Take A Break

Saturday afternoon I felt sure there was something I should be doing. I had vacuumed the den, thrown in a load of laundry, written Morning Pages, called my mother and brother, and gone for a run. I stood in the living room thinking I needed to be doing something, feeling myself spiraling into the beginning of becoming frantic.

Hey, wait a minute, I said.

Considering things a moment, I realized I was bored and felt guilty and lost because of it. I was inclined to go to the computer or phone and check news and email, but the news is bad and email would leave me feeling obligated to reply. I pushed against the habit of running from boredom.

But what then to do?

There were certainly things to do. Write a note to a friend, call another, finish reading my book, write a blog post, clean the bathroom. Those flashed in my mind one after another and then together, the spiral still spinning up inside me.

On the couch my cat yawned, stretched out a paw, flexed her claws, rolled into a tighter ball, and went back to sleep.

I joined her.

An hour and a half later I woke feeling rested for the first time in weeks. I got up, washed my hands, put on music, and began making eggplant parmesan for dinner. No guilt, no spiraling, no anxiety.

Earlier in the day when I felt there was something I needed to do, I was right. There was something. But rather than being "productive," I needed to rest and give myself a break.

I'll have to remind myself of that often over the next few weeks and months. Maybe you need that reminder too.

Times are tough. Be kind to yourself and get some rest.

Connections & Isolation

I'm reading about social networks again though I'm not really on any of them. I've got a LinkedIn account I thought would be a good for business connections, but, as with any social network, it's a terrible way to connect. It has provided a few opportunities to prepare for connecting, but for real connection it's as sucky as Facebook, Twitter, and the rest, just not quite as evil. Despite not being involved with social networks, I keep thinking about them as I do about this virus. Terrible, poisonous stuff but still intriguing.

Some of what has me thinking this way is isolation. You're probably isolated too. I hope so. It's the primary tool in turning the tide of this pandemic and anyone who says otherwise is a fool duped by misinformation.

Isolation is tough. Friday our family had a video call with another family whom we miss terribly. The call was lovely, but I grew sad as it went on. Talking over video beats the hell out of not connecting, but it's a poor substitute for visiting their house, hugging each of them in turn, and absorbing their full presence. Video isn't even close. I'm grateful for it, but it amplified my longing for real intimacy.

That video call was at least a targeted, private connection. We weren't posting notes on a commercial bulletin board, weren't trying to impress others, weren't doing the things social media seems to demand. Video is a poor imitation of real connection and intimacy, but social media is way further down the line.

Writing that, I think of those who connect with far away friends and family via social media. I hear those who say they're on Facebook to see pictures and hear news of grandchildren, old coworkers, students, and so on. I get that and yet I still disagree that they are connecting much at all.

My wife explained her reasons for remaining on Facebook. She hardly ever posts. She keeps up with people with whom she might otherwise lose touch. She accepts the bad of Facebook the way I accept Google's huge failings so I can keep using Gmail. But here's the thing: I don't believe any of that really counts as keeping in touch. It's faux contact, fake connections, imitation social interaction. Worse, it hides from us the fact that we are growing more isolated through the uses of these things.

I got sad at the end of our video calls because it demonstrated how separated we are. The medium highlighted our distance and seemed to extend it. I craved real connections such as:

• Visiting our friends' home, bringing wine and dessert, having dinner, and staying late because we don't want to leave one another's company.
• Receiving a call out of the blue from my college roommate who lives in Texas, my wife, he, and I talking for half an hour; three friends who have known one another thirty years.
• Having a meeting over coffee with people doing similar work, talking, making notes, shaking hands, and being on a team.
• Stopping on a run to talk with a friend about how his kids, the job, and a concert he attended, then telling him about my job and a book I just read.
• Attending writing group, sharing coffee and taking turns to read our pieces aloud to one another gathered around a table together.
• Receiving a friend's poem over email, feeling moved by it, and writing back to thank her and to ask if I can share it.

