The Floor is Lava
I go about my daily rituals smoothly, calmly, ritually. The morning coffee, the care of plants, the walkout on the lawn barefoot in my nightdress that is a day dress so nobody knows. The sky is Baltic blue, the air is gentle on days between the blasts of heat. When I awaken without neck or head pain from deteriorating vertebrate in my neck I am immediately thankful.
What will this day bring? Who will I be in this meeting of my flesh, breath, hands moving among the minutes? What did I do yesterday or in the deep dark forgotten jungle amnesia of many yesterdays?
The marker is March 11th. That is the day I retreated and stayed hunkered down, bunkered down away from COVID. At first, I was finding a deeply tranquil way of living without the expectations or the gentle tugs from the calendar… tomorrow you will do this, or get in the car and travel across town.
It was becalmed and introverted. But for the first time, my love of the introverted existence was not a rebellion. I was not some motorcycle leather-clad rebel acting out ferociously against the constrictors that have been placed on me in my life.
We were all at home. we were all not gathering for an exchange of idle talk, breath, the agreement to burn up time in some meaningless circle of bodies. I was not going against any social mores.
And it was weird for me to experience that for the first time in my life because it meant I was no longer weird.