I hugged this week. Now that I can, when I meet someone haven’t been able to see or touch for over a year, I hug them like crazy – hold them and don’t let go. As I clutch my victim, I feel a year’s worth of love and touch radiate from bloodstream into theirs, almost a body-meld. It’s as if all the atoms moving between us carry the messages I want to deliver – I’ve missed you, we’ve been through so much this year, now it’s starting to feel better. I’ve been scared and so have you. I want you to know that I’m still here. I love you.
I spent most of the time between January and March in my house. I had a lot of consulting work, and I had a lot of school work. I had blessedly long weekends in which there were no plans, of course, because, pandemic. I couldn’t travel to see my beloved because I was not yet vaccinated and he was in school every day, co-mingling with dozens of young potential germ vectors.
So I nestled in and enjoyed the silence and stillness. Just me and the dog. We went for daily walks, even in the ice and cold, so I never felt imprisoned. The winter sun and its short slant poured into the back of my house in the mornings, and into the front of my house in the afternoons. I followed it throughout the day with my laptop and my books, settling into different spaces as its heat filtered through my window panes. By the end of each truncated day I was curled up on my favorite couch, reading and writing and just being.
I was alone but I wasn’t lonely. I was deeply embedded in the projects I had for my new school program and I was happy to have time to let the stories that I want to tell just steep for a while. I missed the sweet touch of my partner, of being able to roll over in the morning and feel his warmth infuse my body with a sense of wellbeing, but I knew that this was to be the final extended pandemic separation and that there was an end date. That made it not only bearable but tender and sweet, as we whispered and cooed sweet nothings to each other through our texts and spent Sunday afternoons reading chapters of Charlotte’s Web on the phone to each other. I could make a pun about how hearing each other’s voices read the words of a favorite, comforting book wove us together.
And yet, even in Charlotte’s Web there is death and loss and grief. It was a reminder of how it’s right there, at the door, always.
Recently, as I often do, I opened up a random photo album from my family’s life pre-illness and death. My life is divided between before and after – before my husband got sick and died, and the blink of an eye in its aftermath. As I pored through the pages, I was struck by two things. First, in so many of our pictures we were surrounded by our friends. Perhaps that’s the nature of when pictures get taken – when you’re in community, and there’s a celebration or some reason to commemorate the moment. But there was more to this realization than that. For most of our married lives, we simply spent much of our time with other people. On vacations. On holidays (and there are so many on the Jewish calendar.) At school and sporting events. We were always surrounded by our interconnected circles of close friends.
The other thing I noticed is how I can barely remember being that person in those pictures with those people I loved and still love. It’s as if the past five years, since my husband died, and especially the past year of stillness, have burrowed into my memory banks and fast forwarded everything to this moment. I don’t remember who I was then. I only know who I am now.
And who I am now is someone who loves her children and her family and her partner deeply and truly. But she is also someone for whom the regular interactions required to be part of a community are so much harder. Despite all my post-pandemic hugging, I am feeling very, very internally drawn and focused. It’s as if this past winter of my soul has become the norm. I want to burrow most of the time. This has been true for the past five years, and is even more true now.
I used to think I was my mother’s daughter. My mother, who collected people and community everywhere, desperately needed the love and affirmation of those around her. But instead I seem to have tapped into the part of me that reflects my father’s quieter mien. My father, a textbook introvert, retreated to his study after a long day of teaching. The opera would go on and you knew not to disturb him. I have now been a partner to two men who have similar constitutions (surprising? Of course not.) And I have a deeper appreciation for what it takes to put yourself out in the world, and how important it is to have a retreat.
I find myself in that same, introverted space at this juncture in my life. Perhaps that’s what a writer needs – the quiet to let things marinate and allow the words to find their way to my fingertips. But it’s also a reaction to so much loss, and so much change. The ground has shifted under my feet in so many crossed directions over the past five years. Perhaps I am seeking the spot that doesn’t move anymore, if only for a while.
As I firmly plant my two feet – in tadasana, or what is called mountain pose in yoga – on that hallowed ground, I feel strong and firm in my quiet space. I gladly hug my beloveds from my perch, one at a time, and find new and different ways to wrap my community around me.
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