Spring is here. The cherry trees are blooming and filling the air with their sweet sweet scent. The sky is blue blue blue and the mountains are clean and white and sharp against the sky. I walk along the solid grey tarmac of the road with spring springing all about feeling unsettled.
There is an eery calm about me and I know people are inside their homes feeling unsettled just as I am feeling unsettled as I walk this familiar route. They are feeling unsettled just as I am as I walk along, striding purposefully towards I am not sure. I stride purposefully into the unknown future of this unsettled time.
I know people are inside their homes nervously checking their loved ones’ text messages for news just as I nervously check mine for news of my family members spread far across this continent. My two daughters in the Bay Area are now sheltering in place by mandate for the next three weeks. My niece and nephew, both sophomores in college in the midwest and on the east coast, have been ordered home to do spring semester online. Five of my six siblings are working from home. My sixth sibling is a nurse and she will be working. She will be working. I am now working from home, offering online sessions to my couples and individuals. I hear of some Covid19 illnesses close-to-home – an ex-student of mine is recovering from it now in Colorado, but her fever just spiked again today. A friend of a friend dies from it, a friend who was healthy. The news is full of it full of it. China Iran Italy Spain the US Washington State Seattle. People are panicking and stocking up on core essentials. The grocery shelves here have been bare of toilet paper and hand sanitizer for weeks.
I have phantom symptoms and have had them for the past month. My lungs are tight when I wake up. My nose is snuffly. I have a fever but when I take my temperature it is below normal. My throat is sore. I am fine. I feel like I am fighting something much as my scalp used to itch terribly when there was an outbreak of lice in my children’s classroom. I never found one louse on either my own or my daughters’ heads. I am fine.
I am past the cherry tree now and walking downhill.
I decide to have a little chat with my anxious part as I walk. I ask her how she’s doing. She is pretty worried. She is worried about her family. She is worried about her friends. She is worried about her clients. She is worried about what is happening in other countries and what is beginning to happen here. She is worried about what will happen. It is worrisome. It is unsettling. I totally get why she’s worried. Of course she’s worried. I look at her with compassion.
This simple act allows me to access what I call my true core self – that core of me that is grounded and steady. I enter that space and feel myself grounded and steady. I am grounded and steady and know deep in my bones that, no matter what happens, all will be well. There will be suffering, my core self knows. My core self knows this because she has suffered greatly herself. There may be great suffering. There is, already, great suffering all about us. Yet through the suffering lies a doorway into deeper truths. All will be well and all will be well. I might catch Covid19 and all will be well. I might die from it and all will be well. Loved ones might die and all will be well. Energy continues. Life continues. Love continues. All will be well. My true core self knows this to be true.
I pull my phone out as it dings and see a heart emoticon from my daughter.
I stride purposefully towards home now. Home. Down the road, across the mucky field, through the fence opening and across the main road. Down my street, past the ducks in the pond, into the shade of the huge pine trees across the street. Up my front porch steps I pause. The mountains are no longer visible but I know they’re there. My phone dings twice. I take a lovely deep breath full of spring air and rest for just a minute in the spring sunshine. Then I enter the house. My old dog lifts her head in greeting, and I go wash my hands.
