The Coronaviary

Promiscuous: “demonstrating or implying an undiscriminating or unselective approach”  – Lexico.com

That’s how my brain is working these days. I’m ping-ponging all over the place, dragging my mood and emotions behind it through all manner of terrain. From serenity to heart-stopping panic, I’ve covered lots of ground.

I’ve soaked in deep quiet offered up by a new podcast called “Sink into the Taproot of your Heart“. Just reading the title calms the spirit. Thanks to Jackie for sharing. I’m calmed.

I’ve listened to interviews from doctors in Italy that have made my heart race and force a recounting of it onto anyone who will listen. I need some way to empty out the mounting nervousness bubbling within. I’m agitated.

I’ve been on bucolic evening walks through our neighborhood that resemble a Hollywood fantasy of life in the good old days. Families out walking; children playing tag; adults visiting on their front lawns; impromptu chats with neighbors we rarely see. I feel connected and buoyed up and safe. I’m soothed.

I’ve read eyewitness accounts from doctors in New York, Atlanta, and Chicago that erode my confidence in there being any guarantees of adequate care for me, if I get sick. The warriors on the front lines, our last defenses, are talking of writing their own wills, feeling like they’re in “Chernobyl”, and putting in place universal DNRs for Coronavirus patients. Alarm bells go off. Anxiety levels spike again. I’m terrified. 

It dawns on me that a positive test might feel like a death sentence. I’m very adept at leaping from finding a weird lump to a cancer diagnosis to being told to get my affairs in order. So the prospect of getting the Coronavirus will for sure result in me imagining a short path to an overflowing hospital morgue. I am fretful. 

I’ve anchored the dawning of each day in my regular meditation practice. Divine intervention this morning led me to selecting the “infinity” symbol instead of the usual 20 mins. I didn’t realize it until I felt an urge to check the clock after a sense of refreshedness seeped through me. That’s when I saw that I had been meditating 48 minutes already. I clearly needed that. Thanks be to God for fumbling fingers on iPhones! I am restored.

I’m all over the map. I keep looking for any positive signals to cling to, while still stumbling over many others that set me back. I’m trying hard to be discriminating and selective in my thinking, but it’s hard to keep promiscuity at bay. It’s too seductive.

Right now, I’m going to bake a cake for my son’s birthday. That will surely sooth my soul.

Be well dear readers, stay at home, and play this group of Nashville singer’s It Is Well With My Soul when things feel dark.