The Little Things by Sarah McGuinness

What have I learned?

Sounds like a simple question

One that does not have an easy answer

As the days become weeks

And the weeks blur into months

Time has no meaning anymore

A ship out to sea with no bearings

No anchor to tether me in place.

All the pleasures I always took for granted

A dinner out at an intimate fancy restaurant

A craft beer at a crowded bar

Music flowing through you at a show

A rejuvenating yoga class to feel alive again

The little things.

I have learned where my limits are

To being confined within the same four walls

Day in and day out 

So white and harsh

Suffocating my spirit as I work away.

Self discipline 

Drive and productivity

Knowing others are far worse off 

Keeping the train on the tracks

Full speed ahead.

Adapting to the new normal 

Always evolving

Donning a mask

Hiding what used to be my vibrant smile

Now often a sneer

At all the fools

Noses wagging atop their masks

Barreling the wrong way down the grocery store aisle

Not caring at all for for their own safety 

Let alone that of others. 

Our selfish Americanness

Kindness fallen by the wayside

Rugged individualism

Our rights being infringed upon 

Karmic justice, I’m hopeful, will eventually reign.

Life as we know it may never be the same

The constant threat of illness

That could be the onset to untimely death 

With one misstep 

One wrong breath. 

But the virus is not the only danger

Our leadership is running amok 

People of color trampled on

As if the last 60 years of progress

Never even happened

The joke is on us

On our perfect democracy. 

I feel fear in a away I haven’t in a long time 

Stress

Anger

Trepidation

Hoping for my loved ones to be safe 

For me to be safe.

Longing for those little things

Dangling in front of your nose

Just out of reach. 

The longer this goes on

The farther I unravel

A puddle, rippling in the breeze

Evaporating in the heat of the moment.

I haven’t had the free time or bandwidth to learn

As some others have

Baking sourdough

Knitting

Teaching ourselves new useless skills and hobbies 

To lose ourselves, to hide

To forget the monsters lurking 

Under the bed 

On the other side of the door

The outside world with its cruelty and chaos

Knocking

Waiting with baited breath 

For you to yearn for normalcy so badly

That you throw caution to the wind.

We are all just grasping 

Trying to hold our lives together

Water spilling from our hands

As we try to cup it, protect it.

I have learned a thing or two about resiliency 

Gravity pulling us down

Scratching and crawling 

Fighting 

Never letting go

Making the decision to forge on

To not give up

Not to let adversity win. 

I see it every day 

In the parents working full time

And still helping to educate their children

From their living rooms

Their kitchen tables

In our essential workers risking exposure

Everyday

To ensure others make it home

Those in the service industry

Giving people something to look forward to

Outside the comfort or prison of their homes 

Small businesses closing their doors

People out of work left and right

But we bail out the rich once more

Why the hell not?

The polar bears starving

Sea level rising

While communities can no longer afford to recycle, let alone innovate 

Trying to pluck positives out of thin air

Bright flowers

Bees buzzing

Searching for grounding, for sanity

As the world spins out around me

Quiet

Serenity

As we retreat back to our four walls

Nature is trying to take back

All we stole from it

Moose grazing in urban centers

Sharks swimming up and down the coasts

Murder hornets

Swarming

A tale so tall if we were not living it

We would never believe it

Fake news.

Like life right now for many

My words flit and float across the page

I could go on 

and on 

and on

But I won’t. 

I’ll spare you 

The rhetoric

The lecture

To be completely honest,  

Not sure how much I am learning

Certainly I am not thriving

But at least I am surviving.

Take a depth breath

Appreciate the freedom of the air entering

Exiting our lungs 

Not even enjoying the exhale 

As we gasp for oxygen once more. 

Maybe if we close our eyes 

Wish upon a star

This nightmare will dissipate

All we can do is hope

One foot in front of the other 

Begging for a better tomorrow

When you have hit rock bottom

The only place to go is up. 

With the encouragement of a good friend

The warm embrace of your partner

A snuggle and kiss from your canine 

Companionship.

