Coming to My Senses
by Marsha Howland. April 2020
I look to my eyes:
I see the first daffodils, and the
azaleas starting to bloom.
Rainless clouds skating along
the horizon; sunshine falling
through a window onto a
sleeping cat.
I listen to my ears, opening a
door on a cool April afternoon to
hear the birds singing in nearby
trees. I choose my favorite music
to fill the family room, and make
calls to hear the voices of
brothers and sisters, old and
new friends.
I feel all the things touch brings
me – the soft fur of my lounging
cats, the gentle smoothness of
the silk scarf I inherited from
my mother. The warmth of
a long, comforting bath.
I smell early spring drifting
to me through the door on a
light, welcome breeze.
I bake cookies, almost thrilling to
the scent of chocolate chips,
hardly able to wait for them to
cool so I can taste the delight.
The scent of cinnamon tea
completes the experience.
For these times – and, I
confess, just for these times –
the overwhelming truth and
fear of the virus are forgotten.
But night comes, sun gives way
to rain, birds disappear for sleep,
cats go to their secret places.
The door closes on the earth
smell of early spring, bath water
cools, the cookies are finally
done and stored in an old
Christmas tin. The tea is gone.
Tonight, fear of the virus will
return, and it will be hard for me
to sleep. I will be up before dawn,
waiting for daytime and the
reassurances of my precious
and brilliant senses.
*****
The Nature of Things
by Penny Field , May 2020
In my yard they gather
at the beat-up old feeder that leans,
as if a little drunk on too much
wind, on its rusty pole.
This restaurant is open, no
social distancing or reservations
required, it’s strictly first come
and get it, and they come.
The female cardinal sidles up
to the bar, her Revlon red beak
making up for what she lacks
in male feather flash.
She preens and pecks the black
seeds, chasing off the tiny chickadees
and nuthatches with a flap
of royal entitlement, until she
is driven away by the bully blue jay.
Below, the doves and squirrels
scuffle over the spoils that spill
from the top just like the poor
and black and brown and nurses
and grocery clerks fight for
masks and flour and anything that
seems like help, battering each other
over what freedom means in terms
of money or health and how best to
battle for your life in the backyard of a
global pandemic and like the birds,
when it’s all over, the starlings will
flock the yard in their funereal garb
and profit from cleaning up the mess.
*****
Untitled by Beth Hudson-Hankins, May 6, 2020
I’ve been thinking about the global coronavirus epidemic as a vast jigsaw puzzle with a gigantic pattern made up of the tiny pieces that are individual lives, each uniquely affected. In my case, the effects of the pandemic are overlaid on top of other significant life transitions.
My 35- year professional life has been as a social worker and therapist, working primarily in medical systems. In December 2019, I left my position as crisis clinician in the Windham Hospital Emergency Department, where I had spent my days in the darkest times of people’s lives. The emergency room is the mental health treatment provider of last resort, the place people go to when they are safe nowhere else. Every day was someone’s worst day. I saw people who were at risk of suicide, were in the midst of a substance abuse crises, or were actively hallucinating in their own private worlds. Their families accompanied them, confused, afraid, and sometimes relieved. As the only mental health provider in the emergency department, I felt the responsibility of completing a thorough evaluation and making a recommendation for the next step of care.
I loved the intensity, immediacy and action of this hospital just five miles from my house. I felt that I had my finger on the pulse of the community, always aware of mental health and substance abuse trends as they were happening. But being fully present with seemingly unending suffering began to take a toll on me. I noticed a loss of creativity, a deep exhaustion, and a spiritual fatigue, and I knew I needed to recover.
As the coronavirus swept toward eastern Connecticut from New York and Fairfield County, it was a strange and very uncomfortable feeling to be sidelined. I felt like a bystander, not a player. I was used to people looking to me for information and liked being part of a team that would meet the needs of my community. I was on the edge of returning to work because it seemed unthinkable not to respond to a need, but then my pregnant daughter, a New Jersey resident married to a New York hospital worker, accepted our offer to return to her old bedroom in Connecticut. Initially I felt very guilty not returning to work, but it didn’t make sense for our daughter to leave one medical professional family member only to risk exposure from another family member.
At loose ends, I read frantically about the disease, as if knowing the details would somehow protect the people I love. I developed an impractical plan for rescuing my son-in-law in our van if he got seriously ill and had to be transported out of New Jersey. We made donations to the soup kitchen, I shopped for elderly neighbors, I went for long walks, and I pulled out my sewing machine to make curtains for my newborn grandson. As I did that, I discovered that my very modest sewing skills and my backlog of unfinished sewing projects were the perfect raw materials for Covid-19 mask-making. Going through odds and ends of fabric, from old Halloween costumes to 30-year-old curtains, brought me great joy. It turns out that mask-making is my strength. I brought masks to all my local friends and mailed them to family in Maine and Philadelphia. In the process, I learned that group home workers are a population with high risk of exposure and little PPE, so I made 40 masks for a friend who is a group home worker. The local psychiatric hospital has patients who are at risk of exposure, so another 30 masks went to them.
The creative process of designing masks for different groups, choosing colors, handling the fabrics and completing a product has satisfied a deep yearning that I had known was there, but had not previously had the time or energy to address.
My eyes well up with grief when I read the New York Times. I worry about the future of my grandchildren, and I wonder when and how I will return to work, but in the midst of disappointment and loss, I find a return to sewing to be a consolation prize. It has been a gift to me to include a personal note with the masks: “This mask was made for you with care and concern for your health, appreciation for the work you do, and hope that you will stay well.”
*****
The Security Illusion by Lorry King, May 4, 2020
It’s funny, the places your mind can wander. As I began my walk, I noticed a rough piece of plywood with a hand-painted red heart with a “thank you” scrawled across the bottom. I’ve seen more and more hearts in doors, windows, and on cardboard signs in front yards. Along with impromptu parades, cheers, and television spots, there is a groundswell of genuine gratitude for those nurses, doctors, medical technicians, and first responders who are so selfless in their service. There is an authenticity to these expressions that is lacking in the rote and reflexive “thankyouforyourservice,” directed toward those in the military. Perhaps we are seeing the emergence of a new kind of hero, one without the trappings of military authority but who does dangerous, even life-threatening work, to care for individuals.
For all the wealth lavished on the military-industrial-technology complex, it has been impotent in the face of the covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, deaths in the United States have exceeded those of traditional wars. That a miniscule particle like the coronavirus can cripple the social, economic, and political life of the United States compels us to think hard about what really constitutes security.
I know it is not bigger ships, faster planes, or yet more powerful explosives.
I do know that it is about healthcare, understanding nature and society, and the critical need for social trust and connection.
I don’t know that there are political leaders with the courage to reject the notion that it is only a voracious military that defines what it means for a society to be safe and secure.
*****
Untitled by Penny Field, May 4, 2020
Self-compassion is such an important practice and can calm my inner critic and curb the urge to sink into anxiety or depression but receiving compassion from others is what really helps. To allow another person to really see me and to have them hold my pain with loving kindness is the most valuable gift I can receive. My decision to be vulnerable and the other person’s decision to respond with compassion creates the intimacy and connection that I believe we all crave in our deepest selves and what truly heals.
*****
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