For a moment.

I can hardly focus, it seems and so for me, it means a quiet hour with the computer trying to write 11's, a walk anywhere- my neighborhood, a trail, the cemetery, an abandoned road. It means a distracting book or getting out the flour and sugar and butter and it means going deep into the 80's tunes to add some dancing to my stirring. It means doing only one thing at a time-- holding my cat and letting my breath tune into the purring, it means feeling the pen in my hands as I doodle. It means I bend towards my computer as I listen to my students read and hone in on their voice--pitch, inflections, shape of mouth as they try to pronounce words that are weird to them. It means noting the wild hair sticking out of my hubby's eyebrow and touching it until he swats my hand away and then laughs before nodding yes, I can pluck it. It means looking at my son so intently, seeing his left brow hitched up and the concern coloring his eyes a darker shade, taking in all of him in understanding just a bit of his own particular sadness and just wanting to burst for his sweetness and his own minor successes. 

It means I am holding at bay deep sadness as the glory of red, gold, yellow, green leaves fall as I know what is coming. Normally, I like to hibernate but this year is different. I can't see how holidays will unfold. I know my parents survived their bout of Covid, but the Jenga puzzle of work and other family makes it so I just don’t know how it fits together this year. 

 I can't see how the election will end well no matter the outcome. I can't see how the future is bright as the sham of the Supreme Court appointment is rammed through. I can't see how black and brown and people not white or heterosexual will ever feel at home in this place we call home.

It is easy to get caught up in the drama. There is so much of it. It’s hard to turn off who I am in the midst of this. I have always been an observer. In all I can’t see, I do also take in a lot.

I see people not caring we are in a pandemic going to parties, not wearing masks, acting like who gives a shit? Let’s do the things and have the events and just keep on as if nothing is different. 

I see people caring so much that it renders them stuck, unable to make a move or take a breath or allow themselves the chance to just live a little.

I see angry and anxious people. Sadly, I see that in myself.

I see people shutting down, closing off, turning inward and I wonder, how far in is too far?

I see others going to hobbies, taking up something new, willing a connection that is not about the election or the pandemic and only about their hands, the moment, the thing in front of them. I am searching for this. I think I have found something but it does not use my hands. More on that later.

I see pockets of the world where it looks like life is normal, restaurants operating at full capacity in any given state or here at a local bar on a Friday night.

I see pockets of the world where I can’t believe this is our world now like my local bank, my health clinic visit, my kid’s school classroom.

I see home improvements, making homes cozy, comfortable, lush, or culling the extra, banishing all chaos, willing order  in every single space. 

I see elaborate meals, hours-long undertakings for bread and pasta and unusual and effort-filled recipes.

I see requests for food, a place to stay, emergency loans, tears and stress and longing to hope that just one thing in the next hour will go right.

And because of what I see and how I see, it becomes too much. 

When it is like this for me, I know I have only one choice.

I have to force myself into my own moment, doing one thing like noting the light on leaves, hearing the soft patter of rain or hiss of my tea kettle, tune into my fingers getting cold as my typing stops.

I suppose this is why I take pictures. I see the thing. Just the thing and I stop and work hard to be with it for as long as I can. And if I practice this enough, it comes back to me.

It's like a little conversation with myself.

"Girl, looks at the clouds!"

Girl looks.

"Oh, here you are!"

Big deep breath.

"Here I am."

I am not, in the moment, sad or worried or hopeful or despairing. 

I just am.

And so for now, the doing is just me trying hard to be.