Reclaiming life in a post-pandemic world
We paused for an entire year, creating a space in our lives that few generations have ever seen. And within that space, questions arose. Unbidden and sometimes unconscious, they climbed into our lives to upend and scrutinize who we’ve become. Why do we work so hard? Why do we bend invariably towards the manic pace of everyday life? Which is also consuming the earth? And what is this all about: this singular, brief life?
Admittedly, I did not contemplate these questions with vigor. They were kept at bay as I heaved my weakened spirit through the days. But I carried them, nonetheless. Or rather they carried me. Into a place bereft of hope and life and will. A therapist would call it depression, but as a therapist myself, I know better. This was the terrain of soul, for this ailment stretched out beyond me and back into me. It was at once thin and all encompassing. It was the whole of me bewildered by the landscape in which we find ourselves.
Donald Trump and the phenomena of mass delusion and hate. The onslaught of climate change and our collective inability to change. Over the course of a year, wildfires, mass shootings, race protests, and countless deaths touched my life on a personal level. We were all changed by something. The waves of history rose, predictably and surely, battering into our lives without remorse.
It goes without saying that if you too feel existential dread, you are not alone, there is nothing wrong with you and in fact it’s only a sign that you are a healthy sentient being with eyes open, trying to make sense of a relatively senseless predicament.
Lately, I’ve been wondering why I should invest back into my life. Why would I open myself to the calamitous whirlwind of being a modern American? Hell, we might not even make it as a species. So why not uncork the jug and scream at the stars, bake cookies and watch too much TV?
I very well might do that, for I have arrived at the conclusion that meaning making is more of a cognitive coping exercise than an implicit thread of life to be relished. But I believe there is something beyond meaning that is calling me into being once more.
I wish I had words for it, that garden of life that beckons from afar. It’s in my daughter’s eyes as she asks why geese migrate. It’s in the cedar wood that frames her playhouse. And in the bars of light cutting through a canopy of oak trees. What is that beauty residing in those quiet, sublime things? And why is it coaxing me, silently, persistently, to unfold once more?
Maybe, just maybe, that is the true nature of the world. That no matter how fucked up our society is, no matter how many leaders fail us, or how large the mass extinction may be, there is a stubborn, procreant force willing us to go forward despite the odds, willing us towards something whole and harmonious. To think we can forego calamity and still conjure that which is good is naive, for surely, the dark sparks the light.
At least this is what I tell myself as I drift to sleep.
“I will pause to look at the moon and remember that such a thing came from a planet ramming into the earth.”
I suppose I have to invest back into my life. We all have to invest back into our lives, or risk succumbing to endless, nihilistic haze. Personally, I will invest differently. I will nourish the friendships that float me. I will read countless books to my daughters and throw the ball for my dog until she falls over. I will pause to look at the moon and remember that such a thing came from a planet ramming into the earth. The impact so great that debris and dust soared into space, eventually coalescing into a thing so large that it pulls on oceans and guides us all through the night. And may our suffering be so, a sprawl of useless events, steadily becoming one thing, bright and beautiful, prominent against the night sky.
I am not suggesting we avert our gaze. I am suggesting that we are, or perhaps we must be, large and strong enough to hold it all. Children dying in war. My wife rocking our baby to sleep. Crushing financial pressure. A vine wrapping itself around a telephone pole, pulling carbon from the air. We are straddling great polarities in this life and we will be tempted, daily, to abide despair or disperse ourselves into tiny fragments void of feeling.
I humbly believe we are being asked to dig deep, to pull from the depths a stubborn faith. A faith that both holds close and transcends our current predicament, that pushes into a mystery of unspeakable, terrible beauty. We may not see its tangible form in our lifetime but with enough love and grit, we may be able to catch its scent at the borders.