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wendylewis-blog · 4 years

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05.01.2020 /The Weekend

I feel more animal. I sleep when it’s dark and get up with daylight. I forage my house for food when I’m hungry and often, let myself feel that hunger without satiating it. I’m more acutely aware of what’s around me—wandering the woods, walking the river, sitting in the dry prairie grasses. The wind, pollen scattering from the trees, birdsong, chattering squirrels, elegant deer and awkward turkeys. Hoards of gnats swarm in tiny tornados near the water—I wonder if they hold a consciousness about their purpose here. I wonder if I do.

I talk to people much less than I did in the beginning. Everything has been said too many times over. Exhausting and erosive. It’s becoming more personal now; taking each other’s spiritual temperature, reconnecting with some ppl I’ve lost over time, like a woman in NYC and another in San Franciso, both with new babies. Sometimes, we’re cynical, sometimes laughing, sometimes weeping. I’m quieter than ever and if you know me, I’m not prone to silence. It feels like getting to know a part of myself less explored. Not a bad thing. Listening more, talking less.

This morning’s soundtrack.

There is rain moving in. I’m sitting in my dining room facing the south side of the yard watching the sturdiness of trees against a grey backdrop. They wave their branches a little. I’ve looked at these trees out this window for twenty-two years. They give me a false sense of permanence but unless virulent summer weather takes them down some time, I will lean into that ruse.

It’s the first day of May. My oldest daughter Hannah will turn 34 in a week. She and her husband Geoffrey and g-bb Ezra came down to our house last Saturday. I hugged them both with a bedsheet between us. I had so many conflicting feelings seeing them after almost two months and keeping prescribed distance for the afternoon—the full range existing between joy and grief. I suffered an emotional hangover the next day. It’s so hard to explain. It’s surreal to watch them from across the yard while the dogs romp together and not get gob-smacked about this new reality we are saddled up into—how this contagion (and the ones that will surely follow) will distort/contort, forever changing our intimacies. I’ll have to think more about this.

We have always been such a tactile family and this is taking time to get used to and it’s only just begun. I’m gonna give myself all the time necessary to acclimate. It was so incredible to see them after so long, if bittersweet.

I had similar feelings when daughter Kitty and her roommate Anna came down the following Monday to gather kindling, take a walk and stay for dinner. I spent a couple hours prior to their arrival instigating a yearly ritual—opening the porch! We put all the leaves in the table to properly distance ourselves. I thought about how to share the food. I ladled the soup into the sitting bowls, split the French bread loaf in half and wrapped separately, gave them their own dish of salt and plate of butter. We made mistakes—shared the pepper grinder and all touched the tubs of yogurt and sour cream. Ohhh well—we washed our hands afterwards. We also talked and laughed our asses off until dark. When they were leaving, Kitty and I looked at each other and suddenly hugged without the sheet, turning our faces away, not breathing. The next morning I woke up and had a moment of subdued panic until I remembered that every time I leave my house and go to the grocery store, it’s a risk.

These are the inescapable truths we are all being forced to reckon with in one way or another. In that moment, the gain was well worth the risk. I am gonna get more used to this eventually and do my best taming the wild range of emotional geography to something less painful and more often flushed with gratefulness that we are all alive and love each other. Pull it together, Lewis!

I’ve been trying to order seeds on line for weeks. Most of the organic sites were filling commercial orders in lieu of home gardeners’ requests, stalling us until May. Now, most everything is unavailable, especially herbs, which are expensive to buy in the produce section. I guess I have to take a deep breath and roll with it. There’s a lot we all have to roll with. I’m not an avid gardener anyway but I did love how the bush beans grew last year and fed us all summer long, planted in succession.

I’ve emerged, at least for now, from the hopeless/helpless place I’d been in last week. I decided to curb my drinking habits, which had become something of a crutch a couple weeks ago that collapsed under my own weight and fed my sad monster. I’m going to need all my available faculties to get to the next day and the next one, not fall victim to laziness or inflamed feeling, already tender. So, cutting back. It’s been pretty easy so far.

Meanwhile, there are important issues to focus my anger and intention towards when it rears up—an endless stream, most recently; Pence not wearing a mask when he visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN, Trump suggesting ultra violate rays and disinfectant injections as a cure and then later saying he was being sarcastic (!**/?!#@%!!?), joining up with Stacy Abrams out of GA and the Fair Fight organization to protect our voting rights and democracy in the upcoming election. I also watched (Michael Moore presents) Planet of the Humans written/directed by Jeff Gibbs. Warning: brutal, informative, a li’l craycray (fact checking review here as ballast).

Also, watched a Frontline piece on Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. What a supreme, soulless dick! Yikes! I knew, kinda, but have never gone in for the longer story. I know—it would be difficult for some, because—so convenient—but what if we just stopped ordering from that megalomaniac, ceased to fill the pockets of the richest man in the world whose mistreatment of his workers is legendary? He would be the best first place to start reorienting our rote thinking about capitalism. Done with him.

What if we supported our local stores, local restaurant take-out, local clothing and sundries stores (most sell online now) or shopped directly to companies online instead of going through the infamous Amazon? What if we used this time to begin to unhook from the corporate rank and file consumerism we have all been brainwashed with, and started supporting each other and small businesses? Hearing that Tyson is suffering an enormous rise in workers infected with Covid due to cramped and unsafe working conditions (!!!) what if we supported local co-ops even part of the time? I know they are a little more expensive, but if you go local and not Whole Foods, you’ll do better. I did hear that Farmers Markets may open soon and those offer the most affordable options to Cub or Rainbow. I’ve lived and shopped this way for a long time and never made much money so I’m just sayin’, you actually can afford it.

Every time we spend our money, we are casting a vote, so this is a good time to explore and support the neighborhood both near us and small companies online instead of supporting the giant corporate machine. They are not helping us as much as they make it appear. Other than Costco (my only big box store), who pay their workers a living wage with good benefits and safe work environments (in addition to offering remarkable dry goods, produce, meats and cheeses, the rest are forever off my list. They offer so many organic options and I save so much $$ there. I admit, it’s not much fun to go there—especially right now in terms of exposure—but when I’m out of paper towels and coffee or need a bag of lemons for $6 and organic ground beef, they are my go-to.

This week’s movie recommendations. Kitty brought The Midnight Gospel, an animated, spirited, crazy, philosophical ride on the human condition from the makers of Adventure Time. You don’t have to be a Dylan fan to enjoy No Direction Home, a documentary that centers on Dylan’s trajectory (copious interview time with him and others around him) from late 50′s-70′s and beyond. If that’s not your cup of tea, check out Ricky Gervais’ AfterLife in which he deals with the fallout of grieving his beloved wife in that sweet/irreverent way he is known for—the second season now available. Also, Devs (recommended by Al Church) is really good, but if you can’t do violence, steer clear. All of these are streaming on Netflix.

Last post, I was thinking hard about employing more acceptance and open-mindedness. I’m still there and working on it as I wrestle my uncaged sometimes savage emotions. I check in on many of you via our only source of communication and it seems we are all on the same rollercoaster. It’s a rough ride—hang on and, when you’re fed up or feel brave or are awash in a weird kind of joy, raise your hands off the bar and into the air.

While we may be isolated, we are not alone.

Lovelove.

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