I was one of many introverts, I’m sure, who sprung to life with purpose and creativity as the world went dark in March 2020. It was as if we had been in training for this kind of event our entire lives. I remember saying to a friend just months before, that if I could envision what wealth would look like to me, it would just be more time.
And Voila.
My wealth was so immediate and extraordinary, it was like I woke up one morning and rolled out of bed to find a $2 million lottery ticket at my feet. Maybe most importantly – and a high-five to my 2020 self – I knew what I had been handed was rare and fleeting and I pounced on it. I rented an office at our local theater and started writing fiction again, which had seemed indulgent and nutty before. Now all the lines of nuttiness were either blurred or erased and it was just like, ‘well, if the world’s going crazy I may as well be crazy along with it.’ When Montana started to cautiously reopen two months later I had 52 pages of a screenplay and – unknown to me then – a coffee bean-sized Eliza brewing away. I was two months shy of 43 when I took that pregnancy test and I still can’t think of that season without the first lines of Ellie Goulding’s “Anything Can Happen” starting up in my mind.
So more than a year later, when Covid crept back into our lives at the beginning of August, a part of me assumed I’d return to that headspace, enjoying our family of now four, and bursts of productivity, all without the interruption of work and routine. When a quarantine finally became inevitable, I was ready to go.
Except I wasn’t. I did not return to that headspace. There was no pouncing. After 48 hours I was furious. Also restless and uncomfortable and maybe worst of all, feeling deeply guilty that I was restless and uncomfortable. Shouldn’t I want to gather up as much time as possible with my daughters, now nearly six months and age 2? All day at home with my babies who were growing so fast it made my heart hurt every time I had to fold up another onesie or pair of pants that no longer fit and put in the giveaway box – what a gift, right? Instead I felt like I had been thrown back into a cage.
All I could think of was that perfect Saturday in early June, post-vaccinations, two months before, when the world was suddenly unmasked again. Spring had just catapulted into summer and we took the girls to the farmer’s market in Missoula. I stood in line to buy a fresh baguette and a coffee at a French bakery on the hip strip as Eliza cooed at all the new faces from her stroller. We walked across the new bridge walkway over the Clark Fork to meet John and Jessie for lunch and the river was roaring, the lilacs were out, and the quaking aspens were green and shimmery. My baguette was warm, my coffee was hot and strong, I had just slept more than five hours the night before, and the world was so perfect and beautiful and so suddenly and exquisitely open. Had the sky ever been that blue? The hills that green? Every person I passed on the bridge was grinning like mad, just like me, all of us released prisoners. Missoula today, and then where? The Amalfi Coast? Portugal? Paris? For the first time in a year we could allow ourselves to dream ahead beyond our living rooms.
What I loved the most though on that June day, was that all the arguing, the posturing, the memes, the viral video clips, and the anger – so much anger – seemed bathed in this fresh summer rain. It felt washed away. Irrelevant. It didn’t matter anymore because it was all over. Covid was in the rear view mirror. Yes, there were other strains of the virus. Yes, there were uncertainties. But ultimately, we were back. Let’s shake hands across enemy lines because we were moving forward.
When Covid returned to our town, our daycares, our workplaces, and life had to come to a standstill again while our health system tried to get a handle of what was happening, I really tried to channel my 2020 self. But I couldn’t get myself back to that place I had been 12 months before. There was no way around it. Two days in, I was looking at spending 10 days being morose about being morose. I was disoriented and I missed the calm, resilient lioness of opportunity I had been. My 2021 self was inwardly throwing a tantrum that could have rivaled my 2-year-old’s meltdowns. This was all supposed to be over! I want to speak to the person in charge! I would watch Jessie dissolve into tears at the smallest infringement and think you are my spirit animal right now.
It’s funny that loneliness hasn’t been a prominent key on my emotional keyboard for much of my life. I love my time alone and solitude is hard to come by these days. Eliza still wants to be held for much of the night. I can’t even brush my teeth without Jessie’s tiny hands sliding under the bathroom door. It is nothing short of agonizing to watch our world slide back into a tunnel of unknowns, just when we thought we were back in the bright, clear light. Are we wiser now? Maybe just more prepared to have our plans evaporate and get more comfortable with saying “I don’t know” when we look at the school year ahead or international travel. We are back to buying insurance for everything.The certainty we crave so hard just isn’t here.
But this is the gift I’m taking from my unexpectedly morose August quarantine: While solitude is the gas in the particular make, model and year that is me, at the end of the day, I do need people. I need the banter at work, the small talk while waiting to buy milk or post a package. I need our book club meetings in the library courtyard and spontaneous chats with neighbors while out walking the dog.
As an introvert, last year was a grand indulgence. Maybe its a good thing to be reminded that I still need actual face time to function in the long haul.
I don’t know what wealth looks like to me now exactly. I don’t know if I would blithely say “time” anymore. Maybe a healthy sense of awe. Maybe on my really good days I’d say its knowing how wealthy I already am.
GRATIFY
Beautiful! So sorry you’re back in quarantine. The extroverted part of me is just roaring. I can’t get enough of people and their faces, whenever I see a person’s whole face, it’s a gift.
It is a gift, yes! Miss you dear friend.