inklingfair I awoke at 4 this morning. Daniel slept on soundly beside me, but my thoughts raced each other to nowhere: How do I even start planning for the move in the middle of this fresh surge of COVID-19 cases? Should we start spiriting unused things there now? Was the schedule going to overlap with a major Dakila rollout? Could the kids stay over at Mom’s while we dragged things round the house? Should I sign Amy up for that STEAM/Filipino summer program? I really need some time away from her during the day to focus and keep myself from getting irritated every time she interrupts me in the middle of work, but I can’t very well leave her alone for several hours with Netflix. Do I restart my talk therapy sessions? If someone gets sick, which room will we designate the isolation room? Will Ate Nita return after her one week off? Can we afford this all?
They sprinted forward to five, ten, twenty years ahead, before I chided myself: You don’t even know if you or someone in the family will get infected tomorrow and join the 1.7% (“maliit na bagay”) death stat.
I shouldn’t be wasting time, then, I thought. I got up, put a load in the washing machine, made coffee and put my go-to anxiety mantra on repeat:
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
There are many things I can’t do or control now, but there are things I can. I have agency. I can commit to yoga again. I can write. I can make lists and plan. I can set fewer limits for Amy that actually matter and speak to what we value as a family, to keep me from blowing my fuse. I can focus on the things she’s doing well now, like reading to herself, making up stories and songs when she’s playing alone, feeding herself (even if slowly). I can pause and take a deep breath and go up to the roofdeck to pace and look at the greenery when I’m going stir-crazy. I trust in God, and I’m also working my hardest so it can be “on earth as it is in heaven”: my mythos collides daily and doggedly with my logos, and it is good. I’m getting better as I go along. I’m with a crazy creative tribe working to get people off their knees and into the movement. We’re preaching to the choir, and this choir sings in the streets.
I’m tired, but not weary enough to sleep. It is well with my soul.
Photo by Alex Shutin on Unsplash: Reminds me of the WIP building I see outside our bedroom window.
