We visit people out of love. We party, we hang out, we have a girls (or guys) night out. We socialize out of love – or at least a strong feeling of like. We fall in love and say such things as, “I just can’t live without you!” We experience the drive and magnetism of lust and mistake it for love. But have you ever loved someone enough to stay away out of love? Loved them enough to resist the urge to be with them? Social distancing is nothing new. Many are experiencing it right now because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Coronavirus = isolation, no hugs and kisses – particularly of those you love best; your grandkids; your grandparents. It is not easy. It means people die alone – or with masks between them-unable to see the last lingering smile of a loved one. Some are torn between two loves of equal claim. Do you visit your vulnerable, quarantined loved one at the risk of bringing the virus back home and shedding it on your school-aged kids? Did you put your vulnerable, quarantined elderlies at risk when you visited them after being in the outside world? Grandma, when you said, “Let them hug me, I’m not afraid to get their germs!” Did you stop to think you might be transferring germs to them? Individualists, do you claim it as your right to go anywhere you wish? Or do you stay away out of love? Empathic Souls, do you defy the social distancing laws currently in place in order to see your loved ones so you can feel better?
Did you stop to think that staying away is the ultimate loving thing you can do?
Social distancing is nothing new. Nor is it a new and sinister conspiracy when government issues temporary social distancing protocol. Consider history: The Spanish flu is notable for several parallels to COVID19. In some cities everyone was required to wear masks. Mask-wearing was encouraged as a fashion statement.
Tuberculosis has rules requiring isolation. Drastic measures are taken when one in every seven people dies. So also in the time of Cholera when removing a community pump handle cut off access to the contaminated water supply. Who would ever think cutting off the water supply was a loving thing to do? Now what kind of a violation of our rights is that? Yet it saved lives. Instructions for the Black Plague have been handily reduced to three words in latin: cito, longe, tarde with the intended message being: leave quickly, go far away and come back slowly.
Staying away and distancing even when you love someone deeply is not a new idea. Examples and tropes abound in literature, history, culture. And yes, it hurts – tears at the very heart of you! Sometimes distance is the only thing that keeps us from causing further hurt or entanglement. Here are some situations to consider:
Leprosy: I grew up on a diet of Third World missionary stories. One that always impressed me was the story of a man who got leprosy. Though deeply in love with his young wife, he divorced her to distance her – to keep her well. She, in turn, went away; finished her medical degree and returned to the leper colony. Thank you healthcare workers!
Grown Child Co-dependence: If not the parents, then the child must distance. Otherwise, unhealthy entanglement and stunting occurs. I know you love me, but do you love me enough to let me individuate and be my own person?
My Best Friend’s Wedding: When you are admirably well-matched with a friend but the two of you know it would be disastrous to wed and your presence in the picture makes it impossible for your friend, business partner, office mate, dancing partner, or project partner, to develop a full romantic relationship with anyone else.
Rocketman:in the 2019 movie, Elton John’s co-songwriter says, “I love you Man, but not in that way.” Dating is a fun activity; coffee an important ritual; intelligent conversation a thing to covet. I have known more than one man or woman in just such a fulfilling cerebral relationship who saw the other growing more serious and- with heartfelt honesty-had to say, “I love you, but not in that way.”
The Lady or the Tiger:Do you love your lover enough to let him or her go in order to save their life? Or are you more like Romeo and Juliet? Tragic for the both of you.
Why do we stay away when we love?
Because sometimes staying away is the ultimate loving thing we can do.
She had always been fascinated by what makes people tick, the difference between introverts and extroverts, melancholies and cholerics, Myers-Briggs categories and –more recently- Enneagram personality types.
COVID-19 lockdowns, quarantines and isolations reveal a lot about our personalities. She was reveling in people watching; and best of all – from a distance! What a comfort is distance to the introvert! From her solitude she contemplated: Which of us are rule followers? Who is naturally rebellious? Who panics? Who doubts? Who hides? Who are the altruists ready to pitch in for the common good? Which of our acquaintance are conspiracy theorists? Who sees every crisis as opportunity? Who will seize the day?
