“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool”.
~Lester Bangs, Almost Famous
I am as about as uncool of a person as they come. Seriously. And so I’m sharing some of the ‘currency of the uncool’ with y’all, my fellow passengers on this E-ticket ride called life. And here’s what I’ve noticed lately:
Every damn person, myself included, thinks they’re doing this pandemic thing wrong.
Not that there’s a “Living Your Best Life During A Global Catastrofuck” handbook, which I personally view as a terrible oversight on God’s part and I will have words with her about it when this thing is over; but, you can get goaded by social media (which tragically, has been our only glimpse into the void) into thinking there’s a right way to be living your life right now and when I say ‘you’——I mean me.
In the beginning I pretty much winged it since it was my first pandemic and just like the rest of the world I was making shit up as I went along. I baked an embarrassing tonnage of chocolate chip cookies and distributed them to my neighbors— like life jackets on the Titanic. I mean, who doesn’t want to be discovered ten thousand years from now with the fossilized remnants of chocolate chip cookies as proof of their last meal?
It all felt very dystopian future meets apocalyptic end-of-times——if you’re living inside of a Nora Ephron movie.
Once my sweat pants got tight, I looked at Instagram and switched to gardening, and home improvement (you guys, my thumb has never been greener, my silverware shinier, or my back sorer) in-between Zoom calls.
Zoom.
Don’t get me started.
I could write an entire book on the way Zoom has simultaneously saved and ruined my life.
It has kept me connected in the weirdest way imaginable by lulling me into a false, Jetsonian sense of intimacy with one-dimensional images of people I used to be able to hug, smell and taste (don’t ask). It has introduced me, or rather my head from the neck up, to people I’ve never met; revealed my questionable taste in home decor to strangers I would never invite inside my house——and saved my ass as far as work is concerned.
Have you noticed? Some people are Zoom naturals. It’s a thing.
They glow and effuse with breathtaking ease. Their ideas flow with an effortless acuity, in long, erudite monologues that sound like they were written by Aaaron Sorkin.
Not me.
I show up more times than I care to admit, tragically unprepared, mumbling and laughing inappropriately, with my hair styled by a helicopter, whitening strips on my teeth and an adult beverage in my coffee cup.
So yeah, Zoom.
And as grateful as I practice being for my health and life in general, I have to admit to a certain sense of Ground Hog’s Day claustrophobia. Every day has begun to bleed into the next. There’s not much to look forward to. There are no weekends anymore. Don’t ask me what day it is or the month, I do not know. It’s warm, there are flowers, and if I owned a bikini I could wear it—so I’m guessing summer.
All I know for sure is that today ends in a Y.
Another thing I’ve noticed lately that I’m sure is probably true for you too— All I do is work.
I write, Zoom, shovel shit, paint shit, stain shit, clean shit, wash shit, cook shit, fix shit, edit shit, watch shit——lather, rinse, repeat. And if you’re someone who is home schooling kids, well, we are not in the same league, let alone the same zip code! And I thank you for your service and will insist you go straight to the head of the line at the Pearly Gates.
And all of this—since March!
My sister and I, agreed yesterday in one of our epic Karen bitch-seshes, not on the way California is handling Covid (because, oh bloody hell, we’re all gonna die!) but on the fact that we’ve forgotten how to have fun.
Fun. You know, that thing you do in-between work and more work and twice as much in the summer.
Fun. We’re not even doing THAT right!
But I am not alone. WE are not alone in our Narnia of despair. If you haven’t seen this already, it from Saint Glennon 0f Doyle, author of Untamed and patron saint of all women embracing their inner cheetah while confined to house arrest.
She gets it.
I think—somewhere in the middle of last week—I hit a wall.
I am sad. I feel lost and aimless in my home most of the day. I am cranky with my people. Even though we’re together all day—I’m somehow gone. I’m claustrophobic in this covid world. The news makes me terrified and so full of rage I want to scream. I wander around all day with this nagging feeling that I’m not doing enough writing enough helping enough creating enough parenting enough wifeing enough BEING enough—that I’m wasting my time, my hours, my days, my life.
Is it just me? And if so I was just joking I’m fine, totally carpeing the hell outta these diems and all that shit.
Crawling along.
Gonna keep going.
Love you madly.
“No feeling is final.” -the magical Rainer Maria Rilke.
~Glennon
In closing, I know this:
Stillness brings up so much shit!
Perfectionism kills.
Don’t watch the news.
You must march to your own damn drum.
Nap if you’re tired.
Try to belly laugh once a day.
And cookies and pie are essential to our mental health (which is the reason I’m telling myself I couldn’t find flour in a store until June).
And when I get twitchy and snarly, I will report myself to whoever is in charge of me (besides my husband who has been my quarantine roommate and is struggling with combat fatigue) which is usually my sister or my BFF—for an attitude adjustment and yet another virtual hug.
Find your people and report in as much as needed.
I love you. Carry on. Crawling is fine.
xoxJB
