“You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.”
~ Golda Meir
I’m in the ring, sister. ~ LDW
After almost two months, I think it’s safe to say that people are dealing with the COVID pandemic in as wide a range of unique and individual ways as can be imagined, from charming Tik Toks and Zoom musicals, to cynical beach hooligans, and gun-toting right-wingers co-opting Rosa Parks to defend their hissy-fitting. Humans, being both resilient and ridiculous, don’t disappoint in their extremes. Add to that a phenomenally lunatic president, wildly diverse social media, and daily onslaughts of unprecedentedly hideous news, and you can understand why we’ve all gotten twitchy.
Not known to be a curmudgeon, generally optimistic despite existential conundrums, and a lifelong self-generator of creative projects and worthwhile activities, I have nonetheless found myself deeply unimpressive during this unprecedented moment. I’ve done essentially nothing. Not a thing. I haven’t deep-cleaned the house, leapt into any heretofore ignored projects, updated my photography website, or converted those C-videos to digital. There’s been no participation in clever sing-alongs, uplifting kitchen choreography, or sweet conversations with babies via FaceTime. I’ve managed a few conference calls and Zoom gatherings, but my latest novel is being ignored, I’ve barely written a journalistic word; frankly, I’m not even sure I’ll get through this article.
Maybe it’s the fact that as, predominantly, a writer, I was already grooved into the routine of endless days at home working alone on my computer bereft of outside chatter and collegial interaction, and had, at the beginning of 2020, looked forward to branching out for the sake of my sanity.
Maybe it’s because earlier, before the new year, we’d had a medical event in our family circle that demanded time and attention over a period of several months, which, once largely concluded, left me relishing the thought of focusing outward, to hopefully rustle up some new collaborative adventures of the creative and social kind.
Maybe it’s the reality that everything seen, heard, or felt through the lens of a deadly global pandemic and its looming, limiting message of detachment and danger does not, in spite of Ms. Meir’s robust suggestion, leave me feeling ready to rumble, “sparringly” or otherwise. It actually leaves me less and less willing to leave the house. It leaves me concerned about everyone. It leaves me… meh.
Now, I know this is not exactly uplifting, me chronicling my meh-ness, and I know people need and want encouragement, positive messages, and delightful reminders of hearty humanity during this cataclysmic moment. And there are certainly gazillions of those kinds of stories, articles, and videos out there, good stuff, some great stuff, all very informative, helpful, and inspiring.
But let’s face it: on the flip side of all that fierce can-do spirit there’s the other reality: the one that acknowledges that this situation basically sucks, all of it, and once past the deepest, darkest agonies of sickness, pain, and death, once beyond the essential people working in the medical, health, food, and welfare industries, there’s… the rest of us. The regular, less essential, folk, huddled at home trying to figure it out, trying to find where the lines are drawn, where we lean in or lean out. Where we set boundaries, where we relax and breathe, where it’s safe to breathe, with or without a mask. The markers move every day, sometimes several times a day, and we have no real idea when it will end or where we go from here.
That’s honestly daunting. We get to feel daunted by that. I feel daunted by that. I have my cheerful moments, but, to be honest, I don’t particularly want to dance or do video concerts. I want to hug my son, perform live with my band, audition for a play, have a dinner party. I want to walk on the beach, organize a political fundraiser, visit my mother, and join a mentor group. I want to feel like myself again, a strong, resilient person who doesn’t slam into dread because I forgot and impulsively hugged my neighbor, or got too close to a store clerk, or heard my husband cough. Frankly, I’m slightly confused about my state of being at the moment, it being somewhat distant from the one that existed before this event, the one that was creatively indomitable and relentlessly dogged. She’s on a break.
In fact, when I Facebook-posted about an award my last novel won recently, a dear friend responded with congratulations, adding, “I bet you’re writing up a storm right now!”, and though I hated to burst her jolly perception of me by telling her the truth, no… I wasn’t. No storms here. Not even a puddle. In fact, my lack of artistic expression leaves me befuddled. But here’s some pandemic rationale for it all:
As an author of contemporary fiction with a manuscript-in-progress that takes place in the here and now, I am suddenly left to either include the earth-shattering reality of COVID (where it has no place), or decide to… what? Put the story in an earlier year? Not mention COVID at all (strange, given its pervasive impact on everyone, everywhere)? Touch on it but don’t make it a part of the main plot (again, odd, since it literally is the main plot of everything at the moment)? I have no idea, yet, where to go with this, no idea what the publishing industry will look like or want once we come out of hiding; no idea what I’ll feel compelled to say, tell, write, or share once there’s more to think about than relentlessly washing my hands or figuring out how to speed-walk with a mask.
Hard to “write up a storm” under those circumstances, and those are my circumstances.
But even as I confess to all this atypical cantankery, I must follow with the various conclusions I’ve drawn, at least as of now, six+ weeks in and no end in sight:
I won’t pretend. I won’t force myself into good cheer by virtue of virtual peer pressure. I’ll embrace happiness when it comes organically, encourage it as a matter of practice, but allow myself the sadness, disappointment, anger, restlessness, and fear that trickles in between. I’ll grant myself permission to mourn the opportunities, income, and career advances I have personally lost, despite the fact that none are on a par with dying or losing someone beloved. I’ll sleep later than usual, walk my five miles a day because I must, and continue our socially-distant family gatherings on the front lawn because without them my heart will break. I’ll try not to gain weight, I’ll do my best to cheer others, and promise I’ll refrain from hugging you. even on your birthday.