She encouraged bicycling, as something you can do alone. She didn’t have a bicycle at the moment, but as an avid hiker she was quite used to sharing the trail with cyclists so she knew a bit about them. She was pretty sure bicycling belonged on the list of things you can do whilst thriving solo. What continues to surprise her is the number of bicyclists that persist in riding in groups – gangs even.
I’m not talking about the family groups, the bearded dad and the lithe young mom and the eight-year-old voice that pipes up, “on your left,” while the endearing four-year-old sibling, balancing solo on a 12-inch tries his best to repeat the alert while still maintaining proper balance and social distance. That’s a forever memory – a keeper from the crisis. My surprise, my thinly veiled criticism, is for the pack of five fifteen-year-olds I met on the concrete river path yesterday- obviously quintuplets because they had a mom and a dad with them. But they were far from identical. In fact, a couple of them had to bark at their buddy – I mean, their brother – for not paying attention, for veering into the left lane and nearly pinning me against the railing as I attempted to keep proper social distance. Obviously, he couldn’t see me since I was wearing a facemask. But wait, I don’t wish to throw stones (that would be against the rules). My purpose is to let her speak about the Enneagram Cyclists she meets.
She has been a rule-follower from the get-go. At first she thought it was just the way her parents raised her, but no. No amount of peer pressure has ever dislodged her from her innate fixation on doing things right. Oh, she is nice about it. As loyal as she is to keeping the rules, she is also humble – shy really – and will quickly step out of the way and hide her eyes when others insist on not following the rules. If you are going to keep rules, you must keep abreast of the rules – and she does! She reads the signs, she keeps a lama between you (and a slide trombone fully extended and the length of a mattress and the width of a car). She also knows the trail rules: Hikers yield to horses, bikers yield to hikers. But knowing she has the right-of-way does not stop her from stepping aside to let the cyclists pass. She hears them coming (thank God for good hearing on twisting treed mountain trails), she understands something of the difficulty of losing momentum once you start an incline, and the danger or impossibility even of stopping too fast as you barrel down a plunge. Besides, if you are quick on your feet and see a clear space to step aside, it is just common sense to do so.
Over the past decade, she has met only three Type One Enneagram cyclists. She knows they were type one because they insisted on keeping the rules. One dismounted and insisted on letting her pass – which she found embarrassing as she had already found a good rock to stand on. One simply said with a smile, “bikers yield to hikers, you go first!” The other one, also friendly, called out, “you have the right of way!” Mostly, bicyclists and hikers simply share the trail. As I said, she steps aside whenever she can and the majority of cyclists simply say, “thank you.”
They might be peacemakers, or enthusiasts, Fours, Fives, Sixes, Sevens or Nines. Some Twos consciously move aside for her and she says thank you. And they reassure her that it is no problem.
Some, like the teen girl she met the other day simply don’t know which end is up. They have never been taught. She was hiking at a good pace down a slight decline through pine and oak as she caught sight of a cyclist approaching a trail junction some 30 feet ahead. When she saw the cyclist acknowledge her presence and yet turn to proceed up the trail, she slowed her pace and looked about for a wide space. Oak brush, yucca and small cacti slid downward on her right. Tree trunks and sage ascended steeply to the left. To the rear, 50 feet more of the same narrow trail. It was indeed, very single track. She came to a halt, toes teetering on the edge of the trail and called to the approaching cyclist who was pushing the bike, “It’s very narrow right here.” She looked pointedly over the young woman’s shoulder to the junction not more than 15 feet distant where the trail was broad and wide and turn around space existed. “I’ll just go here,” said the young woman, doggedly pushing past at the narrowest part of the trail and nearly shouldering her off and into the yucca, while missing only by a hairsbreadth treading on her feet and ankles. So much for yielding and common sense. At least the young woman was alone. Not so on Saturday when she met the cycling gang. Three of them. Full speed in spandex. Traveling so fast she had time only to jump between two sagebrush as they sped by, heads down, no face masks. From the sagebrush, she followed their trajectory and noticed a single cyclist, uphill bound, who hastily pulled off the trail to save his neck. She kept her place and waited aside for him to resume and pass, still shaking his head. She shrugged, “some people don’t even take time to wave.” He smiled, “I don’t think they get it.”
