One Thing

The next great American novel.

Painting that blank canvas sitting in the hall closet.

Knitting something other than a scarf.

Finishing the cookbook I've been working on.

Starting an urban farm complete with chickens.

Starting a business.

Anyone else enter CORVID-19 Season with a list of accomplishments and a 24-pack of toilet paper, just beaming with the amount of time on our exceptionally capable hands to finally knock out things there never seems to be time enough to tackle?

How long did it take you to realize the joke was on us?

It took me about a week. 

A week that flew by in a blur of zoom meeting tabs, text messages the length of Russian novels, questions piled up to the ceiling I couldn't get around to answering from all directions--professional, personal, maternal, and internal. Time morphed into something that no longer followed its metronome, and days lost their individualism. My routine vanished, replaced by an imposter pretending to be my life but altogether different. The places were the same but the life in them vanished. The bustling board game of my life and routine resembled a ghost town.

I don't have cable, but the news of the encroaching enemy in a war that's too quiet flashed relentlessly across the tools I use to access the world. The purposeful energy typical of my mornings on a middle school campus exchanged for anxious expediency from wide-eyed voices on the phone, asking rapid-fire questions I can't answer yet. Because we didn't yet know the answers to simple questions in this new reality rampant with moving parts.

My 10-hour days became 16-hour days, at the end of which I had my own children to care for, check on, wonder about how their days went from the silent boxes of their bedrooms where their lives are now compacted. I realize I've had two pots of coffee and a piece of cheese. I also realized I wasn't hungry, so I immediately knew this was NOT normal.

Nothing about this new routine is normal. I feel this twinge like I'm walking somewhere way up high and realize the distance to the ground. I wonder in that flash of a moment if Normal will ever be normal again. I dismiss the thought because this is just a few weeks of locking ourselves away from a microscopic question mark hell bent on taking us out. I took a deep breath, resolved to eat a decent breakfast in the morning, less coffee, more water, and promise myself I'll finally download that yoga app.

Fast forward a number of weeks. I'd have to check the calendar on my phone to tell you how many because well, time is just a number that tells me when I'm supposed to do things.

Obviously, this shake up moved my cheese more than a little. Like to another planet! Did it? Or did it just feel that way because things feel and work so differently than when I was comfortable and I fit into the little world I'd created?

I had to hit the breaks on trying to process everything at once. Making Sense as a thing wasn't going to apply to everything that had changed all at once. I needed to get my head around one thing.

One Thing.

Because when the people and places and activities I felt so connected to were gone, what was left?

So so much. I have given myself permission to live completely in the present moment. If I'm tired, I rest. If I'm hungry, I eat. If I'm scared, I pray. If I'm bored, I find something worthwhile to do with a thankful heart, grateful for the time and ability to read or cook or call someone to talk about nothing. When someone asks me a question, I answer it or say I don't know but I'll find out. I gave myself permission to be OK with incompleteness.

Then I started small with one thing. I started growing microgreens for a lot of reasons. I've done it before and wanted to do it again. They are delicious and extremely healthy. They are ready to harvest in about a week. I got to see them sprout and grow then open up and now I can eat them. One small, uncomplicated thing that I can't control but can respond to the conditions and do my part to bring about a successful outcome.

What's your one thing?