CAUGHT

The last two months have been overwhelmingly filled up with social functions and moments that have acquired me to be ‘on’, smiling and engaging, pleasant and appeasing. During the weeks, I take care of the household chores so that I can say yes to things asked of me on the weekends, even if I don’t feel that yes in my heart. Sometimes it is just easier to say yes and go along because I’m too tired to advocate for my own time. Advocating leads to arguing and disappointment and it just takes up too much energy. So for the last two months, I’ve been on the go, actively listening, trying to participate in the conversations, making too many decisions for others and sleeping for maybe five hours a night.

What happens when you drop someone like this off in a place of isolation?

Well…at first there’s a little bit of panic. I got into my rental car and had to navigate through Boston traffic all alone. My route included driving over the Sagamore bridge which had me clenching all of the muscles. All. Of. Them. I made it to Woods Hole, checked into my room and once I was standing in that room, I kept looking around to see who else might be there. Was I sharing this space with someone? I was not. I was alone in a dorm room with a bathroom all to myself. I looked at the two twin sized beds, took the pillow from one and placed in on the one I would sleep in and unpacked my things. Then I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself. I was too brain dead to start work, but it was too early to go to bed. I hadn’t eaten anything since early that morning and it was close to dinner time. I ventured out in search of food and waited around until it was close to sunset. Then went on a walk with my rented lense. I walked to Stoney Beach, but was disappointed with the view. Too many houses blocking my view of the sunset. I walked away from the beach and over to a public dock. I looked at the sky and gasped. Then I ran to the end of that dock to start taking pictures. This is the moment I felt something break open inside me and I thought I was going to weep with relief as the weights I’ve been carrying lifted. The truth is, I didn’t realize until that very moment just how worn thin I’d become.

I spent the next day working in the lab, taking a break for lunch and eating in solitude. By lunch time on Thursday, I’d finished up all that I needed to do in the lab and decided to drive over to Chatham. I saw so many wild turkeys. There were times I’d have to stop because there would be a group of them in the road. I laughed to myself as I thought about all the depictions of the first Thanksgiving I’d seen that always included a turkey. I drove down a country highway with colorful trees on my left and an ocean on my right. The sun was bright and sparkled through the gold and red leaves. It reflected off the water. Every where I looked, I was struck with ridiculous beauty and tears would just roll down my cheeks without me even realizing it. Once I made it to Chatham, I found a place for lunch and was seated next to two women who were traveling around the Cape together. While I waited for someone to bring me a menu, they asked me if I was traveling alone. When I told them that I was indeed traveling alone, they both exclaimed “Good for you! You’re so brave!” I just smiled.

Was I brave?

I think I can remember a time when I was brave, but lately…even while doing brave things I have felt cowardly. But yeah, there was a time when I had no choice but to be brave. Maybe I fell out of the habit of bravery? Maybe ‘brave’ isn’t the correct word. I’d run out energy to advocate for myself. Maybe this just made me feel cowardly. The whole time I was on this trip, I kept a list of thoughts. I made an effort to write down my wants and needs. I wrote down snippets of things that would would pop up into my head amidst all this silence and alone time. I created a road map for better communication and how to advocate for my needs. I made a pros and cons list for the rented lens, which wasn’t hard. There’s only one thing on the con side of that list. I even allowed myself to think about the next art showing.

While I was still Chatham, I wandered into a little boutique with the charming name of The Fisherman’s Daughter. I browsed around, caressing the hand knit sweaters and thinking about a hat. Then I stumbled onto a jewelry case and found a sterling silver bracelet with a fish hook latch. There was something about its simplicity that made me purchase it. I told myself it was a treat for me, something I had earned for doing the hard things. Hooks are meant to catch things and I’d just spent a week catching ideas and releasing some mental garbage that is not serving me. Now I look down at the bracelet encircling my wrist and see that I have caught myself.

I went to the land of witches and hooked myself.

HOLDING IT TOGETHER

Natural habitat

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I dreamt that I walked into a room that was littered with peeled oranges and macaroons. They were strewn all around the floor like rose petals. As I walked across the room, I looked down and noticed a ring poking out of the merengue of one of the macaroons and I bent down to pick it up. Then there was a man kneeling beside me, asking me to marry him. I stared at the ring and said “Of course. Of course I’ll marry you.” When I looked down into the man’s face, I saw Chris looking up at me with that sappy look he could get some times. Smiling. Big puppy dog eyes filling with tears of happiness.

I woke up feeling guilty.

A few weeks later, I had the dream that I always have about J. There was a mistake and we had been sent a body to burry because the Powers at Be had thought it was J. Except it wasn’t him. J had been wandering the desert and now he was finally back, trying to re-enter our lives as it is now. I was elated to see him, but worried about how he was going to take to all the changes that had occurred in his absence. Again, I woke up feeling guilty. Since that dream, I have been waiting for Dad. The power of three. I am Ebenezer Scrooge. You will be visited by three ghosts. I am still waiting for the third, wondering when Dad will show up.

