Great Expectations
Last year, barely a month into the Pandemic, I wrote this journal entry... I had begun to read Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations earlier in February 2020. However, I found it quite difficult to read anything during March because the unsettling feelings the onset of Covid had created in me. By April, I began to find my reading stride again and the following quote stimulated my journal entry below.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
"Pause, you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day."
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens, p. 95... end of chapter 9
Gone is March... like how the wind and storm on a blustery day dissipate into the quiet calm of the sun and warmth. Yet this March leaves a mark like no other!!! The impending doom of what is to come and what is to be all the while knowing that March was just the beginning. So much sits on the scales of change. So much is at stake, yet so much can be different. So much loss on a planetary scale. When God let the waters of the deep rise from the ground and fall from the sky... it was tangible. Everything about March has been intangible. I got to a place where I could not write. I could not keep track of my thoughts. I could not stop listening to podcasts and reading news articles and reaching out to people. All of that felt like "doing" something because my "being" was suffering so, and I could not be alone with it.
Because I couldn't write last month, perhaps I'll find the words to make up for what didn't get written down. Any historian of tomorrow's will be able to look back at the news articles, graphs, charts, inadequacies, death rates from family-neighborhood-town-village-city-county-state-country-world. The thing is --- it's not necessarily simply the "number". Look at how many have been lost in other catastrophes. It's the magnitude, the all at onceness! It's the inclusion of every nation on earth feeling the presence of this invisible force.
It's the unique experiences from the newborn in a contaminated hospital to the elder confined in a care facility. It's the rush beyond description from hospitals to the hospice patient left alone to die because people cannot come together. It's the waiting and the dying alone, and the shedding of the virus on the dead bodies that they have to be wrapped in plastic twice. It's the lack of proper grieving because the bodies just have to be disposed of. It's the magnitude of job loss and food insecurity(worldwide). It's the separation during good things and bad things and all the in-between things. It's the missing of small special moments, and the canceling of big occasions. It's the empty streets and buzz in the air of impending doom. It is the intensity of the hope that something of purpose and meaning will come out of this individual and collective trauma.
I just looked at my daily planner for the first time in awhile, I haven't really needed it, yet I do. Anyway, for this week I had written down Anthony Bourdaine's words about Berlin--- "You need a strong enemy to build a strong muscle." Wow! This pandemic is a strong and far reaching enemy. Which muscles will be strengthened during this, and how will we put them to use when this enemy has been put down?
---For the week of March 16th in honor of St. Patrick's Day, I had written his words... God beneath you, God in front of you, God behind you, God above you, God within you.
---For last week, my planner which I had written in back in Dec/Jan -read- "A woman of substance can make her home anywhere." From the PBS show "Call the Midwife"
I think I had come across that quote a couple of years back and I really loved it. Although, I struggle with it like a wrestler in a wrestling match... back and forth, full body, special skilled moves, well intentions thwarted, sometimes on top, sometimes on bottom, in training, making weight, being judged, judging and criticizing self, on display, hidden by helmet and uniform, part of a team, yet an individual performance, struggle... substance, limp, strained muscle, sweat, endurance.
How does a woman of substance make her home in a pandemic, in a war, as a refugee, as an immigrant, within the confines of patriarchy, when she is homeless, overworked, underworked, underpaid, unpaid, enslaved, trafficked...???
A couple other quotes I heard recently...
"How we spend our days is how we spend our lives." Annie Dillard
"People who provide the spark don't often get to sit by the fire." Téa Leoni in "Madam Secretary"
The first one, I find both inspiring and defeating. It gets me going, and it reminds me of my failings and shortcomings. It's still about, in a round about way, production, doing, get things accomplished, the ever-present Protestant Work Ethic... not our "being".
The second quote feels deeper, more profound and nuanced... transcends culture and time in history.
There is so much to catch up on, write, reflect. I feel better just having done this much. I must do this everyday without beating myself up for spending my time this way.
---Fast forward or slow forward... Time has been altered in compounding ways; new Expectations are on the horizon. It's July 2021. Covid has entered our DNA literally and figuratively. They say it's here to stay. I think I'll write every day...
