Here’s a couple of things they don’t tell you about sheltering in place…
They don’t tell you that your hair will be a wild beast to tame and that when you’re 6-7 weeks past your haircut appointment you won’t know what to do with the stragglers, the wild-will-of-their-own hairs that don’t listen or lay down when you want them to. They don’t tell you your roots will show, and your secret of highlighting will be let out.
They don’t tell you you’ll be wandering through your own kitchen looking for something. Even if you have healthy snacks on hand and good food to eat, most likely you’ll be grazing in your own food stalls more often than usual. You’ll be looking for a way to quell the feelings that come like ocean waves, one after the other, some little ripples on the surface and then every so often, a big, fat wave will take you down and tumble you and scrape you on the rocks and sand below.
No, they don’t tell you about the tumbler waves. Like the one that took me down yesterday, had my heavy heart reaching for something in the cracker jar, the home-made chocolate jar, the almond butter jar. I wanted something to quell that feeling of aloneness. I wanted a hand to hold, a body to hug, someone’s sparkling eyes to gaze into and feel the life behind the pupils.
No, they don’t tell you that you will have to face your existential loneliness – that we come in alone and we go out alone and all the connections along the way are fleeting and passing.
When sheltering in place they don’t tell you that there will be no plumbers to come and help you and that eventually you’ll go online and google “How to clean my P-Trap” because your bathroom sink is clogged and the water isn’t draining. They don’t tell you you’ll be on your knees, unthreading the P-Trap, pulling the stopper out of the sink and cleaning the black slime from it. They don’t tell you how satisfied you’ll feel that you DID IT, all by yourself, with a little help from google and a friend on the phone.
They also don’t tell you how many families will be reuniting through ZOOM for the holidays – people in different countries spending Seders together, Easter dinners together, people who haven’t gathered in years. They don’t tell you your neighbors will offer to pick up things at Costco for you, that you’ll be getting snail mail with art and letters again. They don’t tell you that you’ll be avidly gardening, taking yoga and dance classes online and that there will be an explosion of creativity bursting in the world.
They don’t tell you that the Earth will get a break from all of the pollution we create, that the air will be clean and you’ll be able to breathe deeply. You’ll be able to see the Himalayas from hundreds of miles away. They don’t tell you there will be new verbs in our language – zooming, marcoing – and other new phrases – sheltering in place, social distancing. You’ll hear phrases like, “We took a socially distant walk,” which only 6 weeks ago would have sounded preposterous.
They don’t tell that you won’t want to return to “normal” and to the madness of driving and schlepping here and there and everywhere.
No, they don’t tell you it’s a wild ride staying at home, that the water is deep and the waves are steady. They don’t tell you you’ll have to let go, let your old self dissolve and wait for the new one to emerge.