novice

There’s a beautiful story in this picture. I wove today on a loom gifted to me from a member of the Buy Nothing Group which is the only reason I’m still on Facebook. The yarn was gifted too. I started this morning. The shuttle I made from Barbie packaging.

All I want to do is watch reruns of Friends over and over and over, me mouthing the words to entire seasons I know by heart.

Where does all the time go? By now, I could’ve been a pilot, a best-selling self-help book author, a moderately well-known experimental theater-maker, a healer, a weaver who has their own website, the creator of a new way of communicating, a social worker, but where does the time go?

Two cats, sitting on the same chair, heads tilted at the same angle.

Two children, worn out from wearing me out today, listening to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader read by their dad who is the absolute best reader and after many, many months away from the book, has picked back up with each character’s specific accent. The kids sometimes get lost in the story because they’re occasionally terrible at listening, and now, a quick and frustrated dispatch from the back:

“Who was it, again?”

“ — — -THE MAGICIAN, Pia. THE MAGICIAN just walked in!”

We had a family meeting before dinner tonight because some members of our foursome keep forgetting they have to try to at least be a little nice to me, or maybe even listen to me. After a day of watching them listlessly rolling on the floor in active refusal to do any schoolwork, this evening they spoke eloquently about innovative scheduling ideas we could implement, the difficult feelings they have about being together like this for so long, the way things feel the same day after day, their distaste of seeing the same zoom backgrounds...

The toll of this used to be theoretical. Now, it feels tangible. In a text message tonight, my friend noted that it feels like people are getting more used to things in this new world, that we don’t talk about this experience as much anymore.

The grief process
The rolling waves
The lit candles

The schedules commencing in whatever way they do
The upsetting of the peace of unemployment benefits
The ‘getting back to some semblance of normal’ storyline.
The release of the longing to see each other
The numbness of the screen
The smiles on Saturday,
the relief,
the real and tangible hope,
and the energy it takes to summon it.