I don’t think I’m alone in this negotiation. I’ve heard from many of you, those of you left facing that next layer, the one beyond the novelty of Zoom holidays, video diaries, and the relaxation of “business sweats.” The layer that realizes it’s been over six weeks, and a quarrel is blooming between isolation exhaustion and fear of going out. The layer that merges various harmonics of depression, anxiety, sadness, and fear about what we’ve lost, what lies ahead, what life will look like in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.
We each get to process this communal, devastating, universal experience however we can, however we do, however we must. We get to mourn, grieve, dance, write, veg, create, clean, work, sleep, inspire, save lives, do nothing, laugh, cry, scream, or stare at a wall. It’s all valid. It all works. We’re all writing this unknown story together, and until we can envision the ending, until we know where the various and ever-changing plot points will take us, we are free to experiment and experience in real time, in real life, with real emotions… though responsibly, of course, and with no harm to others.
I cut my own hair the other day. My husband says it looks good. That’s something. And I got to the end of this article. Progress.
Stay well.
Photo by niklas_hamann on Unsplash
Visit www.lorrainedevonwilke.com for details and links to LDW’s books, music, photography, and articles.
I finally figured it out.
have to be who you are, who you truly are, and if that doesn’t bring them to their feet, again, so be it. To feign something or attempt to be someone else just to match the zeitgeist in hopes of greater acceptance or more success is pure folly. It never works. You always get found out. Look at 
meeting a deadline, finishing a project, getting errands done, or managing my ever-growing list of marketing tasks all require the interruption of some light trolling on 
For example; at 
All I could think was…WTF?!?
For me it was the creative arts. Always. I don’t know why. I could point to the lack of TV in my youth and childhood – and the books, music and art that filled the gap – but, frankly, my younger sibs who did not do without are just as artistically inclined and they were definitely Children of the TV (similar to Children of the Corn only in that their eyes are a bit large). Perhaps our penchants are pre-programmed. A carry-over from a previous life (if you believe such things). Certainly they’re influenced by parents who, in my case, were passionate about the arts, injecting them at every turn, convinced that even rearranging the living room was an expression of the creative mind. It is, Mom; I agree. And thank you, both, for your fine contribution to my artistic journey.
So armed with my many Muses who kept me company throughout an eclectic life, I happily bandied in a bevy of mediums, even past the point when others tried to convince me to “pick one and stick with it.” Creative monogamy, so to speak. But I had arrived in LA pumped by youthful years of writing, acting and singing, poised to take it all on in this fine creative mecca, so I chafed at the notion of exclusivity. Seemed so…exclusive. Still, I was a naive and eager young lass, addicted to my ambition and ultimately easily swayed, so I threw aside my concerns and did just that; I chose acting, forsaking all others like a good, faithful spouse, convinced that by committing to only one Muse I would certainly conjure its success into being.
Don’t get me wrong, I had loads of fun as an actress but ultimately fell out of love, particularly after it was clear that a viable career was not to be had and, it turns out, I really didn’t care all that much. Mostly I missed the other Muses. I remember telling my manager at the time, after five years of acting fidelity, that I missed music and wanted to get back to it and he literally laughed in my face. Seriously, he laughed. His perspective of me was so narrow that rather than explore a new path and its many possibilities, he presumed I was a deluded little dilettante. Big fat tipping point, that laugh. I dumped him, quit my acting class, threw out all my vapid 8×10’s and spent the next decade or so deliriously happy as a singer in a rock n’ roll band. And a writer. And a taker of pictures. All of it. Even some damn acting. My creative harem. Welcome home.
Though you’re just meeting, I’ve actually been shooting pictures for most of my life. For whatever reason, the idea of visually chronicling the journey was as natural as blinking an eye….and this was before Smart Phones and Facebook! I had a crappy little camera I took everywhere and I have many of those pictures still. They’re amateur and silly and some are as crappy as the camera taking them, but the eye was there, the composition was good and, bottom line, they are responsible for inciting my interest. It’s only been in the last couple of decades, however, that the passion to do it well became a pull. In fact, there was some regret that I hadn’t actually taken it more seriously earlier on…damn if I didn’t find the whole darkroom ritual of lights and chemicals and magically appearing images a romantic one! In fact, if I hadn’t rushed headlong into the performing arts I’ve always said I would have either been a professional photographer or a zoologist. Seriously. Either one. Primates or pictures.
But given my lack of aptitude for the sciences, photography, albeit peripherally, was at least able to come along on the ride – as much as possible given the limits of time and money. And though that first crappy camera held me in good stead for many years, it was when my mother-in-law bought me my first good Canon 35mm about 20 years ago that my world changed. Suddenly the pictures in my mind’s eye translated to paper. I began viewing things from the perspective of frame and light. Even when I didn’t have the camera, I was like Pam in The Office wedding episode snapping invisible pictures of perfect moments. I learned that the excitement of capturing an image of true beauty or amazing candor was as exhilarating as belting a killer song or writing that brilliant paragraph. I was hooked. And when the digital revolution exploded with all its heady possibilities, I took a leap of faith, invested in a top line Canon DLSR, a couple of stellar professional lenses and have been in a solid relationship with the Muse ever since.
happy and represent amazing experiences in which I participated. Some depict historical places that took my breath away, some are those decisive moments in real life captured in a flash of serendipity; others are simple beauty or sweetness with no other explanation, and some are stories I wanted to tell or people who grabbed my eye. A few are even technically du
bious but exude something unique or special in a way that won them a spot on the site despite their flaws. It’s a collection that speaks loudly to how I see the world and I happen to like what it has to say.
| Rock+Paper+Music | 