Spacious Solidarity Blog: Day 35

Spoiler Alert: Details about Homeland’s 8th season towards the end of this post

I dreamt twice in the night.

In the first, I’m swimming in the sea with dolphins. They keep smiling at me, inviting me to ride on their backs through the waves. We communicate through telepathy.

Remembering the dream in the morning, I’m put in touch with my inner child. There was a phase where I desperately wanted to be a mermaid. The idea of swimming the deepest fathoms of the ocean while maintaining my human mind, self-awareness, the capacity to think and feel enticed me.

At some point swimming with dolphins morphs into a nightmare. All of a sudden I’m in public, people everywhere, everyone touching everything; door handles and railings and cashpoints and taps.

I feel confused about why and how this had happened while hyper-vigilantly observing all the touching. People are standing too close to me and I can get away from them and it’s impossible.

I wonder if this is going to be one of those dreams that gets added to my recurring dream repertoire.

Over coffee I try and mindfully check the news. Just taking in enough to keep me informed, but not so much that I get overwhelmed or depressed. I read an article about the government’s provisional lockdown “exit strategy”.

The plan includes three stages; red, amber and green. In the red stage some essential industries are re-opened. I am surprised to see hairdressers on the list. I remember my own hair cutting woes, which I have yet to do anything about. I imagine the families of the people who have drawn up the plans pressuring them to put hairdressers on the list.

I remember watching a news segment covering the protests in Michigan, USA. Flag toting, gun wielding white folks stood on the steps of their state capital with signs that say:

We will not comply

Stop the tyranny

Social distancing = communism

One woman they interviewed was beside herself because she couldn’t get her regularly scheduled dye job. She bows her head, revealing her roots to the camera. Oh, the tyranny!

Some US “leaders” have started openly questioning the lockdown and are brazenly suggesting that a high death toll is a reasonable price to pay for restarting the economy. This is where we’ve got to.

I spend most of my day on Zoom, leading a meditation retreat. There are about a dozen of us and we’re exploring the process of moving from body awareness to liberation of afflictive mental states.

There is a lot of tender sharing and I feel humbled by the courage of others willing to go to difficult places within themselves and get curious about the freedom that can be found in doing so. The alchemy of meditation.

Grief is at the top of the list. How to be with it. We gently explore the territory, that in finally inviting grief in, there can also be peace and relief. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

In the late afternoon we head out for our walk. Our upstairs neighbors are on the doorstep basking in the sun. One of them playfully comments that we are going out for our daily constitutional. I have never felt more middle-aged.

My partner and I have never done so much walking before. It’s become such an important ritual for us that I would be remiss to give it up once this is all over. We often walk in silence, but when we do speak, we share important reflections on our day, our internal landscapes, worries, hopes and fears.

Before coronavirus I already lived a pretty spacious life working from home.

I had a soft rule not to put anything in my diary before 11am, to provide time for meditation, reflection and writing.

I tried not to book more than three appointments in one day.

I was very conscientious of not planning things too close together, honouring the space and time I need to process one event before moving on to the next.

I wouldn’t take on a new project without talking it through with my partner, close friends, and mentors.

So when I hear people comment on how different life is under lockdown, I have to honestly say that for me day to day life hasn’t changed all that much. The only thing that’s changed is I’m working a lot less and not going away to teach at all. In the space that’s been left, I’ve been giving freely of myself to whatever situations require my energy and skills.

I know this is not sustainable, but I feel called to respond to the immediate needs of the various projects and communities I am involved in. I have also been happy to initiate things that support others in making sense of this strange new world.

But these daily walks are new, something I didn’t know I needed until now. At first, they were just a way to keep from going stir crazy, get some fresh air and exercise. Now they are a sacred ritual, a point of connection, a time to appreciate the beauty of spring and the strangeness of this time. I hope we can keep them up when things go back “to normal”.

The people we encounter on our walk all seem a little more unhinged than usual. It’s the end of a warm, sunny weekend and there is a sense in the air that no one wants to go back inside.

First we encounter a little boy walking on the pavement with his father. They are tootling along, stopping and starting in unpredictable movements that make me nervous. I comment to my partner that perhaps the boy has not been properly trained in social distancing.

To my delight I am immediately proven wrong.

As we approach them, the boy suddenly sees us. He turns right around, so he is facing us directly. He’s vigourously sucking on a lollipop. He bulges his eyes at us, making them as wide as possible and starts skipping backwards towards his father as quickly as he can.

I wish I could be that uninhibited in my social distancing rituals.

As we get to the crossroads at the entrance to Hackney Downs my partner comments that the park is probably going to be crowded. There are people walking in every direction, some pushing prams, others with dogs on leashes, others with both.

A man on a bicycle, a brown dog with big floppy ears and tongue hanging out happily sat in a basket behind him, rolls leisurely past.

The park is a juxtaposition of people strenuously exercising while others drink and smoke their woes away. The skunky scent of marijuana fills the air.

There are pairs doing yoga, mats and all, people kicking around footballs, badminton games in full swing, every type of jogger imaginable, and a boxing couple, the woman complete with an elaborately coloured head scarf and big, dangly hoop earrings. My partner comments on the dangers of donning such jewelry when boxing.

There’s a fed-up-ness in the air. I get the sense that people are out to be seen.

On the way home we pass another lesbian couple, albeit at least 15 years younger than us. They are all over each other, whispering and giggling and kissing and groping. Part of me wants to smile but the other part is just hoping they live together and haven’t had contact with anyone else lately.

When we get home it’s time for my weekly FaceTime date with a friend in San Francisco. They haven’t been affected as badly, less cases and deaths. She thinks it’s because maybe the strain of virus isn’t as bad as the one wreaking havoc in New York. We comment that no one really knows what this virus is all about, its mostly guess work.

We watch Homeland before bed. It’s still going from bad to worse and I can’t imagine how they’re going to wrap it all up in two episodes. We make our predictions.

I’m of two minds: either Carrie is going to stay loyal and report everything to her higher-ups or switch sides and start working for the Russians. Staying loyal is consistent with her character, but she’s working under unprecedented circumstances and a lot of pressure, having been arrested by the FBI for possible defection, aiding a foreign power and assassination.

Saul’s her only hope but he hasn’t always been reliable and if she goes to him with the new intel given her by the Russians, he may end up turning on her. She’s in a real bind.

I think back to those government folks drawing up “exit strategies”. They’re also in a bind. Relax social distancing restrictions and risk another spike in cases, or steady on and risk economic calamity.

I breath in their predicament, trying to make decisions with little information and no precedent to draw on. I breath out clarity and equanimity, may they steer the course as best they can.

Finger’s crossed that in the process as few people die as possible.