The Winter Of Our Discontent

“Sometimes a man seems to reverse himself so you would say, ‘he can’t do that. It’s out of character’. Maybe it’s not. It could just be another angle, or it might be that the pressures above or below have changed his shape. You see it in war a lot – a coward turning a hero and a brave man crashing in flames.”

John Steinbeck, THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT

Perhaps all of our shapes have in fact shifted into some other version of ourselves as we fall into whatever this post-Covid world has in store for us. I think I’ve felt in limbo for the better part of my life. When you’re a kid, it seems like the days, months and years are truly endless; days that drip slowly like sweet honey from a spoon. Jazzed to be a grown up, and then once there, it seemed like I worked and partied and discovered so many layers in the amazing New York City in the 90’s. Yet I was in limbo then too, waiting for some other version of my life to start. Now I can fully say that I’ve had the outline, the tracer, the scene set, characters in place for a good, long solid time. This Covid limbo for me may have resembled a warm blanket. An excuse to stay in, look inward, not have a comparison to anyone else’s journey as we were all on a similar quest and a pause button at our disposal. Minus the deaths, frayed feelings, head butting craziness. Mask off..mask on. I am a hesitant hugger now yet when I know that it’s in total agreement, I hug hard and deep. This middle ground we are now all striving for has to be reached if we’re going to maintain reasonable sanity. We will never be able to get these years tweaked or back and I want to have all of my senses about me as I move forward in this markedly different world. If nothing else, I hope it has made (at least the semi-evolved) kinder, more open, wiser and with even more tools for a tool box; to be able to move forward and try to understand each other more. I too hope that our children can craft a world that makes sense to them. Suffer slightly to earn some GRIT yet use it in a way to mold them ultimately into better humans.

If the pandemic, social unrest, varied political opinions and general dis-ease were a person, you would have laughed at the last bad joke and entertained their last droned on, boring conversation, for the very last time. There is nothing about this person that is a turn on in any way. The bleak frost and chilled wind that can rip through a body and soul in a five minute walk, does a waltz with our dis-ease. If our senses aren’t careful enough, these collaborators can be our moody demise. Winter is our slog up the mountain so that we can come tumbling down a springy hillside all anew and refreshed to come out to nature’s wonderments in Spring. To remind myself of this is of the essence, yet words unfortunately cannot replace that feeling; thick cover of chill encasing my heart. Now, in the middle of February and a chance day in the low 50s, I found myself going outside; took gulps of the mock Spring sweet air, cut away dead greenery in my yard that I hadn’t done in fall. I found rocks to fill in the perimeter of my front yard near our path and got the satisfying crunchy squeeze of twigs and green and dead into the long paper garden bag. A reminder that I will in fact be poking my head out of my reading, television and anything that may constrict a meandering creativity and curiosity with the world at large.

SO…I changed the name of my blog. Choosing a name for a blog may even be worse than choosing a backsplash for my kitchen. Every style, groove, color, whimsicality has its own special minute statement; do I want to have to live with that statement for the rest of days? Simplicity is key. Obviously, I may have been on an hallucinogen when I chose my last name (Thoughtsfromafrustratedwriter). But really, the decision wasn’t made and so I just went with feeling. This time, much thought rolled around for a good couple of months. Here it is. TAKE ME HERE. We all wish to be transcended. To go somewhere else. To travel and see unknown lands, people, exchanges of thoughts that may have never been known before. So we want to “Go there”. Wherever there may be. Not having had the chance to GO as much as I would like to presently (as even a grocery store run is made to satiate when I had been backpacking through Europe at 22)…where does one go? Right here. Take me HERE. Through good friends, total strangers and a new angle of a face or expression, books, podcasts, magazines, social media posts, my beloved, HERE can be expanded upon, treasured and perhaps provide a trick or two to make you think that HERE is THERE. And just why is “there” better than “here”? The looking forward to is still often more delicious than an actuality. Sometimes when I finally land on the date that has caused inner giggles, it’s often like my wedding. Drunk exuberance in freeze frames that jumped from thing to thing; wondrous yet like a skip and a jump rather than sinking in slow and deep into a relaxing, understanding and all-encompassing pool.

WHAT IS IN A SMILE?

What is in a face? I have never been as aware of all that a face and its nuances emanate from skin and bone. I suppose I never had much reason to think about it. Now into our third year of Pandemic life, this is a thought that has been flushed out for me; like a stone to turn over and over I am always discovering how much a good face is missed. Lately I have regarded the seeing of a mouth as almost revealing a private part. It’s intimacy and tangles of skin upon word upon snarly, excited, sexy, witty, sarcastic, joyous expression revealed is like a whole world that has opened up in just a few moments when a covered onlooker makes their big reveal. I started a new job a few months ago and only had seen people masked. Taking in some hair, a forehead and perhaps a wink of a nose. As I’ve worked there longer, I had occasion to see a snippet of a gorgeous lip, some beautiful teeth or a mouth that somehow seemed like an island far out to sea from its face. And the eyes are charged with the responsibility to take on the conveyance and display of earnestness to communicate all meaning. God bless them, they fall desperately short sometimes. In winter, you add sunglasses, a hat and a scarf and transference of meaning is fox holing it completely. Will the wearing of a mask go on for a length of time that it will have an impact on our evolution? Just like the cell phone and the slope of the neck to look down is said to be making a bone at the back of a neck protrude more? Will the lack of clear communication from a naked mouth trip up the learning process or perhaps let us be satisfied with the Cliff notes version that our eyes try to provide? I thought it was heartbreaking in its own way when my daughter had to start high school remotely from her bedroom. Those poor college kids too, I thought. Graduations, new beginnings..the list goes on. The children that will take this impact the hardest are our sweet innocents though. Those children between say 2 and 8. Learning the academic and social basics from a covered face will definitely make it’s impact known. Ramifications cannot even be completely seen yet. Ah well. We march on.