I have been thinking a lot these days about life as we are entering several days of stay at home orders amid the COVID-19 outbreak. In between doing the things that are required of me for work and doing the things that are required of me for my family in this world we had defined pre-pandemic, I stop to realize the essence of who we are.
This had my mind racing this morning as I thought about Henry David Thoreau, still one of my favorite writers. As I was battling insomnia at 4:00 am (Or is it just living more naturally?), I thought about these words from Thoreau,
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Then, I realized that in essence, I went to the metaphorical woods-- well, I was forced to the metaphorical woods, but, like Thoreau, there is so much to learn.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately: I have discovered (like many others) that I was not living deliberately; I was living based on a series of unimportant doctrines and structures that have overtaken my life and has robbed me (maybe us) of being human. A schedule of one task after another, driving from this event to that event, checking off items in a calendar, worrying about this and that. When you step back and analyze what we were doing pre-pandemic, it was anything but deliberate.
...to front only the essential facts of life: There are few essential facts of life as I see it. Part of what we are charged with as humans is to care for each other, to help each other, to look inward to maintain a balance, to nurture those that we brought into this world. Now, I am not naive enough to think that we can ignore the trappings of modern life, and I know that when this is said and done, I will go back to some of the routines that this life demands of us, but I hope I will go back understanding that these things are not the definition of life; they are just parts of life that we have to do to be a participant in the modern world. Perspective is important.
...and see if I could not learn what it had to teach: This isolation and slowing down, stopping perhaps has a lot of lessons:
Stopping in the middle of the afternoon to do something for yourself is a good thing. (Kinda Like Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening...)
Playing basketball with your son in the afternoon for 20-30 minutes is way more valuable than responding to another email.
Reading a book in the afternoon with a blanket over your legs is ok, necessary
Cooking dinner and serving it to your family is a huge gift.
Laughing with your family is invaluable.
Not having a schedule day-to-day is liberating
Taking a walk in the afternoon or evening is nectar
Watching a movie or television program with your family is time well spent
Worshipping a higher power really isn’t about a building (Hey, Emily…”Some Keep the Sabbath going to church--/I keep it staying at home--)
The sound of the birds (speaking of bobolinks) in the morning is a gift.
Seeing the trees bloom in your front yard or in your neighborhood is extraordinary, really.
Schooling is so much more than worksheets…
Colleagues are important, and I have enjoyed being able to talk with them, really engage (ironically) in a virtual meeting where I feel like we are truly communicating.
...and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived: In the midst of all of this panic, fear, politics, isolation, uncertainty, I feel that we are better in some ways, or many ways. On my screensaver, there is a quote from Maya Angelou's poem, “Late October” and it reads: “We begin to stop/ in order to begin/ again.” This references the cycles of life, the cycles that all things inevitably fall into. We are in a cycle now, and we have stopped in many ways. In a while we will begin again, and I know that as we begin again in this world that will be waiting for us (probably as we left it several weeks ago), I hope that we will begin again with a new hope, a different perspective, and we will have changed such that we rebend this world to meet the needs of our learning as we have lingered in “the woods” and “to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life…” This moment in time, when we have been forced to the woods, let’s not forget “to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...”
Carpe Diem, my friends, Carpe Diem.