A few paces forward and the light dawned. They were eights! All of them. Imagine three eights in the same group!
So you think you can stop me! Nothing can stand in my way! Get out of my way I’m an eight!
I love to write. I love to make music. In former days I fancied myself a songwriter – and a poor one at that. Poor in that I have always had to work to keep food on the table while I sighed and pined for the time I would be able to pursue my heart’s desire. But the Muse would not be put on the back burner. No. There were days I had to close the cover on the piano just to make it to work on time the next day. Otherwise that grand piece of walnut furniture sat there smiling at me with all 88 teeth, beckoning hypnotically, “come play me,” as I hurried out the door.
Conversely, I learned to write on Saturday morning before I did anything else. No bath, no toothpaste, no breakfast, just write until the sun came up and grew full in the sky. Otherwise, my time clock would get distracted and my brain and body would decide to keep working; cleaning house, taking out garbage, reading the news, catching up with friends.
And that is why, during the isolation of COVID-19 quarantine, I continue to rise while it is yet dark. I stumble to my laptop and type out whatever thoughts woke me. I write charming little notes to people while the rest of the world sleeps. I sip my tea on my schedule. I make the oatmeal when hunger growls. I continue to type until my thoughts thin and fade. And then I jump right in and keep my daily grooming schedule. I shave, I bathe, I do my nails, I comb my hair; I get dressed and ready to go out – confident my muse will interrupt me with a fabulous trope as soon as I have soap on one side of my face or as soon as I am soaking wet in the shower luxuriating in hot water streaming down my back -or when I am half-dressed in a room an open picture window’s length from my computer.
Once I am dressed (usually early afternoon), I go out – alone-into the hills and as much isolation as I can find. I carry my phone – for taking pictures and making verbal notes – because sometimes my interruption Muse finds me even there.
Everyone is approaching the quarantine of corona virus in his or her own way. One writer friend has cut out all the grooming nonsense, another stays in her pajamas all day. My advice is to do everything you can to let that interruption Muse out of her cage, because if you don’t let her interrupt you now, she is certainly going to interrupt you with regret when things get back to normal.
Note: This post was written in bathrobe and slippers with wet tangled hair whilst shoveling oatmeal cookies in and out of the oven.
She was being a good, conscientious citizen; following the rules, staying home except to hike alone – at great distances from anyone else. In addition, she was honing her great writer skills-using this crisis as the perfect excuse to write every day – to reread, to attack those old manuscripts with a fine tooth comb. Now was the time for those WIPs to become works in print! After three days of reading and rewriting, Five Men Well (or, The Bed, or What Do You Really Want to Do? or Smelling Like a Rose, or The News and Ancient Literature) or whatever the heck she was going to call that manuscript, she laid it aside and took up another work in Progress; Feed My Sheep.
Ahhhh, nice voice. This one read smoothly. All the ephemera was historically correct for 1989. This she knew without a doubt for she was already an adult in 1989. She also knew the hard times lived by the main character were authentic. And then, right there on page 85; Twenty-two thousand, seven hundred twenty-four words into the story, 1989 hit her in the face like it was 2020: Toilet Paper!
