Tag: pandemic hope

A year lost

Amy ClarkLeave a comment

“…Wherever you are is called Here,/And you must treat it as a powerful stranger”

“Lost” by David Wagoner

It’s been a year. 

Today. Today makes one year.

And while I celebrate surviving that year, I have to name it Lost. Taken or Stolen might also work but that victimizes my situation and I am not here for that–that allowance would keep me stagnant in anger and helplessness. I cannot be about that anymore.

Lost. Lost speaks truth on so many levels. Most obvious of those, ground floor entry so to speak, the impact of my battle with Long Covid sapped my energy and muddled my brain’s acuity leaving me with only faded and blurred watercolor memories of the last year. So many things happened–events, trips, the life of my family–and while I was physically present I was also encapsulated in a bit of a Long Covid forcefield shielding my mind from the details, the weight, the value and thus the fullness of anything.

Lost. Second floor. Abandoned by my sensibility. For most of the year, my emotions neutralized themselves. I felt no surges of excitement, sadness, anger, anxiety, joy…which sounds sort of great in some ways, right? No anxiety for the person who has always struggle with anxiety is pretty fantastic, yeah? And I guess in some ways it was a nice departure. My body was dealing with an erratically racing heart as well as so much inflammation and overwhelm that it could not also manage inflamed emotions. Rationally, I get that. But honestly, I just felt radically empty most of the time which is why I assume the year doesn’t exist in vivid memory. Without emotions to tie to events, to anchor them inside of me, they just sort of float off into the distance leaving a vague shadow behind.

Lost. Third floor. And this cannot be overstated and is far from the cliche it sounds like: I lost myself. What does that mean?

Well, it is hard to quantify and qualify in a way that relates the compounding weight of the truth of this statement. Most obviously, in losing my ability to be fully present, to feel vibrancy of any shade of emotion, to think without roadblocks emerging between each and every thought, to participate in conversation without confusion, to remember even the simplest but most important details (this list goes on a while, I’ll stop here), it was impossible not only to be myself but to remember what it felt like to be myself. I want to emphasize that. I wasn’t just less than myself due to illness–I have been there before. I suffer with other chronic “stuff”. But I was lost inside of myself–I could not remember what it felt like to be the person I was before that positive test. Not on any given day did I feel fully me. And not on any given day could I harness the hope of finding that person because my energy had to be focused on simply getting through the day in the shape I existed. Exhausted already, I further laid waste to my energy supply in creating a mask that would hide the truth from those around me.

The things by which I identify myself–cooking, reading, writing, exercise, smiling, ridiculous optimism–had to be either relearned,  modified, or set aside. 

Cooking, my favorite way to show my love to others, transitioned into a chore. On my worst days, just the thought of standing in the kitchen and thinking through steps in a recipe, left me frozen in how to proceed. I could not desert cooking completely, but my skill and joy in it certainly deserted me.

As a reader, I found myself having to adopt new reading practices in order to maintain. Gone: my pencil in hand adept at skillful annotation and noting depth and nuance in a text. Adopted: a letting go of disappointment in myself for just reading the story without deeper investigation because I knew that reading in any form was good for my brain’s recovery.

As a writer, well, if it wasn’t mandated for work, it probably didn’t happen. I could not face my loss for words, my confusion mid sentence, my inability to see a piece through. A singular email at work could take me an hour to construct; I had no energy for personal writing. I lost my confidence in staring at a blank screen with a  brain that felt equally blank and hid behind my illness rather than writing my way through it. 

In a fleeting attempt to maintain some semblance of my former reality in the face of so much loss, I tried to reinsert my pre-Covid, relatively intense, exercise regimen (even if watered down a bit). I quickly learned that I could no longer exercise during the work week if I wanted to be able to function in the world. I had to live inside of what my doctor called “the energy envelope” which meant instead of HIIT training and weightlifting, I was walking…and not during the work week. My physical strength began to mirror my eroding mental strength bewildering me further in who it was my body would allow me to be.

The rest of the list here–smiling…optimism–existed mostly because I reached deep inside to exude a picture that would bring about fewer questions about how I was really doing. A reach that left me fatigued beyond measure.

