The NYT ran an article on how people are feeling guilty about not using the shelter-in-place time to do constructive things, and then Kate talked about the same thing, and I realized that I, too, have been feeling guilty about accomplishing nothing. Then I realized that of all the dumb things I’ve learned about myself during this virus, the dumbest is that I always set my expectations so high that they can’t be achieved. Here’s a good example: I’m in the middle of a life-altering, world-altering pandemic in which nothing is as it was and with clear knowledge that I know nothing of what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next day, next year, and I’m kicking myself and feeling worthless because I didn’t scrub my lawn furniture.
Okay, that’s not actually true. I scrubbed two cushions, one for under my butt and the other for behind my back. I did the minimum so I can sit out in the sun and watch the dogs rediscover the side yard every day. I have another eleven cushions to scrub, not counting the ones on the loungers, and I’ve only had two weeks of this to do it, which means if I’d scrubbed one a day I could have done the loungers by now . . .
I think it’s important to set the bar low. Lani used to say, “A low bar benefits everybody” and never was that more true than now. It’s time to embrace the two-cushion goal. Did I get out of bed today? Yes, eventually. SCORE! While we’re being excellent to each other, let’s be excellent to ourselves.
What made you happy this week (especially now that the bar is on the floor)?
I’ve been re-reading Rex Stout as a comfort read–he wrote his last book at 88 and it was good, so that helps, too–but I’m gearing up to read about Vikings, starting with a basic children’s book which is supposed to arrive Saturday. Maybe the next scene will be Viking-centric. (I have no idea what the next scene will be.). The book has pictures. That’s about where I am right now.
I know it’s April Fool’s Day, but I think Fate just pulled the ultimate trick on all of us with the virus, so I’m ignoring that. It is the first day of April, so YAY SPRING. Also I just found out there’s something called Viking knitting which does not require knitting needles, so I will obviously be looking into that. Also something called nailbinding which sounds brutal and Nordic. Lucet I already knew about, but still. Evidently there was a lot of crafting between bouts of pillaging. And I may doodle some manuscript illuminations on a specials menu, just to see how that goes.
. It seems a little whack-job-Pollyanna to be burbling about happiness in the middle of a plague that’s killing thousands. I can do the right-now-in-this-moment-I-am-happy bit and still do, but underneath it all is that pervasive dread of what’s coming next, a future which all experts assure us is going to be worse. And then it will get better. And then worse again. And then better. And two years from now, we’ll all be fine again. Except for the economy. And . . .
March has been Peanut Month.