The little things

That show you there is light at the end of the tunnel

That when you finally break the surface

You will not be alone. 

10 Life-Changing Lessons from Quarantine That Will Add Value to Your Life by James Murphy (@mutabilisblog)

The incredible toilet roll hunt seems like a distant memory; the hysteria and panic have found equilibrium and face masks have become a standard component of our daily outfits!  

Just six months ago, when the world was stock-piling toilet paper, and opportunists were hoarding supplies of antibacterial gel, it felt like the required adjustments that would help us to navigate this pandemic were too much to ask.  

As the world came to a grinding halt, a question hung in the air, as invisible as the virus:

What will become of us?

As a confessed introvert, it was quite easy for me to go outside just once per day to take my three dogs for their walk around the local park. I welcomed not having to masquerade as an extrovert, and I loved that I had an excuse to avoid small talk in the supermarket!

My partner, however, felt like a caged animal.  

It wasn't long before the words we exchanged became charged with tension, and a quick scroll through social media established that this was a phenomenon occurring in most, if not all, homes.  

People lost their jobs, record numbers of people applied for low-income benefits and the self-employed have had a particularly arduous journey.

In the UK, remarkably, we adjusted.  

Employers embraced flexibility, and workers showed patience, even the government hacked at their bureaucracy, providing more efficient processes.

Ten life-changing lessons from quarantine that will add value to your life!

As the months have passed, I have identified ten, actually loads more than ten, lessons that will benefit us for years to come—if we remember them!

The NHS is outstanding.

Too often, we take the NHS for granted in the UK, and this pandemic has demonstrated the true worth of this vital asset. Furthermore, in recognising the contribution of the key and core workers, it became clear that the sheer size and variety of the workforce is dizzying.  

It was heartwarming to see the rainbows appear in windows, and the first time I heard the clapping my whole body erupted in goose-pimples. As I hung out of my bedroom window, I couldn't help but beam from ear to ear as I added my clap to the thunderous applause.

When, or if, things get back to 'normal' and you find yourself in a waiting room that seems to be moving at a snail's pace, or perhaps a referral to see a specialist takes longer than expected, remember that you're dealing with these celebrated people that deserve our patience, respect and gratitude.

Take a moment too, to acknowledge those countries that don't have Universal Healthcare.

Living in a state of chaos is unnecessary.

Nobody is immune to the addictive poison that is, What If?

Every journey, act, event, plan and goal can fall victim to this relentless thief of joy, by way of overthinking. Nobody saw this pandemic coming; it swept across the globe at an alarming pace of indiscriminate contagion. 

Yet we adjusted, implemented and adapted.

The truth is that none of us knows what the future holds, even probability is unreliable, so embracing that existence is continuously changeable and being responsive to changes will lead to a much calmer state of being.

Resisting change will only lead to pain.

Moaning is as soul-destroying as it is useless.

The thing about common sense is that it's common, not complete.

Of course, there will always be those on the margins that refuse to conform, even after being informed. The conspiracy-theorists, rebels, attention whores and the plain stupid will always be a part of the conversation, and they're entitled to be so.

Pay attention to what you pay attention to because for every one nonconformist; hundreds are doing the right thing. Make sure that you see the real picture, not just what you can see.

So next time you're at the supermarket, and some obnoxious chap is without a face mask, remember that it's not your job to quality control the human species. The same applies to all areas of life.

Be where your feet are!

Pre-March everybody was so busy! Wake up to make a coffee whilst thinking about taking a shower, only to be in the shower and thinking about the journey to the office.  

Always in a different place, mentally, than physically.

It's such a shame not to relish the scent, and feel of your body wash in the shower because you're thinking about a much less enjoyable commute to work.  

Quarantine has given us all a licence to slow down and have the mind in the same place as the body.  

Next time you make your morning coffee, or tea, listen to the rolling boil of the kettle and delight in the smell whilst your fingers stroke the texture of the cup and look for the wisps of steam rising from the hot liquid.

Identify and communicate clear boundaries.

The rush of the commute combined with the fabric of social constructs that we get wrapped up in can lead to boundaries becoming unclear, ignored and crossed.  

