Too much of...well, everything

 This is a bit of a rambling mess... but then the world, our lives, everything seems a bit of a rambling mess right now.

May 4. In Washington, this is the next reassessment date. Until then, we are to stay home, physically distance, shelter in place, only go out for essentials (or have essentials brought to us if we are so privileged). When I saw this, I was both unsurprised and I felt myself sink a little deeper into a sense of sadness and loss and gratefulness that all the staying home and distancing are maybe possibly helping.

I have looked at charts and graphs I don't totally understand. I've saved so many memes and articles and pictures and hopeful uplifting stories for "later". As a highly sensitive person, (oh come on, I'm not boasting or bragging here, anyone who knows me well knows about my horns and my spidey senses and my empathy), these are difficult days. So much beauty and loss and grief. People are sharing art and music and reading stories and sonnets. There is also a lot of gaslighting and misinformation and conflicting information and fear.

We are all doing the best we can in circumstances none of us have ever experienced before. We are digging deep into our hearts and souls for our coping skills and what we've learned. We are tapping into our courage and resilience and fear and need for others in ways we maybe haven't ever done before. We are using humor to hide as well as heal.

And there will come a day when we will be released. We will rush out of our houses like sheep and goats and lambs released from the winter confinement and we will run to the pastures. And, to borrow from Hamilton, I can't help but feel and think that the world will be upside down. There will be trauma and grief - I can't imagine how traumatized health care workers are going to be, and small business owners, and people who are unemployed, people who have lost people. And these things will exist together, the joy and the grief. As a group, we will have to heal from so much.  

And frankly, I am exhausted. If I were to draw or give color to my prayers right now, it would be a big dark scribble. It would be the unknown in the only way I know how to represent it.

If I have learned anything at all in my life, it is that the unknown contains everything.

So I have to step away for a couple of days. Away from the news and the numbers and the charts and graphs. Away from the tragically heartwarming stories of acts of kindness and holy work. Away from the gaslighting politicians and business leaders and profiteers.

I have to step away from trying to understand it all.

I have to spend some time with the unknown.