Week 95
View from the Houseboats
Welcome to 2022. What a strange, strained start amid the 5th pandemic wave due to omicron. Instead of hope and fresh starts, it feels…braced and uncertain. It’s currently raining in the Bay Area. We sent Theo to school today (after multiple negative antigen & PCR tests) in part because we anticipate a closure later this month, and frankly, due to the privilege of having him be vaccinated (and us and my mother boosted) and thus having less fear of infection. My heart goes out to everyone who is home with a kid today because of covid sickness, exposure, avoidance, or staff shortages (or like my DC friends, all of the above plus snow).
I’ve been re-listening to an OnBeing episode from May 2020 where Devendra Banhart and Krista Tippett read and discuss from When Things Fall Apart, by Pema Chödrön. One of the quotes from the book is: “Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” The aspect of the pandemic that is testing us is obvious (pun not intended, given the lack of covid tests), yet the aspect of healing is something I can practice more.
We’ve been watching Encanto on repeat and debating what it means. To me, it seems like one of Mirabel’s talents is helping her family acknowledge what they are ignoring or how they are performing with the intention of supporting the family, but that have the result of hurting themselves. Examples include Luisa (the sister who is super strong): “Pressure like a drip drip drip that’ll never stop…Give it to your sister, your sister’s older, give her all the things we can’t shoulder…who am I if I can’t carry it all?” who needs rest, and Isabella (the formerly perfect, now perfectly creative, sister) who sings, “I just made something unexpected. Something sharp. Something new. It’s not symmetrical or perfect but it’s beautiful and it’s mine. What else can I do?”. “What else can I do” is the energy I’d like to bring to 2022.
I took last week off and used the 3 days with childcare to start some reflections and unwinding. I spent the time mostly wearing pajamas until it was time to leave to get Theo from school, journaling, buying and reading poetry. I am finding I’m craving contemporary poets, who are writing in or proximate to the current situation. I’ve read Kate Baer’s I Hope This Finds You. Well and Maggie Smith’s Goldenrod. I got her book Keep Moving from the library, along with Helen MacDonald’s H is for Hawk. I’ve seen recommendations for Kathryn Schultz’s memoir Lost & Found. I find I resonate with Plague Poems on Twitter, though I have no idea who writes them. What writers have you found that have captured the feeling of the last two years?
During the break, I also took the time to review all the weekly letters I’ve written thus far in the pandemic. It was an interesting exercise. I noticed I repeatedly circled back to the same techniques for re-balancing and re-focusing. I noticed more angst in my 2021 posts compared to 2020. Reading between the lines, I saw a strong desire for space to slow down, think, and be creative. I found a lot of common threads, which I’ve started weaving together for future posts to the website. I expanded the resources section, including adding the parenting page with some of the things that kept Theo engaged at home. I still am not sure whether and why to keep up with the website, but I think I will until I decide otherwise.
This time of year, people post their “year in review”. Listing accomplishments is important to do for yourself (and your boss) but, if shared broadly, can lead to unhelpful comparisons. My accomplishments this last year are evidence of the privilege of childcare, flexible work situation, committed sponsors/mentors, and a broad/deep pipeline of collaborations. I will share that I’m proud of my ongoing investments in self-care, shorter periods of abandoning self-care for other priorities, ongoing efforts to be a better spouse and parent. At work, I’m proud of the work I am doing to mentor and support others, to contribute to (mostly online) communities of mutual support, to advocate for change.
This time of year, people also may post their goals and intentions. This article was nice for its description of why to set goals with a partner. Sam and I have yet to do this particularly formally, but for the last few years I’ve chosen a word for the year and made goal maps. In 2020, I picked “growth” (which suited well enough), and in 2021, “re-imagine” (which turned out to be premature). This year, we’ve chosen “stabilize” – not in a way that forestalls or avoids change but as an ultimate goal to build towards. Goal-setting feels strange right now, so I tried exercises of imagining what I would want if there were no pandemic (or cost) restrictions, and also reflecting on what I like and don’t like. This was clarifying and informed my usual strategies for setting goals.
I’ll end with some gratitude:
Fresh nutmeg and parmesan grated on scrambled eggs
Developing a new habit of playing cards (ok, Uno) with Sam while/after Theo goes to sleep instead of doing work
Using Theo’s desire for collaborative art time to practice sketching or adding color to my journaling
New incense from Juniper Ridge
Peppermint drinking chocolate on a rainy day
Adding new art from both my mother and grandmother to my walls as my mother sorted through her collection over the holidays, and a new mini ceramic sculpture from a local SF artist that was a gift from Sam
Three small goals:
Wellness: 3x cardio, 1x journal, 2x meditate
First author: write 1 paragraph summary of findings from dPC interviews
Grant: spend 1 hour on R01 groundwork/aims
How are you? What are your three small goals for the week? Or intentions for the year?
Thinking of you
Krista