Figuring out the distance

I recently wrote in correspondence about feeling disconnected from reality, and a friend asked me to expand on the thought. For many, it’s a heightened sensitivity to the despair and grief in the world today. For me, it’s almost the opposite.

A much younger friend wrote about missing her life even as she expressed gratitude for blessings—she misses dinner dates with her husband, getting together with friends, travel, freedom. She bemoaned that people let themselves go (so glad we were not doing Facetime) and mentioned my “sunny-side-of-the-street thing.”

Daughter Jordan found a “coping calendar,” and she’s been using it to push us into family discussion in the hour before supper. The other night, my grandson said he was grateful for my positivity, and my son-in-law said he admired my resilience in isolation when he knows I’m a social being. They overestimate me, but I do try to be a positive person.

If I look back over my long life, I will tell you that I’ve been lucky and had few real traumas. But if I take a closer look, there was divorce, single parenthood (four wonderful teenagers), cancer, the loss of my parents, hip surgery that resulted in my needing assistance to walk, eye surgery that may have been the worst thing yet. It hasn’t all been easy, but always I knew I would come out on the other end. And I know that I and my family, friends, neighbors will come out on the end of this too. We will survive with grace.

So what’s the disconnect? I sit here in my cottage, going about my life much as usual—writing, reading, cooking. Thanks to Jordan, I am safe from the outside world. I feel like I’m in a cocoon, albeit one constructed of Lysol and Clorox. And yet I know there is, as one friend puts it, a world of hurt out there—disease, death, fear, grief. Am I Pollyanna because I feel disconnected from that? Insensitive? I know full well that we have to recognize and acknowledge fear and grief when they visit, but I’m not going to let them dominate my life.

I am doing what I can from where I am. I cook for my family, and I’ve stepped up my internet presence, checking on friends and family, especially those who are alone. Commenting on things I might normally pass, sharing recipes with those I know cook. In short trying to be more chatty than usual because I think in these times, we need warmth and comfort and friends.

I was tempted to tell my young friend what she doesn’t want to hear: have patience. Life will return to normal. Except I’m not of that “let’s get back to normal” school of thought. Obviously, normal wasn’t working for us. We all have to work together to create a new normal. Bill Gates perhaps said it best: “Whereas many see the Corona/ Covid-19 virus as a great disaster, I prefer to see it as a ‘great corrector.’
It is sent to remind us of the important lessons that we seem to have forgotten and it is up to us if we will learn them or not.”

Some good things happened today:

I wrote 500 words (my goal) on what may or may not be a new novel

I thought I lost a bunch of copy on my computer but found I had inadvertently copied a lot of unrelated stuff into it; I was able to delete and save the original.

Our grass was mowed, just before it got knee-high.

I started reading a new novel that shows promise.