Guest Post: Lauren

Walking the Line

by Lauren Mossotti-Kline

I still remember what day it is. Somehow Fridays still resemble normal Fridays. At the end of the day, when I hit send on the last work email and the kids have finished their school work, we ease into a more relaxed, less structured mode. A sense of release. I’m looking forward to starting a puzzle. Watching a movie.

It’s technically spring and a winter warning appears on my phone’s screen. I laugh at the cruel joke of it all. This notice comes my way just moments after texting friends about a hiking spot I’d like to explore with my family in the next day or two. Should I look into renting snowshoes instead?

The kids will be home from school for another month according to the latest news and everyone going into a space where social distancing is a challenge must wear a mask. Stores are creating new products to meet current needs. My sister-in-law found a set of three masks in trendy patterns and soft material. They are now a fashion accessory.

I haven’t been around anyone other than my husband and three children, two dogs and two cats for four weeks. I daydream about trips to the coast. Any coast will do. Give me a beach with soft warm sand, gentle waves and gorgeous sunsets. I do not need to talk to anyone but I would appreciate a change in scenery.

Even a lake up north would be fine. Bring on the sunshine and the open road. I’m not sure anyone would rent to us right now but I’d be willing to try. Heck, I’d be willing to relocate for the next month just to give us all a change. As long as we have access to a Wifi signal we could be anywhere.

I’ve said from the beginning of all this that it’s like we’re living through a science fiction novel. Someone mentioned Stephen King in a clever meme. I think about The Shining from time to time. But we — my little family in our safe home and seemingly unaffected existence — are not living through the scariest part of this story. We are mildly inconvenienced.

Today, while doing research for my book, I read about the Spanish Flu. There was a first wave and a second. We’re told that we learn from our past but history repeats itself. The second wave of the Spanish Flu was even more devastating than the first. It came in the fall, and as temperatures cooled, it continued on for a year and a half. We are only one month into our first wave.

Friends with ties to colleges and universities have shared that they are planning for the possibility of online learning at the beginning of the fall semester. If that’s true, the same will likely be true for my school-aged children. As I casually mentioned this to my oldest son who is in the midst of his teenage social ascent, he announced that he cannot miss out on his summer, that he will completely lose it if he can’t see his friends and that he’s already starting to lose his mind. “I’ve caught myself talking out loud to myself Mom,” he said with more humor than concern but I got his point.

I have everything I need right now. I’m content at home with my family. I use technology to stay connected with my closest friends and my work is moving forward and feels meaningful. I find projects and activities to keep me creatively stimulated. I’m reading. I’m writing.

While I write my husband is my daughter’s lab assistant as she dissects a chicken wing for anatomy class. This wouldn’t have happened in the absence of a pandemic. I’m not giving this virus credit, yet I cannot ignore the notable consequences. We’ve experienced our fair share of frustrations, but there have been beautiful moments mixed in. I wrestle with keeping routine and order, monitoring academic expectations while in the back of my mind wondering if any of this will even matter. If tragedy finds our family, I know I won’t give a second thought to whether my son uploaded his math worksheets.

Instead I would likely wish I had spent more time at play. Enjoying their company, talking about anything that interests them and exploring the world in ways accessible to us in this time of preventative behavior. Having a bonfire and camping in our backyard. Playing board games, hugging my kids every day and telling them stories about my youth and the lessons learned. Asking them if they have ever been in love or what they imagine love to feel like. Cooking meals together, making silly movies of ourselves doing ridiculous things and eating all of our favorite foods.

But instead I’m operating under the guise of a “new normal” and not panicking or making any sudden changes. I feel isolated from the enemy in a fake form of protection. Am I naïve? Am I ignorant? People once close to me have walked into the eye of the storm, committing weeks, maybe months of their lives to help people who are fighting for their lives. I liken them to military medics tending fallen soldiers, helping them heal or in many cases holding their hands, offering comfort as they pass from this world.

If I sit with my thoughts and let them continue to this battlefield, I see tear-stained faces, fatigued bodies and crushed souls. Hope is a distant memory and it will take much convincing and likely years of therapy to help heal the hearts that have been broken by this massacre. It seems selfish that I can just sit here and enjoy watching my daughter learn about tendons and muscles while other daughters are losing their mothers and fathers. I see stories about people who have died but I skim the headlines to protect myself from the empathy that has the power to consume me. I’m reminded of the helplessness I felt when my good friend’s cancer returned last year and she was abruptly taken from us just a month later. I think of my mom and am grateful that she did not have to live through this. The anxiety would have overtaken her every thought. But none of my sad memories come anywhere close to what I know others are feeling.