***
After the first of the year, the food situation was particularly grim. Classes would not resume until January 13. The food pantry would open the following week. Nearly three weeks! Carrie shuddered at the looming specter of hunger. Already, they were out of toilet paper. During her last trip to the store, Carrie opted for food in place of paper products. Table napkins were no problem, they still had a nice stock of cotton ones from wedding gifts. Baby washcloths worked for Abby and could be thrown in the wash along with Abby’s diapers or training pants. Toilet paper for the adults presented a bigger challenge. Jon pointed out the obvious, there were no woolly mullein leaves to be had along the big city highways. Woolly mullein was well known to backpack campers and apparently cross-country motorcycle riders. Stranded in the big city in Texas with no woolly mullein, Carrie would have to think of something just as innovative. She wracked her brain. Somewhere from out of the past, memories of Carrie’s six-year-old summer came floating by. For the summer, she was allowed to go visit Grandma. Grandma was an old school “waste not, want naught.” Grandma was green out of a sense of frugality before it was popular to be green. That summer they lived in the sun, weeding around an acre of assorted vegetable plants; tending rows of corn, tomato plants, cucumbers. In the middle of the farmland stood an old outhouse, maintained and tidy, always painted to match the farmhouse two football field lengths away. In that outhouse, much to Carrie’s surprise, were two old Sears Roebuck catalogues. In the beginning, Carrie had complained to grandma that she could not read the catalogues because there was no light in the outhouse – besides, one of the books was obviously ripped.
“Oh, Caroline, honey,” responded Grandma, “those books are not for reading, they are old catalogues. They are in the outhouse for their second use – to serve cleanup duty. Just rip a page and use it as you would toilet paper.”
When she thought of it now, Caroline was horrified at the amount of petroleum based print that must have ended up contacting tender bottoms. Fortunately, many print dyes had been changed to organic material. She collected the giftwrap from Christmas just past. Thankful that most of it was white tissue paper, she cut it into small squares. These days, with organic dyes, the squares were only dangerous to the plumbing system. A wastebasket close-by addressed the disposal problem. Carrie threw the refuse in the neighborhood dumpster along with the usual garbage. When the squares ran out? Well, they would just have to use old patterns from Carrie’s sewing closet.
***
And just how should you be weathering this current COVID-19 crisis? Like it’s 1989, Baby!
Admittedly, it did take a certain amount of stoicism to weather what she had just been through. Sometimes it is necessary to turn inward to keep your head held high-to rely on yourself and nobody else. Sometimes, life throws you a curve and Stoicism is your own choice. But did you know? the basic idea of Stoicism is: don’t freak out about what you can’t control. Apparently if you do stoicism right, you can thrive.
Silly me. I thought the basic idea of stoicism was to act like nothing is bothering me. To be strong and do everything on my own. To not let anyone know I have feelings. To keep a marble-like unruffled face. In other words: Frozen.
Don’t let them in, don’t let them see, Be the good girl you always have to be. Conceal, don’t feel; don’t let them know….
But no! Stoicism is much more and so much better than that – and – it’s something you can do alone very well – and thrive. Thankfully, in my isolation, I stumbled on a great article from Raptitude where David Cain referenced Elif Batuman who in turn recommended three major Stoic works, classics by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius (Epictetus, Aurelius – let them roll off your tongue, add a little rhythm and I feel some new song lyrics coming on….) Hopefully, we will not have quarantine time enough to read these three volumes. So here you go in a nutshell:
don’t freak out about what you can’t control
divide your moment-to-moment concerns into two bins: the things you can control, and the things you can’t.
The first bin is small and it’s the only one for which you are responsible
The second bin is the responsibility of the gods – let it go!
From Raptitude: You can feel free to leave the gods’ enormous bin entirely up to them, as long as you do your best to tend to your small bin of personal choices and habits. Of course, the larger bin still affects your life, even though you can’t (and shouldn’t try to) curate it. It contains matters such as when and how you die, how others act, the weather, and the stock market… Obviously we have a stake in how those matters turn out, yet these outcomes aren’t really up to us, and we shouldn’t make ourselves miserable wishing they were. You will be treated unfairly, you will get sick, you will lose everything, and you will die, and the gods (or whatever forces there are) will deliver those fates to you as they please.
But don’t just read the quote above, click on over to Raptitude and look at the two diagrams. Don’t you feel much, much better now with a manageable sized burden?
