Friday, May 15, 2020…10:16am

The end of week 9. I said to somebody this week that I think we’ve all lived about one hundred lifetimes in the past 2 months. Turns out it’s exhausting work living through a global pandemic.

It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted.

In addition to the now normalized routine of work/school/life in a virtual world, this week has included…

• The deeply disturbing news that the financial losses of COVID-19 may be the cause of my college (Wells College) closing it’s doors forever. This little college in upstate New York is central to who I am, how I view the world, and how I understand my place in the world. If Wells closes her doors I will count it as a COVID-19 related death and I will grieve.
• Constant webinars, and articles, and conversations about when/how/if we can begin to bring people back to the church campus. It’s going to be a super complicated process with no clear right answers.
• A many times postponed visit to an orthopedic surgeon for my husband.  We are finally one step closer to scheduling a surgery on his ankle that could vastly decrease his pain and increase his quality of life.
• A 504 transition meeting for the man-child via Zoom; along with the knowledge that we have done everything we possibly could to ensure he is truly set up for success in high school.
• The realization that in the fog of exhaustion, we managed to decrease the dosage on one of the man-child’s depression medications by 20mg for an unknown period of time.
• The news that some things in LA County can begin to reopen – including equestrian centers, so now we don’t have to feel guilty when we drop the girl off tomorrow morning at her barn. She’s been going weekly all along, but now it’s “legal” again.

It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted. So for today, in the words of Mary Oliver, “I’m flying low.”

Be well my friends.

Today I’m flying low and I’m not saying a word. I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a little, the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. And so forth. But I’m taking the day off. Quiet as a feather. I hardly move though really I’m traveling a terrific distance. Stillness. One of the doors into the temple.

― Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings