Keeping The Ground

I started making a simple pocketed, wired mask to wear during this pandemic.  Not because it was recommended by the CDC, but because my instincts told me to start wearing one.  Simple turned out to be an exaggeration.

Two things enter into this equation of “simple”:  1) I am an over thinker.  Yup, it’s true and I know this about myself.  Therefore nothing, repeat, nothing is ever simple.  And 2) the anxiety and angst, let’s call it what it is, Fucking Mental Covid19, is infecting everyone.  No one is immune unless you are in a coma.  Even our pets are suffering; with us and for us.

I know a little bit about functioning under high stress as I was primary care giver for my dying father for 3 years, the last three months of which were under Hospice care.  In many ways this pandemic is dealing with a looming death, obviously in the 2% literal sense but also in living day to day with the unknown, to be on high alert, the need to switch gears constantly, always being off balance.  Yet still carrying on with the normal.

Making the masks is also my way of feeling useful, fighting the battle, contributing.  In a matter of 5 hours I watched tutorials and read instructables of which there are quite a number, until my head hurt.  I struggled especially hard with pleats, literally banging my hand against my head.  Until I remembered that I made my first dress at 9 years old.  Yes, the zipper was in backwards and I never wore it.  I can still see the beautiful lavender and white print of the fabric in my minds eye.  And I made it in the 4th grade. When I was able to battle through the anxiety and see that I had the tools to do this I was able to let go and make it sew.  Pun intended Captain.  Pleats be damned the masks are made, or at least being made.

Today, after finishing two more masks and waiting for more fabric to wash and dry in preparation for more I sought to find that balance again.  I needed to ground.  And where better than in my garden.  It is probably too early to remove the blanket of leaves that protect everything from Winter’s cold.  We may even still have more snow.  But I needed to see growth.  I needed to see that life progresses and Nature perseveres regardless of what is thrown at it.  It adjusts, it compensates, and it keeps on.  Something that we, as the Human Family are being asked to do now.  We must ground.  We must find balance.  No easy task.  But the battle does not wait.