I had an appointment with my chiropractor yesterday. Since the day was so nice, I rode the scooter, flying down the nearly empty streets. My soul lifted with the breeze. I arrived at my destination and my chiropractor was so happy to see me. The joy was mutual. It seems ridiculous how the sight of a familiar face you haven’t seen in weeks can illicit such joy. I practically skipped back my session on the roller table. I sprayed the table with disinfectant and wiped it down. Then I laid back and closed my eyes while the roller moved up and down my back. I was surprised to feel tears well up in my eyes and leak down the sides of my face. It came to me then, just how hard I have been working to hold it all together and holding it all together not just for my own benefit. On the outside, I look like I am handling all of this with ease. My insides tell a different story.

Even though I have set up a routine for myself, there are moments in my day where things just go on pause and I don’t know what to do with myself. I step away from my desk and walk around from the bedroom to the living room to the dining room. Back and forth. I listen to each squeak, tick and groan of the hardwood floor as I carefully place each step. I sit back down at my computer and fight my way through some exercises in Python coding. I do not have a coding brain and every review question is an exercise in futility. By the time I closed my computer yesterday, my brain felt mushy and I still had to re-take this week’s quiz. You must make a 70% or higher to move forward. Michael had to give me a lesson of true or false statements. It was more than slightly humiliating.

I die at least once a week while on the Oregon Trail or from an Exploding Kitten.

And I am unmotivated to write here.

It seems unauthentic to come here and write because I try to make the content somewhat uplifting. All I have brought you today is list of sad and whoa that I am tempted to delete. I am not deleting it though. Because I know that who ever is reading this is sitting there nodding their head and saying to themselves “I feel so much like this. I am not alone.” And we’re not alone. So do what I just did. Put on your favorite music. That music that makes you move your body. That music that has those moments in it that make you close your eyes and place a hand on your heart and raise the other to sky because it has reached the spiritual part of your heart.

Do it right now.

GHOSTS

Ghosts

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I drove in to work early early Monday morning knowing that I only had a brief window of time to get one last batch of slides running on one of our automated microscopes. The weather has been gray, cold and drizzly for days, but on this morning a thick fog had settled into the area. I paused to pull into the cemetery that I pass on the way to work because fog and cemeteries are photographic opportunities that I gravitate too. I only took a few minutes, a mad dash really, but I flipped back and forth between camera apps, playing around with long exposures. It wasn’t until later that I went back to look at and edit the photos and discovered that I had photographed ghosts. I keep seeing these pictures of places that I have visited before, places that are always swarming with people. I think about the times I have visited Talaura and how the thought of having to cross through Times Square would make us both groan. I remember elbowing my way through Pike’s Market with Chris and being overwhelmed by flashes of color and throngs of people. The pictures I have seen recently show a completely different scene. Stark and empty. Silent. And I itch to be there to photograph it myself. There is something so inviting about the emptiness.

Melancholy beauty.

Tuesday was my first full day to stay home. The city is shut down until sometime in April. I knew this day was coming for me, that I would join the many others who have been sent home to ‘work’. I had been dreading it because I am such a creature of habit. I cling to my routine and my way of life and my space. Now, a lot of that has to change and I am expected to be productive through it all. It is a struggle and day one was bumpy. I am working on creating a new routine. I’m was up at 5:30 for yoga and meditation. I showered and dressed for work. I fed the dog and made some coffee. I spent the morning extracting images and reviewing an image processing tutorial. The afternoon Zoom meeting to watch a video series on electron microscopy didn’t have enough viewers for us to commit to watching it today. So I filled that time with more processing tutorials. In the teatime Zoom meeting, we were all assigned various journal articles to present in scheduled journal club meetings. I have plans to start an intro course in coding in Python. This seems ambitious since I barely passed my basic programming in C class in college. I wedged in a twenty minute cardio workout and once the rain stopped, I dragged us all outside for a walk.

Today’s mantra: Be patient with those around me and be kind to myself.

That mantra should really say ‘be patient with myself and be kind to myself’. I need more than a day to settle into this. I was never the kid that eased herself into the pool. I was the kid to jump right in. I am learning to ease myself into this situation. What is funny is that I long to be in those empty places, yet I struggle to be in my very own empty place. There are too many ghosts flying around, too many voices. They bounce off the walls and whisper the things I don’t say out loud. They are fueled by my insecurities and they make me prickly. I don’t like being prickly.

Tomorrow, I’ll add ‘light some candles and sage the house’ into my new routine.