How are you?

How are you doing?

How are you handling the enforced time at home?

I've got to be honest, I'm struggling to keep my balance.  I'm finding any forward momentum hard.

First of all, I am a social person. I purposely chose a job that has me interacting with the public on a moment to moment basis. I appreciate down time, and I can lose myself in a book for hours. But I even prefer reading in the proximity of other people who are also reading.

Second of all, I'm an affectionate person. I tend to touch the people that I'm talking to. Hugging me is a great way to make me smile. I try not to force that on anyone, and I am currently doing my part to protect the population at large and those I love in particular by denying that part of my makeup.

Finally, I don't like to be told what to do.

And I'm sure that you have your own reasons that this is difficult.

I also have to admit that I'm scared. I am facing that and I'm not giving into it, but it is true. The unknown is always frightening and the unknown that makes us question the world as we know it...

As a social person, I'm fortunate to have a job that...Well, I'm fortunate to have a job. Specifically, a job that continues to need me to interact with people. But, I'm not sure what that will look like in the face of an extended time of lock down. And that frightens me. My job isn't one that I can do "from home".

I watch the people around me react in fear, and I fight the kind of thinking that leads to mob mentality.

My positive outlook and reservoir of faith & hope are taking a beating.

It isn't lost on me that we are all facing this disruption of our lives, this bump in the "norm", in the season leading up to Easter. All of us are "giving up" something for Lent. It is being forced on us, true. Social people like me are giving up the gatherings that feed us. My introvert friends are giving up the space and the quiet that they depend on and sharing it with their families. Our freedoms are inhibited. Our pleasures are changed.

And yet.

We are not without hope. "Sunday is coming".

The discipline of finding beautiful things is helping me repair and refill my reservoirs.

I am so thankful for Spring! Sunshine through my windows and on my face, sturdy little green sprouts shooting through the ground, and the birds warming up their vocal chords all make my gratitude list a little stronger. Every day something in my overgrown wilderness of a yard is changing, reminding me that life is made up of cycles. Whispering that beauty happens in the craggiest of circumstances.

Messenger chats with friends overseas, text streams with local ones remind me that people know who I am. Teaching art classes on Zoom gives outlet to my social side.

On the many mornings that I find it hard to do anything but lay in bed, I am not without hope. Spring came this year, just like it does every year. The flowers pushed through the hard soil and the birds returned with their song.

So, on this coming Good Friday, I will be repeating this mantra to myself and I invite you to join me in it,

"My friends, we are not without hope."

~Karlie