Lost. Top Floor. My coping strategies evacuated with everything else that comprised who I had previously been. All those years of managing chronic illness while also maintaining my strength of perseverance…all those skills honed over years even in situations like Long Covid where no answers or cure were clear…none of them could be called to mind and put into practice. I tried. Believe me, I really tried. But, honestly, that perseverance took so much more energy than I had inside of me. Something as simple as starting an anti-inflammatory diet (something I have done successfully before) required more thought than I could see through to fruition. Eventually, I stopped trying to cure my Long Covid symptoms. I preached patience to myself because it was the only tool in my arsenal that I could muster. I allowed myself the grace to wait rather than shaming myself for not fighting harder. 

So I waited. Impatiently patient. Resigned to maybe never seeing “me” again. Accepting of the need to rebuild from scratch.

And then, I guess you could say I snuck up on myself, because I never saw or felt “old me” resuscitating herself. And yet, she did.

And so here I am, a year later and I am cautiously optimistic that I am on the other side. In the last month of this year, I have read a book with the complexity of thought that mirrors (almost) the way I might have before…the inflammation that has flooded and plagued my legs and hands has receded…the cardboard has retreated from its post as a blockade between my thoughts leaving them feeling connected, even if only by a thread…I have found myself more fully present, laughing effortlessly, enjoying small moments and not needing to take a nap because of the effort…I have felt like myself for the first time in nearly a year and for that, there are no words. It’s not perfect. There are still hurdles to clear and some days are harder than others. But this moment brings honesty to two things I lost sight of this last year.

Gratitude and Hope.

 

 

patience

Amy Clark2 Comments

I don’t remember myself.

I’ve been sick before. Invisibly ill in insidious ways.

Lonely, as those surrounding me tried to understand, but without experience, had no foundation to allow for true belief in the turns my story had taken. Frustrated, as no one seemed able to resolve my ailments or even to incite a brief remission, a bit of respite, a break. Exhausted, afraid, broken-hearted and broken bodied. All of this. I have been all of this before in the midst of illness and yet despite the array of emotion, I’ve always been able to remember myself…for better and for worse.

The constant specter of who I used to be, what I used to be able to do haunted me without reprieve. I longed for the previous ease of propping up a smile…for the freedoms of frivolity without worry for an unforgiving symptom set…for working out without abandon because I was in charge of this body and we would be fit…for being able to honestly answer “I’m well” when asked how I was doing. I knew who I used to be, what I used to have, what I used to be able to do and I was jealous of her. Constantly. Achingly.

It took years to accept the terms of my new circumstances. To accept that the girl I used to be was still part of who I was becoming rather than extinct. That she was fully aware she was participating in a merger wherein her strength and joy and skills and hope were maintained and sharpened in this new fire faced. She populated my everyday though her life looked different. It took years to own and honor that there is no old me and new me, only me in this moment and I am always going to be in some phase of evolving into who it is I am meant to become…to honor that I still have control over the shades and hues I show and shower. But this process always included recognizing and celebrating who I’ve been along the way. And recently, that has become more difficult.

This battle back against what has evolved into Long Covid is different from all the other times I’ve faced health challenges (and there have been many). This fight has dissolved much of what I knew of myself. My brain is so exhausted and so foggy that I find myself behaving, responding, acting in ways that feel unrecognizable, strangely resistant to careful reflection and observation, interrupted moment to moment with absence of memory for what comes next, but it’s all I have the energy to produce. I find missing the small goodness of the beauty on the horizon, because I am tethered instead to what is currently right in front of me. Don’t look up or around or too far forward or back or you will lose what it is you have to do in this singular moment. Blinders are required but the blindness harbors despair for as missed moments pass, they grow heavy. I feel sometimes as though I’ve become a completely new human without the reference of experience and knowledge of who I was, of who I’ve been, there to guide me. All of my energy is focused on surviving days, getting through them, taking care of all those who count on me as best I can, which is great but I know that for now, I am not enough and also a bit of a stranger, even if only to myself. There are small touches in my manner that have evaporated and all of me is too depleted to attempt any sort of rebirth or refurbishment. Simply getting out of bed and forcing myself to get ready for work is enough to warrant a nap, but there is no time. I have to simply keep taking steps even when I have to fabricate the energy to do so.

