There is a gentle breeze and soft, pink petals are snowing down all around us. Thousands of already fallen petals blanket the memorial, as well as the path and nearby graves. We stay here a while, taking it in.

Today I made two new friends. Something I never expected to happen on lockdown.

I smile at the memory of such a perfect example of a re-frame. I re-commit to acts of creative re-framing during coronavirus.

I feel like I’m realigning myself with reality, finding my place among the elements again. Coming back home.

I feel moved by the courage it takes to live a life true to oneself. I am sure that is what Ian did and the world has been left a little bit better because of it.

I speak to a friend on FaceTime for an hour before dinner. I’m telling her that I think coronavirus has resolved my years long mid-life crisis. I don’t need to worry anymore about what I’m doing with my life. I just have to do it.

My chest is tight and heavy and I’m breathing it all in, breathing out relief and a deep heart wish that we come out of this thing more awake then we went into it.

The bright morning light is falling sideways, casting sharp shadows and turning gravestones and statues multi-dimensional. The angels have come to life, full of condolence.

The next moment we’re out on the front doorstep clapping for the NHS, me with a wooden spoon and saucepan which makes a higher pitched sound than I’d hoped for.

I think to myself that we never really know how anything started or how things will end. All we can ever truly know is what’s happening now.

Coronavirus broke the curse. Most of us were asleep and now we’ve been rudely awakened. Something’s cracked open that cannot simply be pieced back together. Instead, something else will have to emerge.

Gifts come in all shapes and sizes, but the greatest ones can’t be seen and often go unnoticed for long periods of time.

The world is still as beautiful and chaotic and unknown and exciting as it ever was, but I can’t go there.

Bodies close by sound like footsteps falling, voices ringing, throats swallowing and clearing, mouths coughing, teeth chewing, noses sneezing, bellies laughing, faces crying.

Tonight we have another family cocktail hour on Zoom, this time to celebrate my Dad’s 74th birthday.

We are all so deeply weaved into the system that is now collapsing before our very eyes. How we respond and what we do next is crucial.

This familiarization of the body is my practice. I’ve gotten to know the body in order to learn how to let it go.

Last night I relived that drive back to San Francisco. Luckily, in both real life and the dream I got home safe and sound.

I sit with the complexity. The world is beyond saving and yet I’ve dedicated my life towards personal and collective liberation. Since coronavirus, I’m not sure I know what that means anymore.

Nothing to suppress, nothing to indulge. Just raw energy, hot and sticky moving up and out. Wave after wave washing over me.