I have been away from my kitchen desk for three weeks. Today, I cleaned it up a little and sat down to start again. I have been spending my time over-indulging in food and drink but I haven’t been baking. I haven’t been cooking. I haven’t engaged in the myriad daily things I usually do. I haven’t been creative. The recording equipment sits idle. My daily habit of one thousand words went by the way side and I, lately, haven’t written or improved a poem either. What is that all about? Where is my Muse? Did Covid get her down? Ah…yes, I truly think so.
It hasn’t been a totally dull few weeks of either relaxed or stressed emptiness. I have had some excitement, here on the ranch. A little floppy heartbeat and an hours-long visit to the emergency room a few weeks back kept me busy. The lubs and dubs got mixed in with assorted other piled up, used laundry and my tub over-filled. It was a brief and I think harmless bit of messing around with health care that hardly cost a thing. There were meds that I ended up paying in full for but I am hoping that, with my new pills and some determination, I might be able to get back in the laundro-mat of life and start hanging out the dirty clothes again. Isn’t that exciting?
I am always too honest when I write. I have had friends say things like, “..is that ME?” or, “…I’d be careful what I said if I were you, folks won’t understand.” Yeah, I should be thinking ahead to what folks want to hear and not just gabbing to hear a voice of some kind. I might do better to consider the tale and who is going to hear it. I used to be good at saying what a given person might want to hear. Isolation has changed my sensors, some don’t work as well anymore. That I have lost an ability to discern means I have to pay better attention to what I am doing. Words sent out onto paper often miss my intended mark. It is much easier to tell a tale that I think someone wants to hear when I am with them, in person. I can witness the flinch that indicates a wrong direction, a stepped on toe. On paper, it is just me and the truth of the situation. I get lazy enough to just forget the rules and I type for the heck of typing, dream for the heck of dreaming, imagine for the heck of imagining. That the familiar and true, my over-emotional self leaks in is somehow inevitable I fear. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing?
You can’t undo the past. You can’t fix much of what you screwed up but it’s best not to dwell. Regret is a green fur-covered dish best thrown out. You will get sick when you eat of regret. Still, I do have my writing experience regrets. I have been foolish on Facebook more often than I want to remember. One unforgettable series of comments meant that my whole ‘end of church’ scene was orchestrated with the very public dips and snaps, hearts and likes, angry faces and teary faces of Facebook ’emojis’. My anger, my upset, my confusion lashed out in the worst ways. I remember calling the old church ‘ST. Mark’s by the Cess-pool’. That wasn’t kind, wasn’t intended to be but it was accurate. On it’s surface as well as the undertow meanings, that was an honest name. The church was, after all, located on the shores of Lake St. Clair…an industrial cess-pool of sorts. Of course, my comments didn’t go over well with the properly concerned parties. Things turned into a rout of mud and other effluent slinging. The sorry story cost me people I believed to be friends. Ours was a battle indeed that might have done well as a FaceTime event. We could have sold tickets, I bet. Juicy to the last drop of quasi-sacred blood.
At this point, St. Mark’s and any other church are again closed to my heart. I am, at 70, very uncomfortable just to walk through the doors, virtual or otherwise. I can’t see past what I’ve known as treachery, cliques and power struggles. I can’t let go of pre-judgement. I know I would carry my over-size baggage right along with me into the crowded sanctuary.
Since my ideas of God and what The Bible is run counter to what appears as the prevailing view, I was always a tenuous churchmouse at best. I laughed out loud, I created a noisome prescence. Had the church not been a bit leaky, a bit drafty, I’d not have found myself in. Now the old and hole-y baseboard has been replaced with a new piece. I don’t think I have the sharpness of tooth to chew my way in again. I may have lost that community for good. I don’t know that I could ever sing there in future.
Something I have come to know is that singing is one of the main things for me. It’s the biggest draw for church. When I sing, since I am not very good on my own, I need a choir to back me up. I suppose it is a selfish thing but singing on Sunday kept me going. Being in the choir at church and being in the choruses outside church were groups I felt a part of, akin to. I had community. Not having community is a disaster for me. Without the net of community, the more natural solitary things, like writing don’t work their best. Not singing, not talking with folks, not drinking with folks, not eating with folks delivers a blow to my ambitions, creative. I get lost too easily. I think this is true for many. The lockdowns are freezing us all.
I sincerely hope we will thaw, re-start at some time, near future. There is a warming spring on our vast horizon. There have been enough re-starts, enough greening springs in my life that I can at least recognize that. Whether Spring comes quite soon enough is the question. I am struggling but I am still alive. You are still alive. World has not disintegrated, even though it does appear that way. I just sat down and wrote something. It is a good day. Perhaps one good day leads to another. Perhaps we sing again before the laundry cycle finishes? Yeah. I hope so. As far as church goes? Well…best not to predict, eh?
Robert On The Air 