And so I proceed having left my former self in the shadows with the hope that she will be waiting for me when I am able to pause, to take care of myself, to fight harder for recovery from something that very few fully understand. I hope that she will be there when it is time to measure this process of becoming. I repeat daily that this is just for right now, but right now exists for an undetermined period of time and there are pieces of my personality that I am not willing to sacrifice to Covid. Intrinsic empathy, generous kindness, careful words and reflection. I don’t need to be the same person I was before. That would be a denial of the experience and all it extolled. I lived it and am living it. Denying it later would make it all worthless. But I need to heal enough to deliver those elemental sparks back into being. That is the day I long for.

Until then, I will keep reminding myself to go slow and that today is not tomorrow yet. Change will come.

I can be patient.

An explication of a year

Amy ClarkLeave a comment

Somewhere along the way, poetry transformed from a carefully curated collection of words existing on a flat page into a lens through which I view the world. It is a metamorphosis that is tricky to explain to anyone existing outside of  my brain (which is everyone…so hang in there with me…). It goes beyond the way poetry in its vastness can challenge my perceptions and expose the bubble ensconcing my existence…beyond the exchange poetry makes–a telescope to view the far reaches replacing the finite view through the microscope of our daily lives. I suppose that all good writing offers such an opportunity, but in its compact punch, in its easily consumable size and portraiture, poetry invites us into the confrontation with truth without overwhelm or overstatement…leaving space for us, as readers, to linger beyond the reading…to meet the poem with our story and to wrestle as we begin to redefine understanding.

Yet, even beyond this, I’ve grown to see life itself as a series of stanzas, lines, poems–pieces of a collection, of an anthology, reflective of my own story and the revision of my vision, of the truths I have come to learn. Having long been a big believer in the importance and impact of “story” in our lives (both the stories we tell and perpetuate and those told to us and about us), it is no great leap to now realize that my stories are framed in verse rather than in prose.

As we ready to depart form this year of so much, there is a call to be rid of it, to move on, to not look back. Yet, in looking back, I realize there is so much that we can’t nullify or erase if we are really to move ahead. If I look at this past year through this poetic lens, there are stanzas that speak haltingly to fear that are followed by stanzas sprinkling seeds of hope…stanzas revealing terrible trauma met by those marking the path to healing…stanzas revealing the rediscovery of what is truly valuable after stanzas marking our former fault-full ambition.

There is imagery laden with a militaristic stealth attack waged by viral particles too tiny to hold in human sight. And then there is the resultant imagery looming heavy with the weight of loss (lost time, jobs, loved ones, health…so much lost). But there is also imagery erupting jubilantly with the wealth of humanity unveiled in the face of isolation and difficulty…singing from open windows, birthday parades, mass meal distribution, surging gratitude for those on the front lines, teachers delivering books to kids in need of a read.There were weeks and months that overstayed the welcome of their allotted time, of their line, and replicated their difficulty in the weeks and months to follow in an extraordinarily uncomfortable bit of enjambment.

But I think the punctuated moments offered up to pause and reflect are where I linger the most. The moments within parentheses where we brought joy and newness to our lives interrupted (as if to say, “Take that!”). The ellipses dividing the lines of our days as we pondered, “What next?” all the while realizing the danger of such a wonder. The constant question marks, line after line, stanza after stanza, as we walked through unknown regions with no map to guide us–only shifting sands beneath our feet and the next best step, which was?