So I remain here in this odd place. Waiting. But for what I’m not sure. The great unknown lurks in the shadows, watching us, warning us, suggesting that we should be on guard — don’t get too comfortable. With every occasional sneeze I pause, then shrug it off assigning guilt to the dust bunnies that reside in the corners of our home. And I continue to walk the line between fear and content.

Mistake, Reflection, Fix

It's fitting that on the first draft of this I mistyped the title and on the second changed it completely. Between those drafts I took a break to reflect on what I'm still trying to say. Mistake, reflection, and fix.

I screwed something up and I'm embarrassed. It wasn't the end of the world, but it wasn't spilt milk either. I wanted to hide in a corner the rest of the day. I also wanted to learn from it and move on. But I wasn't ready to do either. I was stuck in a familiar-feeling place that I couldn't identify until this thought occurred:

A mistake is a tiny death. Once made, there's no returning to a life in which I haven't made it.

That helped me understand that I'm mourning having made the mistake. Moruning takes time. It is a process of moving back into balance. There's a system to it and my way forward is to reflect in writing on the steps involved. Like so:

1. Acknowledge the mistake and apologize. Yeah, I screwed the pooch on that one. Sorry, pooch.
2. Rather than beat myself up, consider how I would treat my daughters if the mistake was theirs. Alright, you messed up. These things happen. Are you okay? What would make it right?
3. Make coffee and write. Coffee improves most everything. I like the process of making it, the slow enjoyment of drinking it, the calming it brings over me, and how it goes with writing, my tool for reflection.
4. Ask what's next. What should I do right now and what should I do tomorrow to move through?

A simple plan, but it takes time to move through the steps. It was hours after I apologized that I thought to be kind to myself. It was an hour after that until I made coffee and wrote this. In between, I beat myself up, worried what people will think, and felt the sky was falling. Bad habits learned over five decades. It's tough to turn that around and plot a new course. The list above looks good, but I've been mourning my mistake most of the day and I'm not done. There are miles to go before I sleep.

I'll probably wake tomorrow still carrying too much regret even as I reflect and ask what's next. I know regret isn't useful and there's not enough time in life to waste it on guilt and abuse. But I also know balance doesn't just restore itself nor can I forget my mistake and go on like it never happened. I'm between mistake and recovery, reflecting, hoping time really does heal all wounds. What's next is to go forward, learn, grow, accept, and move on.

Thinking that's easy would be another mistake and, I tell you, I'm just not ready to deal with any more of those right now.

The "I" Problem

One thing that's tough to accomplish on a personal blog is to avoid plugging myself too much, to avoid being self-centered. If most of the sentences in a post begin with "I," there's a problem. If most of the posts on a blog have that issue, well then why read the damn thing? It's something I work on, something I'm aware of, and still my results in avoiding the over-indulgent "I" aren't great, but that's just because I'm so great I can't help it. Or something like that.

This idea came up today because of something I notice at work, a division of people who can't seem to help overusing "I" and those who almost never talk about themselves even when it would be acceptable. At work, I've gotten pretty good at keeping my "I" out of it. Some of that is made easy by the nature of the work. My job involves writing grants, managing some activities, and getting things done for other people. Also, the mission of the place is to serve others (It's a cookbook!) That is, it's not all about me. Right now that means reading a draft of new by-laws sent by a lawyer for a new initiative. Earlier it meant writing a section of a grant to sound as if the person signing it was the author. An hour ago it was writing an email disappointing one person while not revealing that it was someone other than me who made the decision. That guy was not happy, but oh well.

This is good work to do, a great job to have, my name doesn't have to be on things. It's not about me but it's troubling how much people feel the need to put their stamps and signatures on things. It's like people who give millions of dollars but demand their name be on the building. What, your money doesn't give you enough attention? Sheesh.

There's some question as to whether or not leaving my name off leaves me behind. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and all, but it's better to be a wheel that turns quietly, largely unnoticed. The right people know they can depend on me. That's enough.

Still, there's the writing question: Am I am thinking and writing too much about what I am doing, what I am thinking, and trying to get people to notice me? Even in this piece, I'm referring to myself, but there's a difference between using experience as example and turning the spotlight on myself to the exclusion of everything else. Here's hoping this piece is on the right side of that.

Getting away from I is like training writers away from "you" in referring to "the reader." I have no clue who "you, the reader" might be and assumptions leads to racism, sexism, and bad writing. "You" is almost always a sign of immaturity, inexperience, or laziness, but "I" may be even more dangerous. Note the man-child in the White House if you have any doubt.

There are times and places for "I" and "you" in writing, but it's always time to be wary of them. Avoiding "you" is just good sense. Avoiding "I" is also good sense, but it's more than that, it may even be spiritual, maybe moral. Like my job, writing isn't just about me. I'm in there, but there's so much more when "I" get out of the way.

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.