If she took a hike every day of her life, would it be enough? When you hike you learn something new every time; something new about Nature, something new from Science, something novel about people – maybe even something new about yourself.
Better yet, hiking is something you can do alone, solitary, at a proper physical distance during times of quarantine.
It was the seventh day after implementation of proper social distancing in Durango, Colorado. Not the seventh day after discovery of Coronavirus, not the seventh day after cessation of hand-shaking. No one had been shaking hands for two weeks. But it was the seventh day since library and public places closure. It was also a Sunday. and recreators were out in force – albeit, maintaining a six to ten foot social distance between parties – often even persons in the same group.
Blue sky and wispy cirrus clouds were overhead. She had walked a good three miles at a fast pace in the best combination of places; beside running water, through trees and grasses and other vegetation and rocks. She had nodded and waved to passersby from a safe physical distance and tried not to breathe – neither out nor in – when others came too close. She was a good person and always, always tried to obey the rules. And the rules of this beautiful day? Look around you. Breathe deep. Enjoy nature. Be grateful to have landed in this wonderful place. Be at peace. Be healthful. Be restored. Once or twice she pulled out her phone to snap a picture. She wanted to remember. She wanted a record of what Nature whispered.
A guttural bray split the silence some 100 yards behind her. Again it honked, loud, forced, like an angry human deliberately trying to disrupt the stillness and beauty with a manufactured cough. Or did someone need help? She turned.
Have you ever heard the cry of a wild animal in distress? It is an awful bellow. More blood-curdling than the midnight call of a fox on the tail of its prey. She was once awakened in the middle of the night by just such a cry from a rabbit fatally harassed by neighbor dogs. This wild animal was twenty times bigger than a rabbit and ten times louder and whatever this animal was, it was being pursued downriver by another large mammal. The two mammals emerged around the bend like overgrown children playing crack-the-whip, for the animal in pursuit had attached itself to the hindquarters of a doe in flight. Both were kicking and swimming for dear life.
If there was one safety rule she knew, it was not to interfere with nature. She watched. She made sure she was in a protected place behind a tree. Those animals, now only 30 yards away down a riverbank, might separate and escape up the bank, straight at her at any moment. She took out her camera and focused on the harsh realities of nature taking course in the water. Suddenly, two young women appeared around the bend; one at river level in hasty and desperate pursuit of her dog, which turned out to be the pursuing mammal; the other, fifteen feet away at trail level. “What are you doing?” yelled the near woman. “Are you recording this? Delete it right now! Don’t you dare post that!”
She looked up from her phone in surprise, “This is important,” she said mildly.
“No! No it’s not important,” spat the young woman, “put your camera away.”
On the rocky river beach another scene unfolded. Miraculously, the first young woman got hold of her dog, separated and leashed him, handed him over to a seasoned canine owner amongst the bystanders and returned to check on the doe. Meanwhile, a fisherman from upstream had waded quickly through the current and, sportsman that he was, proceeded to do his best to get the doe to solid ground. Others ran to find phone numbers and contact wildlife officials. Someone murmured about fines leveled at dog owners when wildlife is injured.
Feeling not very helpful, she turned and continued her final mile on the trek home. Saddened by Nature. Disappointed by irrational humans. Uplifted by the beautiful day. How she wished she had that fisherman’s rescue on tape. It reminded her of a positive video she once saw online. But alas, though the video button glowed red through the entire incident, the record button was never engaged.
It happened so swiftly she didn’t know what hit her. Yet, always prepared, she knew just what to do.
Well-salaried position to boxes stacked in a new locale 260 miles distant in 72 hours
Final load of earthly goods settled in Durango, Colorado complete in 10 days – including changing horses in the middle of the stream
A sudden move. Yet, she was nothing if not prepared – just not as prepared as she wanted to be. At the age of 65 the concept of retirement had been thoroughly considered, characteristically planned. “Someday,” she said, “I will retire in Ouray. I will write. I will play music. I will hike. I will attend cultural events. I will soak my weary bones in the hot springs daily. Ouray is both my church and my hospital. I will retire and heal.” The best laid plans often go astray. No affordable housing was available in Ouray. Durango-only 74 miles distant-offered refuge; a private place to write, room for musical instruments, plentitude of cultural events, a hub of education, most importantly: hiking trails accessible from the front door.