In every workplace or team, there is a person that lacks any understanding of personal space, and they seem to get away with rubbing everyone up the wrong way as a result of these pesky social constructs.

Now is the time to identify what you need to be the calmest, most engaged, and adaptable person that you can be - then explicitly state this to those around you.

To expect the office and home experiences to echo is irrational, being that there are so many people to consider. Be reasonable; the trick is to create an environment for yourself and not to manipulate the entire situation.

Know what you're about, and be about it.

At the risk of making myself sound like a new-age witch, intentions determine outcomes, so make sure you know what yours are, for sure.

Different from a goal, which is an achievement or consequence, the intention is the specific reason or purpose for the action.  

For example; to create an influencer platform for financial gain is an intention whilst a supporting goal could be to accumulate ten thousand followers.

The big one to work out is your life-intention; which is remarkably simple when one crucial fact is clarified:  passion is the result of an action, not the cause of it.

Suspend the 'rules', by that I mean the boring stuff like salary, mortgage payment, bills; it's just how things work etc. and think back to when you were asked as a kid what you were going to be when you grew up.

If you still want that, what's stopping you?

If you don't, what do you want to do with the unknown amount of life that you have left?

Only when you know what you're about, can you be about it!

We don't need as much as we seem to think we need.

Until around ten thousand years ago, almost all humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Living the life of a traveller meant having few if any, possessions.

When the first humans settled and started tending crops, the accumulation of material possessions behaviour took hold. As manufacturing and technology have advanced, this has become dangerous and destructive for our planet.  

Sure, it can sometimes feel like 'eco-friendly' is a stick that we get beat with when we buy the cheaper detergent, forget to take our reusable carrier or opt for single-use plastic - but the fact remains that there is a resource crisis and we could all do better.

The truth is that humans need very little to maintain life, and there is more than enough to go around. That urge you feel to hoard toilet roll is nothing more than a hangover from the prehistoric nomad days—so resist!

Debunk the myth of scarcity.

The incredible toilet paper rush, bear with me, can teach us a valuable lesson about human behaviour. Your primal brain is catastrophic by nature; when your brain gets a 'peckish' signal from the stomach, your mind creates another message to get you to eat - it screams that if you don't eat now, you'll die.

There is also a cognitive bias whereby the rate of uptake of beliefs, ideas, fads and trends increases in line with the proportion of others who have already done so.

It's called the bandwagon effect.  

The toilet paper hunt gained momentum because the primal brain was screaming dramatically, and the cognitive bias sought to calm it down.

Understanding that scarcity is a myth makes way for the 'sensible' frontal cortex of the brain to employ reason, problem-solving and impulse control to determine a course of action that is better for the greater good.

In a nutshell, you'll feel safe enough to share.

Continue to get out in nature!

It's hardly surprising that nature has a relaxing effect on us humans, frazzled as we are by our technology, systems, processes, constructs, rules and concepts.

Science endeavours to replicate nature, so when there is a disturbance, anomaly, or failure, the first place to look for a solution is in our natural environment.

I remember, with the horror of a true introvert, how many people were suddenly in the park where I walked my dogs every day. We had been walking there for five years and rarely saw another person, but this pandemic drove people outside.  

What stood out most, to me, was how relaxed these people were, the natural smiles of couples, families and friends surrounded by nature and walking, playing football, riding bikes and siblings playing together.

Do yourself a favour and ditch the devices at least once every day, and revel in the wonder of nature.

Lighten Up!

Relax! Nothing is under control.

We all use our systems, beliefs and habits to give order to the chaos that is life, and sometimes it works. Routines trick us into predicting outcomes, and we willingly ignore the fact that the occurrence of an event comes with no guarantee of repeat.

Lighten your emotional load, lighten your physical load, lighten your social load and lighten your material load.

All that stuff is weighing you down.

It's also essential to find a way to laugh, every day.

As things increasingly loosen, we have the perfect opportunity to live with intention, determining our own desired outcomes.

