Friday, April 24, 2020

Despair, Distract, Distance, Deepen, Deliverance



I apparently have a new cycle during COVID19 that I’m working through, despite my desire to be calm and accepting of all that occurs.

Despair wakes me up at 4 am thinking of a new password and counting its characters with my fingers, as if I were practicing scales without a keyboard.

Despair keeps me scrolling through my phone during a zoom meeting, favoring a stranger's meme over the nuggets or nuances from someone’s sharing.

Despair gets me out the door, fitbit rebooted, obsessively meeting a 10,000 Step goal.

Distract becomes my new coping mechanism. See above during online meetings for an example.

Distract helps me read a novel every couple days, watch a new series, and perhaps motivates my new napping habit. (See the 4 am waking reference.)

Distance keeps conversation superficial, tears private and quickly squelched, hands busy tidying up.

Distance occurs on every vector: with myself, with others, and with my higher power.

Deepen is my new desire, but too often distraction inhibits the meditation practice that forms a bridge or perhaps acts as shovel.

In order to deepen, I need to journal beyond the tally of tasks accomplished, into the murky, shadowy landscape of today’s setting of pandemic.

Deepening inevitably means letting something go, sharing something raw, trusting someone, almost anyone, with my current state of being even before I can articulate it.

To deepen is to acknowledge this world—green, anxious, hopeful, corrupt.

To deepen is to settle into this body—fit, healthy, sober, achey.

To deepen is to accept this mind—busy, sharp, creative, restless.

To deepen is to welcome this spirit—expansive, settled, awake, curious.

And if I can acknowledge, settle, accept, and welcome, then I am delivered into what’s next. The ultimate unknown.

Which may well lead to despair, and the cycle begins anew.

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