Not all connection has to be in person. Some can be mediated by technology. But shouting in public is a bad way to connect. I don't broadcast conversations with my wife because I treasure my connection with her. Try having that conversation on Facebook and you'll come up empty or worse. I'm not about to try that.

She says Facebook seems like the playground of showoffs. I say Twitter is the sandbox of discord. Agreeing on that, we moved on to talking about her family and job. The sunset glowed through the window and dimmed as we talked there on the couch. I flipped the record on the turntable. The cat joined us. I felt love binding me with my wife. We felt truly connected with one another. It was absolute bliss.

How we did all that without Mark Zuckerberg's or Jack Dorsey's help, it's just such a mystery.

Problem People

I had a problem yesterday, then I made it go away.

Someone with whom I sometimes work has me begging for things. He might not even know he's does this, but what's his is his and don't touch without permission. The fact that we work together would seem to give him incentive to cooperate, but he's suspicious and that gets in the way of so many things.

Yesterday, I needed something from him. A simple thing. He could easily share it. Situations reversed, I'd have sent it maybe even before he asked, but situations aren't reversed, so I asked — politely, carefully — if I could trouble him for it. Phrasing things, revising my thoughts so as not to offend, I realized I was begging. Ugh.

Neither needing the thing nor the begging was the problem. My problem was that I was growing angry. I wanted to complain about him to someone else. I wanted to tell him to go fuck off. My problem was choosing to make myself angry wishing things were other than they are with this guy.

That's a problem because I still need this one thing and need to work with him from time to time. If I go into each interaction angry and expecting a fight, I'm going to be a very unhappy boy.

Yesterday, anger and frustration welling up as I begged, I stopped and asked, "what other choices do I have?" Before anyone thinks I'm enlightened, what I yelled was, "what other fucking choice do I have working with this motherfucker?!" Still, that question served me well. What other choices did I have?

That's easy: I could let my anger go.

I hit send on the message, understanding that he's a difficult partner but I'm smart enough to work around that. A day later I still haven't heard back from him. I'll find another way to do the work and move him that much further out of my life, move myself that much farther from my problems.

Again, lest I seem enlightened, I wrote the line above thinking "move that motherfucker that much further out of my life." Luckily, motherfucker turns out to be one of my happy words. It's no problem.

Command & Control

Earlier, I described setting up default templates so my documents look just so. Shortly after posting that, the family and I began straightening, cleaning, and organizing the basement. I also cleaned my workshop and rehung the door to my nook so it doesn't drag on the carpet.

We were very productive, but there's more to it than just that.

I bet we're not the only ones organizing, raking the yard, putting books in order, cleaning hard drives, and cleaning the refrigerator shelves. Sure, we need something to do and have put these tasks off, but we also need some command and control in times such as this. Cleaning the basement, setting up a new word processing template, whatever we're doing, we do to feel something other than helpless.

In this morning's pages I wrote that the worst part of this whole thing is the uncertainty and the certainty. The virus is invisible to the naked eye. We can't know if we just breathed it in or if we carried it to someone we love. That's straight out of a horror movie¹. The monster is out there, but we can't see it, don't know how to fight it, and have no idea when it will go away. The uncertainty is worse than awful but isn't all with which we must cope.

There is also the certainty, despite what the D.C. maggot says, that this will get worse and many people will die. We are certain this isn't a hoax. It isn't happening somewhere else. It won't be painless. We're certain of all that.

The one-two punch of certainty and uncertainty, well, it's crushing. We can wallow in that or go clean the basement.

I have this much command and control of the situation: the basement looks great and I smile walking through it. Not much, but maybe enough to help get through today and into the next. If so, well, that's just fine. It's enough.

What are you cleaning today?

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¹ No, I'm not looking forward to the COVID-19 movies that Hollywood will produce. Like movies about September 11, I'll be sure to avoid them.