What lessons has this modern time taught you? Tell me in the comments.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow James Murphy on Twitter @mutabilisblog. 

Embracing the Drift by Frank L Tybush V (@FLTV_Writes)

A quick glance at my bookshelf reveals all secrets. What secrets might these be? That I have an insatiable interest in the history of exploration and human endurance. Books about Everest, Arctic expeditions, archeological searches in harsh environments… they are my jam. I obsessively read survivors’ tales and pieced-together accounts of doomed journeys. I cannot get enough of what humans will do, because they can.

One fascinating aspect that pops up often is explorers coming adrift. And while, yes, becoming adrift physically (meaning lost) happens often, what I’m referring to is when the mind goes adrift. When there is a disconnect with reality. It often happens on long journeys with few markers to tether oneself. This can cause some people to go completely mad. Others fight through it by finding little ways to remind themselves of the world beyond their ship/tent/small group.

How does this relate to what I learned throughout this pandemic?

Other than short trips out (more in recent days, but still very regulated and careful), I have lived, worked, existed entirely in my house since March. I, thankfully, still have a job. My commute is now a walk up a flight of stairs. My breakroom is my kitchen. My once 10-minute jaunts through the streets surrounding my work’s office building have become me doing dishes or little chores.

Pretty much every day is exactly the same.

And I became adrift.

Sure, I’m a hermit by nature, but with work transitioned from a shared office to my lonely second-floor, I lost my tether. Zoom meetings and Slack conversations did little to help. I knew people existed, but I didn’t know where I existed.

I live in New York (upstate, not the city). We were hit pretty hard. In the early days, I obsessed over the news. I worried constantly. I have an autoimmune disease. Every time I had to get groceries, I fretted that I would catch the virus. I tried to limit leaving my house as much as possible. Because of this monotony, other than small reminders through work, I rarely knew what day it was. A Monday felt like a Friday, and a Friday felt like a Monday. Life became an endless cycle of worry, confusion, anger, and sadness.

I felt like I was going crazy. I couldn’t focus on work. And writing? Well, that gif of Kristin Bell laughing and then crying is the perfect representation. Thankfully, I had a finished novel to query, but all attempts to put pen to paper (or in my world, fingers to keyboard) felt hollow. I’d stare at the screen for a long while before just switching over to Twitter.

I wrote nothing.

I only had reams and reams of blank (digital) paper to show for the time I put into writing.

Then I made a decision… to both let go and embrace.

I first let go of the guilt I felt over my anxiety. The world is effed up right now, and it’s okay to have anxiety. Just admitting that helped a lot. At least I stopped worrying about worrying.

Next came the unhealthy news obsession. Sure, I still keep abreast of the news, but I stopped attempting to follow minute-to-minute updates. I let go. Finding out the latest scoop wouldn’t help the immediate situation. It wouldn’t ensure safety while shopping for my comfort foods (french fries and ice cream). I decided it can wait, and limited the time I spent scrolling and hoping for hope. And now, if I feel overwhelmed with the news coming out, I take a step back and not let myself drift into a downward spiral of “wtf’s.” (Instead, I go on a downward spiral of cute animal videos… much healthier, in my opinion.)

And most of all, I embraced being mentally adrift.

I embraced the realization that it is difficult to focus and stopped beating myself up over that fact. I couldn’t expect that I would have the same process that I once had. I accepted that it’s okay to drift.*

I no longer feel bad that I may start reading four different books before falling on one that I actually finish. Last year, I would probably have sludged through and tried to finish the book before heading to the next. Now, I’d rather spend my time enjoying a book, instead of stressing over finishing one I didn’t immediately connect with.

I’ve adopted the same mentality with my writing.

I have started two different books during the pandemic that I have abandoned. In the past, I would feel awful about giving up after a chapter or two, but times have changed. I celebrated the fact that I wrote but accepted that it wasn’t time for those stories. Allowing myself to drift freed me from anxiety.

Nowadays, I spend a lot of time workshopping and worldbuilding in my head before even attempting to write. Allowing myself to not feel like a failure for imagining instead of typing has helped to shift my mental state to a more positive one. Relieving the pressure enables me to feel more creative and less exhausted.

