Hey fam,
It’s August. The sun is out and we’re in the peak of the Vancouver dry season. We’ve been socially distanced inside for months. Health guidelines suggest we are safer outside than inside. And it is beautiful outside. No one knows for sure what is in store for us in the fall. Will there be a second wave? Will the flu season cause a massive coronavirus outbreak? When the weather is awful out and it has been raining for days and days, how will we handle social distancing?
If there is anything this year has taught me, it is that certainty of the future is an illusion. One day, we could be working towards filming music videos of our favourite Beyonce songs while holding a senior, mostly deaf pug in a baby bjorn with 140 passionate, talented friends and the next day, we’re stuck at home figuring out how to mute and unmute on Zoom, baking and eating copious amounts of focaccia (basically fried bread) while sobbing at cable news.
Maybe it’s the sunshine, the lighter summer work schedule or maybe it’s because I stopped baking and eating focaccia every other day, but the grief of losing life-as-we-knew-it is starting to feel less severe. I’ve become slightly better at letting go of what I cannot control.
The practice of letting go requires an intimate and spiritual way of listening to the world around us. And presently, the world is telling me to pause. Rest. Sit and be content with right now.
This pandemic summer is like its own little pod of existence, an opportunity for all of us to optimize our humanity rather than productivity. Play that song and sing it. Let your analytical mind rest. Feel the notes in your body, sing your breath out and take a spiritual pause from the work of your world.
Fall is coming. Winter is also coming. But summer is now, and f* everything, let’s enjoy it. That's Diary 2. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