But then this–mostly this…

I often tell my students that the em dash is like a poetic breath on the page–a bit of space sacrificed intentionally by the poet so we, the reader, can inhale, consider and exhale before moving on to the rest of the poem. The protests that awakened the world to the truth and still very present ravages of racism–that opened eyes to the systems still in place perpetuating daily the vast detriment that positions of privilege have birthed–began while the world sat in quarantine…hibernating, if you will, within the bounds of one giant em dash. We had the time–to pay attention, to look inward, to be unsettled by our own truths (well, as a white woman, I can only speak for my own truths), and to determine how to move forward. We had the time, without excuse, to witness, to listen, and to learn from this most difficult and complex stanza (one new to so many, but for others a repeated refrain they’ve known for years). We had the time to take the breath offered by the em dash of quarantine and to actively set forth to do more, to make change. That moment, that em dash, was gifted with intent by no Earthly poet because we are after all called to live this life in love. That love is not in name only nor can it thrive if we keep it blindfolded. This call requires each of us to act in love and that includes challenging systems that deny humanity. We needed a pause, a reset, to see this…to feel this…to live into this.

If I’ve learned anything from the stanza of this past year, I’ve learned the value of intentionality…of knowingly creating space to pause, observe, take a breath and move forward. This em dash intentionality is true in all aspects of my life–whether I’m examining if my actions speak loudly enough to my beliefs or whether I’m considering ways to spend more time making time for friends and family without the burden of school clouding my vision and my heart.

As we leave 2020, I am eager for the period that will close the verse, full stop, but I also don’t want to burn to ashes the pages containing the year, leaving them to scatter to the winds. The lines and stanza of 2020, if the struggle is to be worth anything, must color those yet to be written in 2021–so that we can be better, so we can exist in some form of gratitude for the days to come (even the crappy ones), so that we can ensure the year of too much doesn’t win. I won’t carry every line, every image, every mark of punctuation everyday, it would be too heavy. But “the mist” that Juan Felipe Herrera speaks of will linger as a reminder of all I’ve gained even in the leanest and cruelest of days.

(Also this…I love this poem as we enter a new year…“Oceans” by Juan Ramon Jimenez)

wonder

Amy ClarkLeave a comment

Lately, my migraine life has had a reductive impact on my exercise life…like walking my neighborhood is really all I can do without negative effects. I mean, some days are pretty golden and I can get away with a HIIT workout or some TRX work without too much residual discomfort, but those days are becoming more and more rare. But this new walking habit is not without benefit (beyond the physical well-being bit). There is a freedom offered in these walks–they belong solely to me, a rare moment in time where I act just for myself. I determine my path, my playlist, my distance, my pace. I don’t need to weigh the opinions of others. I don’t need to compromise with anyone else. I don’t need to negotiate with or listen to anyone other than myself. It is a step toward solitude, toward peace, toward wholeness.

And today, it was a step toward reawakening wonder.

We have this glorified drainage ditch running through our neighborhood…my kids call it a “creek” but I feel like that term just transforms their exploration of it on summer days into something a bit more adventurous–I mean, come on, who wants to say, “Hey mom, can we go check out the drainage ditch?” Words do matter and who am I to deny their careful work with connotation?! On recent walks, this “creek” (I’m just going to stick with the positive nomenclature of my kids here), has been pretty dry and even a little musty. Without the nourishment of rain for the past several days and even weeks, the creek was losing its richness and its beauty was waning(yep, the drainage ditch too can be beautiful). The creek bed was still there, patiently awaiting renewal in the natural cycle of things, but the deprivation on the path to getting there was taking its toll.

And then, after withholding its gifts for so many days, the rain paid a long awaited visit.

As I was walking today through that rain, I heard a noise outside my earbuds as I neared the creek. At first, I thought a car was coming up behind me and so I glanced around to be sure. Not a moving vehicle in sight (not many care to be out and about on a rainy Sunday). Then it struck me. What I heard was not a car, rather it was rushing water swiftly running down rocks and filling up the creek–almost as if it could not get there fast enough. They cycle of hardship was ended…patient endurance, rewarded with rebirth.

It was beautiful and weirdly wondrous at the same time.

In a time when so much feels lost…when we feel so without, so lost…to witness renewal in that way, well, it restores a bit of faith that our dried out, musty selves will one day (even if it is later rather than sooner) be met again by that which makes us whole.  Even in dormancy there can still be the expectation of revival and in that time of waiting, there can even be joy. And in the stillness of that hope (okay, stillness while walking a 14 minute mile…), I thought of Mary Oliver’s poem, “Song For Autumn” and how in it she offers fresh perspective on what we think of as the hibernation of nature’s beauty in the fall.

“Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now

how comfortable it will be to touch

the earth instead of the

nothingness of the air and the endless

freshets of wind?…”

Maybe the creek appreciated the rest, the time to itself, the solitude within which to appreciate the pause and the chance to just be? And maybe its reunion with the rain was even sweeter for the time without?

Maybe I am just a swoony hopeful optimist who seeks answers in poetry and nature for that which seems without solution?

But, a spark of joy was ignited inside my heart and in these days, that spark is good enough for me.

lifting the lens

Amy ClarkLeave a comment

I think sometimes in the midst of the bombardment of disappointments and devastation the world seems to hurl freely these days, it becomes easy to lose sight of just how much authorial control we still have within our lives. It becomes easy to unwittingly sink into helplessness and to relinquish our rights to the details of our story without even an honorarium paid. Lately, the stuff  of  life has become exceedingly good at bullying us into believing that we need a new year or a new phase of life to be able to fully enjoy and live into our existence.

Except that is such a lie. Such a lie.

And to sit idly, waiting for something to come along and offer immediate healing is a dangerous stance to take. In doing this we become bystanders in our own lives, rather than active participants. It is an admission and acceptance that our joy can only come from someone or someplace else. That we cannot create that for ourselves and must wait for it to be delivered on a schedule that isn’t published or even guaranteed.

In this season of giving thanks, remembering that in every circumstance we have the ability to lift the lens of gratitude rather than the scope of victimization holds the potential to restore our outlook. We have the ability to empower ourselves to seek the goodness in the scant and the beacon in the bleak. In the moments in my life in which I have felt the deepest grief and the least control over my circumstances, gratitude has unfailingly delivered a way forward while restoring my rights to the details of my own story.

There was no other way to walk toward peace after delivering a child into a world he would never know. The Oprah Show was still airing daily in the year that we lost Nathan. And you know, Oprah’s words carried weight, so when she began talking about the importance and life changing qualities of something as simple as gratitude, I paid attention. Okay, I also thought she had lost her mind. I was so deep in grief. I was so angry and for so many reasons. I was so full of shame and regret. And I couldn’t seem to let go of any of it let alone summon the strength to seek gratitude. What could I possibly have to be grateful for?

But Oprah said gratitude changed lives, so I tried it.

It wasn’t easy.

As Joy Harjo writes, “Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.” (link below)

Gratitude is an active stance and as such required total effort on my part. Without constant attention and care, without a mindfulness to lift the lens, gratitude disintegrates before it can invigorate. There is one day that the lens was lifted for me…one day that sort of changed everything. I was leaving the house of a friend who delivered her child a month or two after we lost ours, and I had to pull over because I was weeping so hard it became impossible to drive. I had just stopped in to deliver some treats and to see the sweet babe and somehow hadn’t prepared myself for the onslaught of emotion that would follow. As I sat in my car sobbing beneath the weight and complexity of loss, I caught a glimpse of the sky. It was crystal blue–not a cloud to be seen–and it was stunning and somehow full of hope that things would not always be so cloudy and dim. A switch flipped. Through my tears and with a shaky voice, I spoke into gratitude (like literally out loud)–thank you for this amazing sky to remind me that there is still light in the world…there is still hope.

Everyday after that moment, as I walked the often shadowy path toward peace after loss, gratitude was my guide…my signpost. But more importantly, gratitude was my choice. Gratitude (and well, I guess Oprah too) changed my life.

So, even now, in the face of all that 2020 has delivered, in the face of chronic illness and pain, in the face of so much uncertainty and turmoil, I walk the world wielding gratitude because that is something I can control…that is something I don’t need to wait for…that is something that even in the most treacherous moments unfailingly shines a light. It is not a perfect practice and often requires effort I don’t feel like exerting, but it is a worthwhile endeavor every single day of the week.

“For Calling the Spirit Back From Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet” by Joy Harjo, referenced earlier, speaks to this effort towards gratitude beautifully. Honestly, it is worth clicking the link and reading the whole thing–this poem is stunning and a gorgeous reminder. But just in case, at least I can leave you with this excerpt…

“Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give it back with gratitude.”

(And trust me. This is not an attempt to oversimplify of the vast weight of mental illness. I am not offering gratitude as some kind of simplistic inoculation against the depths of depression or any other depletion of mental health.  Just as a way to see a less than forgiving world)

Anticipation

Amy ClarkLeave a comment

Having dealt with chronic illness for the last 8 or 9 years, one of the messiest mental mud holes I needed to dig myself out from existed in a very simple sentence starter…which existed in variations of itself but always lead to the same deleterious effects. It always went  something like this: “Back when I  could…” or “The old me could have…” or “There was a time in my life when _____ was possible”. The trouble with these statements emanates from their constant glance backwards which blinded me to my current truth. And maybe that was my mind’s ulterior motive. If I was always idolizing and gazing back at the “old me”, then the current version of myself was only a temporary imposter. I didn’t have to accept this new human with her new limitations, in her new situation. She was a lesser version of old me and I didn’t really like her very much. Her life seemed less than the one I had been working so hard for so long to create. I wanted more. I wanted what I felt I deserved.  I looked to every outlet that might offer healing because this would not  (NOT) be what defined my existence for the rest of my life. This was a “right now” scenario and I would fix what people told me could not be fixed. I tried acupuncture,  chiropractors, physical  therapy,  vestibular  rehab, essential oils, neuro-otologists, audiologists, oral  surgeons, dentists (this list  goes on for a while, you get the picture). And while I might find relief, no one held the cure…the magic potion that would restore old me and extinguish new me. I felt I had tried everything to heal myself.

But sometimes…

…we have to look within first.

One day, in a moment of defensiveness, I told a friend,  “I have a neurological and inner ear disorder; I am hearing impaired. So what?!”  And it was one of the most freeing moments of my entire life.

I had said it.

Out loud.

In the world.

For someone else to hear.

I had spoken the truth that I had been working so furiously to deny and to walk away from. In that moment, I began to nurture acceptance rather than denial. In that moment, I began to slowly and steadfastly heal myself rather than futilely and frantically try to eradicate my disorder. The path toward acceptance possesses an inordinate number of thorns and there is no map to navigate it well. It requires resilience and dedication and also, as I came to learn, anticipation of who I was becoming rather than disappointment over who I had lost. I did not need to mourn that girl who could do some stupid number of burpees in two minutes…I did not need to mourn the adventures she would never seek (because let’s face it, “adventure” was never really my thing anyway)…I did not need to mourn any of it because she was still a part of me and together, we were becoming someone stronger, someone more beautiful, someone who despite limitations still had plenty to give to this world.

And so in anticipation of who I was becoming, I fought harder.

As 2020 wears on and I feel like so much in this world is changing and shifting, I once again find myself gazing backward. “Remember when we could…” “Remember when we didn’t have to…” “Remember the days before…” Of course we all remember all these things, they are a part of us and our stories. And for a substantial piece of our lives they dictated our narratives for us. They are not lost forever, though, just in a holding pattern of sorts…wrapped in bright paper waiting for us to unwrap them again when it is safe and maybe with the newfound gratitude we are all bound to feel for what was once just the everyday.

I  find myself making this note in my notebook at school regularly: “Anticipate who you are becoming in all of this”  It is a necessary reminder when the work of reimagining school on a regular basis grows exhausting and frustrating. It is a necessary reminder when I decide how I will  react or respond to those around me at work, at home, in my community. It is a necessary reminder that this is my story and I am not a static character. I am dynamic. I am changing. And I can shape that change and my attitude about it.

Opening my mind and my heart to accepting myself, presented some of the toughest work I’ve faced…and that work doesn’t end, maybe not ever. Some days issue considerable challenges while others tender feelings of accomplishment and joy. Regardless, all the days are situated in anticipation of who I will become on the other side of the struggle and what work I can do in the moment to make that person a better one than she is today.

Neither a neurological disorder nor pandemic can change that…unless I allow for it.