i woke up this morning with the same kind of overwhelm that has come to plague my mondays, except exponentially heavier. this overwhelm is a symptom of my workaholic nature – the fact that i actually took a real weekend off (rain and a global pandemic will do that to you) meant that i feel like i’ve been utterly useless for 48 whole hours.
online, i see people in my network motivating to produce online concerts, exhibitions, meditation sessions, and screenings. it’s been at once incredibly inspiring but has also induced guilt on my end – guilt that i call myself a community organizer but in the past few days have spent more time pruning my new house plants and repairing my vacuum cleaner than i have thinking about how to contribute to the many things my village needs right now. during these times, i try to remind myself that tending to oneself is not a cousin of laziness. that maybe i would’ve been able to pivot more quickly had i not spent the past few years burning myself out. and even if i hadn’t, that it’s still okay to have a late start, or take time to process before acting, or to even take the bench now and then.
i continue to feel hypersensitive to the various ways that people are reacting to this outbreak. i shrivel when i ask how a friend is doing and they respond with projections on death tolls. there is so much anxiety that comes with having an open spigot of information paired with a recognition that the best way to respond is not to take to the streets, but to stay in – not to band together but to practice social distancing – not to resist an enemy but to honor forces of nature beyond us.
today i’m learning that it’s not my burden to smooth out every crease in an unfolding universe.