How can I write about the Woo in a time of coronavirus? How can I not?
Like most of you, I am in a daze reflecting on the spread of coronavirus, and how much my life has changed in one short week. I am sheltering in place, having loaded up my fridge, freezer, and pantry with food, and my laundry room with detergent, wipes, and soap.
A week ago, we laughed at sheltering in place. This week we know sheltering in place is a stark reality that could last for months.
Where is the Woo in all of this? For me, it is everywhere.
To start, I’ve been craving down time for years. Four years in fact. The past four years have been difficult ones for my family and me as we’ve faced major illnesses, multiple deaths, and unexpected diagnoses. It’s left me drained, especially when I am continually commuting between the East Coast and the West Coast to tend to family needs.
“When will it stop?” I kept asking the Universe as I was repeatedly pulled away from my daily life.
Now, suddenly, in a way no one could have imagined, it is stopping. For the first time in four years, I have no travel plans, no bags I need to pack, no jet lag to adjust to, no rental cars to book.
I am just here.
The result is that my mind is relaxing, releasing, and opening up. Story ideas are flowing to me in ways they haven’t for years. My concentration is rising. I am more productive than I’ve been in months. My meditations are deepening. I feel newly alive and more connected to the earth.
I also feel so much joy for the earth, and what it means for the planet when we keep our cars in the garage and our airplanes on the ground. Will the earth get the break it so desperately needs? Will our patterns of consumption change after spending perhaps months at home, away from stores? Will we think twice about commuting in the same way once our offices reopen? Will we have more flexibility to work from home?
But I also feel sorrow. So much sadness for those who have abruptly lost their jobs and been told to go home, their services no longer needed. Waiters and waitresses and bartenders and baristas and flight attendants and mechanics and retail workers and drivers.
Just like that. No warning. Overnight.
Millions are losing their jobs as shelters-in-place have shut business after business after business. I feel pain for my town of Napa, which thrives on tourism and welcoming others to our city. We have survived drought and fires and rolling blackouts. Now, our livelihood is being snuffed out by a virus that has not yet made itself known in our town.
And I feel so thankful that the Woo brought Jennifer Pastiloff into my life just 10 days ago. As I read her book, she is teaching me that it is possible to feel two things at once. That I can feel joy and sorrow about this virus. That I can be relieved and worried at what is happening. That this situation is good and bad. Life, Jennifer says, is not either/or.
Instead, I’m understanding that we are complicated beings, with complicated feelings, and the coronavirus is the most complicated event I’ve faced in my lifetime. To confront it, I will need to live in the and instead of the either/or.