Between Heart and Light

May it be its own force field
and dwell uniquely
between the heart and the light"
- John O'Donohue (To Bless the Space Between Us)

How are you? We are well and grateful for our wellness.  I am helping in ways I can and where I can and when I can.  I'm doing what I know to be good medicine for me to remain steady for my cub.  I can't believe that we lost R in August and now we are living in a pandemic.

I keep vigil for any moment of beauty no matter how small, like the visit from the goldfinch and I let that twinge of joy land lightly in my soul and I stay with it until it flies off to wherever it needs to go next, leaving me grateful for the brief respite.

It sounds crazy, but even though I've lost the part time jobs that took me months to find I care more about our lives right now than I do about a check...and that's not because I don't need an income, I desperately do, but our lives are not a commodity and there is something very wrong with a society where so few have so much, and so many have so little.

I decided that while we are home bound, we will not live by the clock. I've removed all screen time restrictions so my son can connect with friends and stay up late and sleep late which he normally doesn't do.

I put together that standing raised bed, and started my veg garden. I knitted a heavy blanket out of a gigantic yarn, that was on my to-try list for 2 years, using my arms instead of needles so it became a kind of dance or vinyasa. And I made paper blooms to fill vases. I'm trying to learn to sew masks.
I'm making the comfort food that my ancestors made, like my great grandfather's soup from Calabria. I'm making bread, and breaking bread, and keeping the cookie jar full. I'm bowing to the mountain when I finish my morning exercise. I'm opening the windows to let the valley wind sweep through the house so hard it slams door so I'm using large smooth stones that I collected from my late father's favorite beach on the north shore of long island to keep the doors from slamming. I'm using tech to my advantage and connecting with friends on the other side of the planet, their voices feel good in my ears and my eyes tear as we recount our memories across the span of years and ocean.

We are listening to Dan Bern and Lorenzo Bertocchini whenever we can connect. It lifts our spirits and as Lorenzo said, "they are songs but also prayers and we are distant but together".

I keep an led candle lit in the window each night where it will remain until this nightmare is over. I watch all the sunsets. I look for the planets, and whatever constellation I can identify. I make nectar, fill the feeder, and wait for the return of the hummingbirds. I listen for the conversations of birds that I can name without looking, like in childhood when I awoke to the voices of my elders and knew who was awake and at the table.

And when I feel the horror of this pandemic clenched around my ankles, I step out on the deck and breathe deep the moonlight, then I draw a bath, surround it with candles, and soak until the grip loosens and I once again feel steady on my feet. I fall asleep to my son's laughter as he plays games remotely with his friends. I long for the return of my own laughter, but I find myself tearful.

And I think that, just maybe, my tears are not only sorrow for the world, not only a reverence for the acts of beauty and love and courage that I am witnessing within this horror, but also maybe, a kind of salty rivulet of hope that for once this will push us all to a truer and more infinitely tender connection.