“I will get a fun job,” she said. “Part time or full time – something to protect my savings account from decimation.”
And then: coronavirus. The churches closed first. Then the schools. Then bars and restaurants. Finally the train. Every last place that promised entertainment or held potential for a fun job: shuttered. Choral groups cancelled concerts. Symphonies ceased to gather for rehearsal. The unemployment rate rose to 30% and continued to climb. But she had learned something in her 65.75 years. Don’t quit on your music. Music is something you can do alone or together. Times of solitude and hibernation are times of preparation. She flexed her 10 fingers and applied them to 88 keys. She added a few new songs to her repertoire, mixing them with the tried and true standards. When she tired of the piano bench, she picked up the guitar – daily – because once you build those callouses you don’t ever want to lose them and start over. And, still having time on her hands, she unzipped – for the first time in five or more years – her bass case. My, my, the interior of that case smelled so good-almost like opening a book – and the strings felt resonant in her hands. No amp, but she is gonna be hot, hot, hot by the time this pandemic is over. Time to revisit the bucket list. What can you do, during isolation, self-quarantine and physical distancing? May she suggest: Play the piano. Play the guitar. Learn a new instrument. Because that’s what people do in times of trouble. They record the times through art. They make music. You got this! Keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Young man pictured playing guitar alone, outdoors, at proper social distance during pandemic
Today’s episode is titled: Things you can do solo. Here’s a quick list:
Take a Hike
Play the piano
Play the guitar
Read a book
Write a book
Eat healthfully
Keep a healthful schedule
Drink water
Talk to friends and family on the phone
Write letters
Watch a movie
Photography
Fishing
Learn to play a new instrument
Take online instruction
Skate
Skateboard
Bicycle
Deep clean and organize
Reimagine and redesign everything from your wardrobe to your entire life
The first ten items on the list are my daily essentials – in order of importance -things I must do every day to survive mentally and emotionally. Following that are some additional activities I want to explore in the coming days, both alone and through this blog. What can you add to the list? Join me next time when I write about Hiking – keep putting one foot in front of the other!
Really, was it any surprise when the chest spasms seized her somewhere on the lonely road between Page and Kaibeto? She straightened her posture, took a few measured breaths, felt no constriction and slackened not her pace.
She had been under a lot of stress for the past few days. Leaving a job. Packing a Subaru to the gills. Traveling 260 miles. Return. Repeat. And then of course, the last straw when the Subaru, fully loaded complete with car top carrier, coughed and died and left her renting a U-haul truck and repacking her final load. Nonetheless, repack she did.
She slept and got a fresh start the next morning; showered, pulled on her skinny Levis and flannel shirt so as to look respectable when returning her condo key; sallied forth in a 15-foot truck.
Again a spasm hit and she reflected for a moment on being 65. She had now out-lived her grandmother by 5 months – the maternal grandmother who succumbed to heart disease at 65. She took stock of her vitals again as she continued to drive. No difficulty breathing. No pain in the left shoulder or arm. Refreshing, deep breaths.
She ate an apple – that will keep the doctor away – and wondered if she should be eating anything at all given the spasms. Should you eat before a massive coronary? If you gotta go, massive and instant would be the way to go.
Six more times a contraction hit, a bit like Braxton Hicks, strong enough to make her involuntarily say, “ouch,” and suck in her breath.
Somewhere outside of Shonto she reached down and flipped the latch on her web belt, released the button on her 711s, and relaxed the zipper by two inches.
She hasn’t had a chest spasm since. Denim corsets, who knew?
Putting One Foot in Front of the Other, Hiking for Life!
