""It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
It's been strange processing the best and worst scenarios of how this story will pan out. Noting those 2 first infamous phrases were on the tip of my tongue this morning. And while staring at the two sides of a coin-erring on that "spring of hope", throwing it mid-air to see how the coin might have fallen, we're all silently digesting our internal direction and the day to extremes. But sitting through another snow storm, and watching snowflakes gracefully fall from the sky always leaves me in an ultra-pensive mood.
Apparently we also have another point of reference for time: BC (before corona virus) and potential AD (after doom). At times noting it's hard to remember what our previous norm was like- anything BC- but as it is, last year feels like light years ago and tomorrow feels like yesterday with sprinkles of the day before yesterday becoming the chocolate chips on my next sundae 8 months down our detouring road. As if the NY hustle didn't already trigger some sort of bad episode of Back to the Future and leave us all scratching our heads.
Before we remembered more, and feigned a stronger sense of normalcy. I know I slept less, and even managed to do so without. But ever since lockdown, we've become virtual characters, and are sleeping more in shorter segments-erring upon a state of disruptive insomnia. At times it also feels as though work stands in the way of my own internal rhythm. And it's back to the drawing board of opportunity as I try to recalibrate and look for a new pair of working boots. I've returned to surfing the web for a new becoming and growing: a new lilypad. Our dreams becoming more pronounced, last night I dreamt I returned back in time to an old corporate job only to find that the characters were still there and just as- if not even more- complacent than I had recalled them being. Questioning my memory, I don't remember as vividly as I did.
Sleeping with more pillows, and less daytime mobility will also inevitably cause for a tense existence. When the TOSS & TURN becomes a sleeping dance move, like a fish out of water flipping back and forth only to make for a major ache running down your right back and shoulder, it's only in quarantine and such a time in all of history, I've felt compelled to give up dancing. In that crumplestiltskin move, that cotton crumble, there's the ache of the neck and back- and the arm motions of reaching out into darkness. Apparently that resting bitch face in broad daylight has also taken into effect. The sleep episodes have become 2-6 hour intermittent naps with no rhyme much less reason. BUT I've stopped keeping count or trying to create a sleep schedule. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't be surprised finding yourself with a charlie horse while in previous times you might have also found yourself out late marauding @ that very hour.
"Times they are a changing", once said the great Bob. We are now echoing just that. With our scotch brite sponge status, we are waxing on and off, sloughing our layers, counting the days into 2021 and another legally-prescribed layer of adulthood- having the where withal of sustaining a global pandemic, where every day is yet another strange drop in the bucket and fewer opportunities to chip away at that bucket list. Spring is now our newest measuring ruler and hope- and that call to action when the world begins to stir, nature's annual quincenera, Mother Earth's beauty pageant. And with the dust of 2020, and spores of nascency for the new year, we are awake amidst a strange state of hibernation. Did the groundhog come out this year? Did I even leave the house that day?
From going nowhere for a year (2020) and even the holidays, the continuation into a new year has been anti-climactic. I shoulda, coulda, woulda, had I a lot more gumption- and had the possibility have been easier, but the reality is that instead, I assembled my truest sense of home amidst this crisis despite having never felt more foreign in my current place of domicile. Whodathunk that was even feasible. But like an anti-Dorothy, in this episode of Oz I'm clicking my heels together and asking Calgon to take me away.
We've become this vision of a tarnished silver tray serving empty glasses overflowing with fear. With more businesses shuttering, this impending oomph and sense of doom caused by covid cases still circulating, I'm still trying to get with the program. And reprogram. Still contemplating this sense of colony collapse disorder, but with signs of vaccines supposedly in circulation, today I am staring at that blurry horizon as the bubble status continues... of trying to belong to ourselves. Hope you are home safe where you are.
"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads." - Doc Back to the Future
A gentle reminder that BC happened long before AD- just in case you've forgotten.
#GREATSCOTT #THISISHEAVY #BACKTOTHEFUTURE #BCB4AD #THEOTHERPILLOWTALK #BESTRONG #MAYYOULIVEININTERESTINGTIMES #2021
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