What Brings Solace (to those fortunate enough to stay at home)

photo (of the bridge in our hood) by Ms. Ai Ishida

It seems so silly. For most of us, those who aren’t in the medical field, or aren't in the supply chain for food, or an essential part of government. It seems silly. Pushing my students to finish their final assignments. Pressure from the university to get grades in on time.

Times like this it’s only natural we ask what gives meaning. Where should we be spending our time? And more than an intellectual or even an existential inquiry - crisis? - I write this to ask about solace. About what gives solace. What pool can we take it from?

I’m no better than you. I have friends with far more emotional intelligence than me. Friends who have their shit more together, their careers, their families, their bodies. Oh the aging body, he lols even as he weeps.

With each passing phase of life, and each mounting crisis that emerge in one’s lifetime it becomes all the more clear: I am but one guy of many, but still, for me there is purpose in sharing. This then is what I’m doing to manage.

I’m going for walks of course. As a dad of two kids under ten, living on the top floor of a building, stuck in an apartment, getting out twice a day is a minimum for our sanity (so long as that remains allowed). But I urge every parent I know: get out, if just for 15 minutes a day, a walk on your own .. without music. Like me I know you know, the birds have never sung so sweet, so loud. Is it because there are less cars on the road? A simple acoustic reality that the birds aren’t relegated to the background? Or is this pollution reduction bringing more birds out? I don’t know. But I know that hearing them chirp away - bird song has never made more sense to my urban brain - on a morning walk alone - it’s pretty close to a heavenly feeling.

I keep meaning to meditate daily. I think I manage maybe one mediation a week but when I do I’m glad. Only then is the level of my anxiety, the endless chatter of my monkey brain, only then do I become aware of these things and how not relaxed I am. Nor likely should I be in this crisis. And yet to slow, to breath, to be aware. This brings some large measure of calm into a day. If only briefly, yet still, profoundly. And the couple times we were able to do a few minutes with the kids .. that was really neat.

For me, when I’m trying to take care of myself, it’s mornings. Before the kids get up. I’m actually setting an alarm so I can be up early enough to listen to music for a while. Often the music of my past. The music maybe of high school, or my 20s. It doesn't really matter so long as it brings me comfort, or joy, or solace, or comfort in whatever it is I’m feeling.

For me it’s checking in with friends. With relatives. The long-distance zooms and whatsapps with aunts in Israel and family in South Africa and Engiand. it’s connecting with old friends, because as it is in this time of grief, this is what we do, it’s what we need.

It’s also oddly been movies (oddly because these last years like most of us, it’s been tv - such good and satisfying tv). Like the music thing, I’m returning to old movies (what I can find in the slim pickings there are online). I find now something more comforting in a story with a proper arch and a narrative that has a definite end.

Next for me will be to revisit some favourite books, the ones that bring me most comfort. The East of Edens, The Norwegian Woods. Not sure what yours are, but I find re-reading a novel, maybe my favourite pleasure of all. Why? Because it’s all the imagination and immersive quality that only fiction can bring, without the greater challenge of trying to manage storyline and new characters. You know who everyone is. You know where it’s going. You can just sit back now and enjoy the ride.

Hope you are staying safe. Hope you are not in dire straits and that you can be so lucky as to find a little time to seek a slice of solace each day.

Much love,

Jon