Squinting Towards Spring

I am going to confess something I’m embarrassed about. I came THIS CLOSE to falling for a phone scam yesterday. THIS CLOSE. I am your skeptical friend, your friend that looks shit up. I am not your friend who falls for conspiracies or faux news or grifters. I’m open to all kinds of ideas, but I travel through life with a big fucking spotlight to shine on them. And yesterday, it took me forever to switch that thing on.

I had a migraine when I woke up and had been out of sorts all day, and also, these people *absolutely* had it dialed. I don’t know what finally made my brain say, “Dude, call the power company, your bills are on auto pay!” The message that plays before they route your call says, “We’re aware of the scam…” Of course. Right. It’s a scam, you idiot. Minimal harm at my place, an hour of freaking out I won’t get back. Somehow, I lost my debit card in the flurry of activity. That’s a nuisance, but not the nuisance of having my bank account cleaned out. Don’t ask for more details, please, I’m still pretty mad I let these opportunistic assholes rattle me so deeply.

When I finally calmed down, I thought, this thing is getting to me. The endless hours alone, the lack of contact, the nonstop low level despair, and the terribleness of this coming winter—a true monster on the horizon. The same forces that sow apathy and fear of others prey on you when you’re foolish or tired enough to let fear be your guiding principal. I’m so angry that those forces exist, and I’m angry at myself for letting fear drive me. It’s not my way, it’s never been my way… until yesterday.

There is literally an invisible monster waiting to kill us all out there. Every day we are bombarded with messages that exacerbate our fear. I have pleaded with all kinds of people in my circle to stop sharing bad news because it feeds that fear and weakens our resolve. Yesterday, I found the cracks in my own resolve. I had enough left to wake up and snap into focus, but it was close. And I am scared.

We have to make it through this winter, friends. We have to make huge sacrifices for which we will see no results for what will feel like a long time. We have to think about what we’re feeding our brains, what we’re feeding our friends’ brains, and we have to squint towards spring. We have to see the inevitable tilt of the planet towards more light. Despair is going to be our companion for this terrible winter, but we must not feed it because it will ruin us in ways that we had not anticipated we were able to be ruined. Hi. I nearly fell for a scam that could have cost me a lot of money I would never get back. It’s real, the damage on our brains is real.

Perhaps the hardest thing about this whole fucked up mess is that it requires most of us to do … nothing. If we are not health care workers or epidemiologists, if we are not critical to the basic services of daily life, we must allow our worlds to collapse. We must go home and wait, it is incumbent upon us to go home and wait until the all clear sounds. This seemingly trivial bit of inaction is what will see us through to warmer days, when we can have long leisurely visits outside again. Through to when there’s a vaccine. Through to when we can share the dining table with our friends and family who come from far away.

Americans are terrible at doing nothing, we want to wander all over the place, talk too loud, take up space. At our best, we can be so hospitable, happy to shove over and let one more person squeeze into our diner booth. We can’t do any of that right now. It is literally killing us to do those things right now. We have to stop. We have to do… nothing. And we have to do it quietly. And we have to do it for an indefinite period of time.

Two years back, when I was in the deepest, darkest well of my depression, my therapist suggested it was the uncertaintly of my situation that was hurting me. I might not be able to experience a full recovery until I resolved the issues making me so desparately sad so much of the time. The cumulative damage of all that sadness was a deep clinical depression, a foggy brain, an inability to make the most basic of decisions. I don’t feel that way now, but I feel the shadow of the black dog nipping at my heels, and yesterday, I felt its wet breath on my neck. This shit is hard because now, I can’t resolve the problems myself, I must wait for them to be resolved by society as a whole. What I can resolve is limited — I will not put myself or others in harm’s way. And I will wait. It doesn’t feel like action, though it is a choice I can make.

This is not a rallying pep talk, it’s not a reality check designed to help you feel less alone in the world. I am alone right now, do not try to tell me — a person who literally lives alone — otherwise. The virtual visits, the outdoor meals, the online chats, they are excellent and I adore you and I still spend 90% of my time, perhaps more, in physcial isolation from other humans. This is not to say I have it worse than you and ha ha, friends with family will joke about what they wouldn’t give for 24 hours alone. Let me assure you, 24 hours alone is not the same as nine months alone. Your challenges are different than mine, and still so very difficult, and they do not diminish each other. Let’s not fall into that trap.

I have been paging through a giant full color seed catalog seeking vines to grow along the posts that hold up my awning, considering what I would like see sprouting in the vegetable beds when spring arrives. That seems a good use of my time, it looks forward. I filled the hummingbird feeder and yesterday, in the middle of all the anxiety and self-pity, I watched a tiny bird with a black face and an irridescent scarlet ascot drink nectar while hovering mid-air. That seems good too. I anticpate another round of black despair, of mistakes, hopefully harmless ones, of days when I simply cannot get anything done. This is also okay. This is all really fucking hard and we have to do almost nothing to get through it.

I hope today will be a better day.