this quarantine many of the trees were still bare from winter. I watched buds pop up and blossom then fall to the ground making way for the lush greenery that captures my eye in this moment. I know this mood I am in will be swayed by some internal or external force soon enough. I know my crankiness will give way to something else just as the blossoms on the trees give way to the green leaves. I know this current state of quarantine will transition into something else too. What? I’m not sure any of us know the answer to that question just yet.

Song I’m listening to today:

Quarantine Diary – Day 57

May 18, 2020 – Day 57 of Quarantine

My mind grasps at familiar habits by trying to plan for the future. More than ever it just feels like trying to hold water in a fist. I begin pondering big changes. Is this the time with everything so in flux and unknown? Is this the wrong time for precisely the same reasons? I have been pondering shifts for quite some time, but as my mind frantically runs in its hamster wheel getting absolutely nowhere I can’t help wondering if I am simply trying to run away from the discomfort of the present.

The pots and soil I ordered last week arrived in the afternoon so I busied myself with planting tomato seedlings and heads of lettuce. There is something satisfying and grounding about digging my hands into the soil. I talk to the tomato seedlings as I untangle their entwined roots, separating them so they can finally begin growing into their full potential. I wonder what I am unconsciously still wrapped up in that might be preventing me from growing into my fullest potential.

 

Song I’m listening to today:

 

Quarantine Diary – Day 54

May 15, 2020 – Day 54 of Quarantine

Lasting warmth from the sun lingering into the evening hours. Windows wide open with a welcoming breeze blowing in along with bits and pieces of conversations on the street below and the smoky smell of a barbeque firing up for dinner. Summer weather in late spring, reminiscent of a time not long ago when children could be seen and heard riding bikes and scooters up and down the sidewalks without a care in the world, parents lazily tagging along half a block behind. People sitting on front stoops watching the neighborhood transition from afternoon to evening while pondering dinner plans. There is a different noise and energy these days – a heavy, solitary quiet. We wonder. We wait. We grow impatient. We do the best we can, wearily dragging ourselves into the days that blend together forming weeks we lose track of now that all familiar markers have been moved. Only the birds are carefree these days.

Song I’m listening to today:

 

Quarantine Diary – Day 53

May 14, 2020 – Day 53 of Quarantine

I don’ really feel like putting today into words. I’m simply sitting in the experience of it all. While walking with a friend today (socially distancing and masks in place) we came across a butterfly that was not eager to get out of our path.

Song I’m listening to today:

Quarantine Diary – Day 52

May 13, 2020 – Day 52 of Quarantine

I had a bit of an ah-ha moment about myself today. When things go wrong, I am quick to blame myself, even if I am not at fault or only a partial contributor amongst many to the problem. I use the mistakes to beat myself and remind myself of all the ways I am not good enough. And you know what? It sucks! It’s exhausting! And I am done with playing the blame game with myself. It is absolutely fruitless. There is a huge difference between owning a mistake and actively working to fix it or doing better next time and blaming and beating myself up for a mistake. The latter does not promote learning or effective change it only serves as fuel to an old personal narrative that limits my growth and stunts relationships with others.

Quarantine has led to lots of time alone with my own thoughts, probably too much time in most cases. It has also led to more awareness and reflection of these thoughts. And, quarantine has also led to more check-ins and chats with friends throughout the day. With not a whole lot of small talk or superfluous distractions to discuss the inner dialogue drama often begins to spill out allowing for a little more clarity and a little less brooding as an external, far more objective voice chimes in breaking the habitual refrain my mind initially settles into. It’s all uncomfortable. The habitual refrain, while familiar just generates suffering. The awareness of the habitual refrain and how it generates suffering can easily lead down the road of beating myself up. Being called out on all of this is perhaps the most uncomfortable of all.

So, yes, I hung out in my funk for a few hours today after leading a live streaming yoga class for a large corporation that was filled with hiccups and technical difficulties, all of which I blamed on myself until being pulled out of that self-destructive little bubble with a little reality checking from a friend. And now I have a little more perspective on my own thoughts and patterns. I’m also going to have a very large glass of wine now because, well, today was hard and just kinda sucked.

Song I’m listening to today:

Quarantine Diary – Day 51

May 12, 2020 – Day 51 of Quarantine

Today just feels heavy and hard. And you know what? That’s okay. There comes a point where we have to release our grip on what was and our expectations of what will be, simply softening into the present moment. My mind and body need movement today, even just sitting to write this feels inexplicably hard this evening. If you too are needing some movement, I offer up one of my recorded yoga practices.

 

 

Song I’m listening to today:

Quarantine Diary – Day 50

May 11, 2020 – Day 50 of Quarantine

 

I woke up this morning to the sun shining in patches and pouring rain…simultaneously. And I thought, what an incredible metaphor for life right now. It was a reminder that we can find joy and light in dark and stormy times. Throughout the day there were moments of glorious sunshine and moments when the wind would pick up dramatically swaying the trees outside, the sky would become dark as night, and the rain would pummel my windows. I was on the lookout for rainbows all day…none were to be found. Again, this felt like the perfect metaphor for life right now, mercurial, everyone desperately searching for signs of beauty and hope amidst the uncertainty, which all seem to be invisible to the naked eye.

I took a few days off. I needed it, and I do feel more mentally and emotionally clear and settled, but I do not feel refreshed or rested as I usually do after some down time. The heaviness of this time still weighs on me. As I moved my body this morning I could feel the residue of some heavy emotions lingering, not yet ready to be released but willing to come along for the ride with minimal complaining.

I find myself thinking very little about the future and what might or might not be down the road. I ponder how much peanut butter is too much peanut butter in one day more than once. I find pleasure in the evening sun coming through my windows warming  my face and shoulders while I sit on the couch and write.

Song I’m listening to today:

 

Quarantine Diary – Day 47

May 8, 2020 – Day 47 of Quarantine

This has perhaps been the hardest week of quarantine for me. It all felt like a bit too much. Just a week ago I was feeling a greater sense of ease and dare I even say, contentment, amidst all of this. A beautiful reminder that things are ever changing. One thing that has become undeniable is that I need to give myself a few days off. And so, that is exactly what I am doing this weekend.

Song I’m listening to today: