The value of these days

The lupines are here in June, then gone. (Image by Полина Андреева)

When the lockdown began, I was ready. I was on high-alert mode.

For two months, I worked long hours from my parents’ dining room table and my childhood bedroom, taking breaks to walk along the cold windy beach until the beaches closed, and then down and around the cul-de-sacs of the neighborhood on the days after that. Sometimes, I played a little tennis with my mom — until the tennis courts closed, and then we hit the ball back and forth in the gravel driveway in the afternoons.

I met with my staff, students, and clients on Zoom, read the news and interpreted its significance for my endeavors, and tried to keep up with correspondence. I drank coffee, made with care by my dad, out of tiny mugs. I wrote, I Slacked, I survived. A lot of it is a blur now. Life was mostly work, plus couple of episodes of Schitt’s Creek in a communal TV-watching experience around the hearth at the end of the day.

There were moments when something else broke through: I tried to knit a little bit in March and I wrote a song in April. But mostly, I focused hard on work, like I was trying to navigate my boat through a storm. I battened down the hatches and braced myself against the waves, steering as best I could.

Not only did I experience intense stress, there was grief. It hurt to lose out on all the end-of-the-year experiences with my students. I had a dream just last night that we had a one-week reprieve where we were allowed to meet in person again. I saw their faces and felt their joy. I awoke feeling wistful.

It took an entire month to recover after school ended and my husband and I returned to our own place. I was so sad, tired, and exhausted that it took me awhile to realize how sad, tired, and exhausted I was.

Without the ability to see beloved out-of-state family and friends or explore new places, with the world in turmoil and no end in sight, I again turned to work to find a way to make my days meaningful. It worked for awhile, and then I crashed. In fact, one day, I sat down to write to you and I had nothing at all to say. I had finally exhausted my reservoir.

I realized I had been measuring my days in a way that was no longer fitting. I wanted to have something of value to bring out of this time, something that could cause me to feel that my days were “worth it.” Worth what?

So I gave up. I walked along the waterfront, did a little yoga, did a little knitting. Played some Bach, sat in the sun on the stoop. I ate healthy foods. I followed my own advice. It had an immediate positive effect, a fog lifting.

I love my work and I find a lot of meaning in it. But it’s not self-sustaining. My friend and colleague Jen pointed out that while my work is regenerative — it’s stimulating, inspiring, and engaging — it’s not restorative. It doesn’t fill my cup. When I’m empty, I need to look elsewhere for a healing draught.

In my hobbies, rest, and recreation, I was able to find a new way to look at the value of my days. I discarded productivity as a metric for now; it may be useful, but not universally. I paid fresh attention to my body, my breath, my spirit. I made space and didn’t fill it.

I’m not a robot that can be programmed to execute tasks. I’m a human whose afternoon can be completely transformed by a (masked) stroll through an antique shop or the sight of a rainbow. And when I look back on these times, I will not remember the days — I’ll remember the moments. I can create more moments of joy, connection, and contentment, but I don’t have to. I can simply invite them. Perhaps a deeper understanding of this truth will be the real legacy of this time.