Yes, this all means that I have a lot of false starts, but the acceptance of the drift has allowed creativity to return. And this extends beyond just writing. For the first time, in a very long time, I’ve acquired new materials to return to creating sculptures.

Times have changed. In reality, they probably won’t ever go completely back to how they were before the pandemic. I’m trying to evolve and find my new normal. How long will it take to find this? I have no idea.

But in the meantime, I’m quite alright with the drift.

*I recently started listening to a band named “Creeper,” and I find myself singing one of their lyrics repeatedly to myself. “When your friends sing ‘Born to Run,’ baby, resist, ‘cause we were ‘Born to Drift.’” It’s starting to be my current mantra of acceptance in this day and age.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Frank L Tybush V on Twitter @FLTV_Writes.

Fill Your House With You by U.L. Harper (@ulharper)

My wife and I decided we needed to get the hell out of our house. 

The bathroom is so small, you need to turn to the side to walk between the bathtub and the sink. Once on the toilet, you can rest your elbows on the sink. It’s the only bathroom in a three-bedroom house.

There’s no privacy in the backyard, which wouldn’t be a big deal except for the horror of the broken-down cars parked in my neighbor’s yard. It’s like living next to a cute little junkyard. And the neighbors across the alley always have their music too damned loud at too late an hour. 6 am to 11:30 pm, it’s the same thumping. 

When the pandemic hit, we were trapped. Two-year-old, upset anxious wife, and me, chillin and frustrated. 

The steps to the upstairs bend and sound like they’re splintering every time we trek up them. All the rooms are too small. Even the doorways are too small. We had to get rid of furniture because the items wouldn’t fit up the stairs or through doorways or in the bedrooms. 

When COVID-19 hit, I was laid off, but my wife was instructed to work from home. She feared losing her job because my daughter would not let her be, and in that room with the computers and desks, there’s no air-conditioning. Adding that to a super cute kid wanting to draw on everything or have a tantrum during Zoom work calls, is nuts. 

What I learned from quarantine life is that you must love where you live. You have to fill your house with you, rather than just stuff that represents you.

As the pandemic rolled on, I’d hear about all these people who needed to get out of their houses; they felt claustrophobic. Wouldn’t it have made sense that when the pandemic started more people would have felt relieved that they could stay home and be with their families? Maybe they realized they didn’t have homes; they just had houses with stuff in them. 

My family was having a hard time finding good energy to place in the walls. It wasn’t only us with this problem. I heard of mass divorces, at first, specifically in China, then friends started texting me, telling me their relationships were ending…after twelve years, after fifteen years and so on and so on. 

One day my wife asked a huge question: What happened to that hammock I had promised? Before she was done asking the question, I was ordering one online. Then the veggie garden started to produce food. I had no idea cucumbers bloomed flowers. I put up a tarp across my back fence if for no other reason, to rediscover my backyard. We invested $20 in a pool for the girl. 

I read in the hammock.

Come to find out, my daughter loves to dance. We do it in the garage to the generic beats of the Casio keyboard. She loves it. We dance in the living room, spin in circles out back. I try to teach her about growing veggies, but she’s not quite three and truly doesn’t care, and I truly don’t know anything. It’s just growing. Everybody, everything; all of us. She more wants to get in the pool.

I recently started back to work. Had to find a new job. Honestly, it sucks more than I can express in this post because now I like being home. I like coming home. I like that we’re here, and although we’re still planning on moving, we’re going to miss the energy we put into these walls. We’re going to miss the noisy steps. I’m going to miss that first garden I ever did, and I’m going to miss watching my daughter water it. 

The only way to have a home is to be there. You can’t just stop by and wander in it. You need to be there. You know what I think, I think there are people out there truly upset and probably ashamed that they don’t have a home, although they have a house or an apartment or condominium or whatever it is. I’m not sure if money can buy a home. Although, that rowing machine I got…Worth it. 

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow U.L. Harper on Twitter @ulharper.