Castaway on Covid Island

We have been officially shut-in. On Monday, March 16, 2020, after starting a new job only 7 days before, I went into the office for the last time. It is, today, April 16, 2020. Exactly one month since our little corner of the world seemed to collectively “walk through the looking glass.”

Everything is different. As if someone painted life as we know it in colors our brains can’t quite comprehend. People walking the streets wearing homemade masks. Keeping our distance has become the ultimate showing of love. Parking lots and shopping malls, once packed with the bustle of people, stand empty. Planes stopped flying. Stadiums stand quiet. Calendars cleared of events for the foreseeable future. Even school doors have shuttered. A collective, great pause. In its own way…an exhale.

It’s hard to know what day it is. Years broken down into months. Months broken down into weeks. Weeks broken down into days. Days, broken down into hours. All looking startlingly similar – with no weekday rush hour or event or impromptu gathering or weekend plan to give them any distinction. I’ve stopped looking too far ahead. I’ve always been a big picture girl. Zoom out. Get to 30,000 ft. See all of the pieces, all of the possibilities, all of the paths. But on this side of the looking glass, it’s impossible to know what will happen next week, let alone, next month or next year. And, to be honest, some of the possibilities from that high of a vantage point are too scary for me to even consider.

I can’t predict them. Can’t plan for them. Can’t change them. I can only wait and see what comes next.

No, the 30,000 ft. view feels too big. Too many moving parts. Too out of control.

Zoom in

When we made the decision to sell our house and move our little family into Walter (our Winnebago), we did it so that we could regain control. Somehow, in our 30-some years, our lives had gotten to a point, where we felt like they were living us, rather than the other way around. Sometimes, we would get up in the morning and feel like all we were doing was riding this great freight train, speeding from obligation to obligation, one after the other until bedtime. Rushing through a constant hum of emails and phone calls and meetings and events. All the while feeling like we might be missing something really important, losing it in the blur of buildings and people and landmarks as they sped past our window.

And then, like every good American, we’d get up the next morning and do it all over again.

We wanted…needed it to just…stop. To slow. To pause. To breathe. At least long enough so that we could hear our own thoughts. Be able to consider what even matters. Makes us feel suffocated. Makes us feel alive.

So, we chose to center down. We literally chose to remove every object, every obligation, every event, every expectation we had ever had for ourselves and for our lives and start from scratch. A world flipped on its head. Everything the same, and yet, everything different. We visited countless unfamiliar places where we had very little access to friends or family aside from an occasional FaceTime.

We became castaways on our own little island. And we couldn’t control the weather, or the waves, or whether or not a boat would pass by bringing friends or news from the mainland. For all intents and purposes, we were “off the grid.” And we liked it that way.

We chose to zoom in and focus on our island.

How does it feel here? What does it sound like? Smell like? Look like? How can we create joy and meaning here in this tiny oasis? What resources do we have? What exists here that we can use? What exists here that no longer serves us? How can we be creative? What can we learn? How can we survive? How will we grow?

How will this island change us? What will we be able to see when we leave here that we can’t see yet?

The view was at times, breathtaking. We could pause, enjoy each other, listen to the birds, feel the sun on our faces, revel in slow mornings over sips of coffee. Notice beauty in the world. Notice beauty in each other, in ourselves.

Some days were also excruciatingly hard. There were storms. And sickness. And unexpected breakdowns. We were forced to find out how far we could be pushed. And we were challenged to rise to the occasion. What choice did we really have? We walked the path. We became resourceful. We made new traditions and discovered more about ourselves, and what we are really capable of than I could have possibly imagined.

We were, in a way, like a bag emptied of its contents. Bits laid plainly across the floor. A blatant splaying of years-worth of collecting. Of beliefs and values. Of strengths and weaknesses. Of…stuff that once held meaning, but over time had grown rusty and vacant of any purpose. We sifted and sorted and selected only the best, most beautiful, most meaningful. As we readied ourselves to return to the mainland, we placed the selected items back into our bag, and committed to ourselves, right then and there, that we would never again allow such disarray. We would choose consciously and with our whole hearts.

A resounding and definitive, “Hell, yes!!” or else, “No.”

Islanders once more

And now, it would seem…we find ourselves here again.

On our little island, but this time not by choice. And there is a great storm. A threatening pestilence. A constant din of news and media and theories and fear and information and questions. And questions. And more questions. A collective, never-ending rhetoric. The weight of subtle and invisible violence perpetrated by a persistent, aggressive monologue that takes aim and fires daily at our struggle to just maintain.

Wind whipping. Waves crashing. Sun bearing down. No way to control it. 30,000-ft view is too unstable, too unpredictable.

So, again, we zoom in.

What do we notice? What exists here…on our island? What can we use to survive? What comes first, second, third?

One foot in front of the other… One day and then the next…

Where can we have the most impact? How can we make our space more livable, more enjoyable, more replenishing for our exhausted spirits?

One small project and then the next…

What is working? What isn’t? How can we reach out to our neighboring islands to share resources or sometimes just a smile or a pack of toilet paper?

One day buried, drowning, heavy…the next day strong, steady, above water…

How can we shelter our island from the effects of the wind and the waves and the sun? How can we build our strength and our resistance and our practice so that we can find mastery and feel empowered? Find peace? Feel joy?

Every day, I am reinforcing my shores to keep them from eroding into the sea from the constant, crashing waves. The daily act is necessary and exhausting. But, I know that this feeling will plateau. There will be mastery. There will come a time when it “clicks in.” The strength I feel will last for days instead of hours. Joy will return. Still a bit foreign. But no longer empty.

The tide will turn. The seas will calm. The boat will arrive. And we will prepare to leave our island lives for our new lives back on the mainland. We will again go back to sifting and sorting and choosing and repacking.

I can’t help but wonder what will we select in the “after?” What will make the cut? And what will be left on the island?