Rediscovering My Purpose
On first driving through the lockdown
After 45 days of self imposed quarantine (no riding in cars with anyone else, no trips to the grocery or other stores, staying home strictly without even going out into the street) I took my little blue Prius out of the garage an hour before sunset today. I donned a medical grade mask, latex gloves, sunglasses. The dogs were not in the car with me.
As I drove away from my house and around my street, I felt no emotional response. No excitement or exhilaration, no release or relief. I live a mile up from the flatlands of my town. A few hundred yards after I got to the bottom of the hill, my body began to have physical responses. The creases in my toes itched, as did my hairline. I kept going down the empty streets, passing a dozen people, none of whom were wearing either masks or gloves. I thought about going on the freeway, just to see how crowded or empty it might be, but that just felt like hollow curiosity. So I turned the car around and headed home.
I pulled the car to the side of the empty road in front of our local park which is supposed to be closed but which had a dozen or so cars parked in the lot, being frequented by hoards of men accompanied by young children on the playground. I saw for the first time the huge sign that has been posted across the bottom of our hill saying all trails are closed until further notice.
I saw the mountains ahead of me, the mountains in whose shadow I have learned to center myself for these past few years. I watched clear eyed as I anchored again, knowing no matter what my fate, or the fate of humanity, these mountains will be there long after we are all gone (unless a natural catastrophe hits this part of the world). It gave me a great sense of peace. The entire drive was a fifteen minute meditation that grounded my feet to reality. Not the reality of a global pandemic or the greedy/sleazy/evil intentions of America’s terrible present leadership, but the truth that how we die matters just as much as how we live.
This planet is hurtling through space to its eventual destruction. There may be another in the series of Big Bangs that might begin the circle of Life anew. What matters today is who we love and who loves us. What matters today is who we support and who supports us. What matters today is who we choose to be, where we choose to act, how we choose to live. If we think this thought through to its inevitable end, what matters today is what has always mattered in the past, and what will always matter: our human connections.
For me, the answer to every question are these faces.
