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. 

Canceled Plans, Breakdowns, and Empty Cheeto Bags: How My Life in Quarantine was an Exercise in Gratitude by Emma Vale (@EmmaValeWrites)

A global pandemic couldn’t have arrived at a worse time.  

In the first half of the year alone, I’d had five different travel plans, two different sets of relatives were supposed to come into town, and I’d found a way to squeeze in a writing workshop.

Everything had its own neat little box. I’d found the money to pay for all the trips and hotels needed. This year, I would be literally globetrotting.

Until this blasted virus came along.

Panic quite clearly settled not only into the media, but into every business, into every home.

Yet, in my household, there was no scrubbing of every surface. There was no hourly-ritual hand sanitization. There was no real worry at all.  

This year I was to be a globetrotter, and in January, I’d taken my first trip. A ski trip to Bavaria, around the time the first cases were breaking in Germany. The first case was in fact, a piddling 10 miles away from the resort my family and I were staying at. It wasn’t widely known at the time. This obviously ended as well as you might think.

So, my mother started sneezing. Then she was quite quickly frightfully cold. Then came the cough. My mother’s cough shook the house. The coughing quite literally broke one of her ribs. Yes, that’s possible! You can break your bones by simply coughing too much. The damage made it difficult for her to breathe.

Eventually, we convinced her to visit the doctor and she was prescribed an antibiotic that cleared her lung infection. Once she was breathing easy, her fever dissipated and her ribs could heal.  

We were one of the fortunate ones. We’re so thankful things didn’t turn out differently.   

My mom passed the sickness to her children, of course. In a three-bedroom cat-house, when three of the five members share a loft, there aren’t many places for a virus to hide. We all contracted it, but maybe it was age, maybe it was the fact that we all had jobs in public service, but we only got a mild cold. One brother was lucky enough to be completely asymptomatic. All of us with runny noses and phlegm at the back of our throats would roll our eyes at the unfairness of it all. 

And then the Corona-Panic swept in. Yet, my family breathed a sigh of relief. We’d barely dodged a bullet. Unlike many others, we’d already assumedly gotten the anti-bodies and had nothing to worry about. There would be no missing work, no need to fret about passing a test, or ultra-anxiety about a sickness we’d already experienced.     

In place of worry, came boredom. The boredom would build and build and build until it reached the brim of my patience. Cue me bursting into random bouts of tears over predictions I’d seen on the internet. Lock-down could last till June. We’d never touch another person outside our household again. I’d never get my job back.

All were traumatizing thoughts. I’m an extrovert that loves my job and meeting random strangers. Odd traits for a writer these may be, but it’s always been who I am. My interactions with people feed my imagination. Observing others spins my mind into a creative weave; creating characters and plots out of dynamics I see and experience. Which is how lock-down affected my most basic skill. My stories weren’t interesting. I didn’t even want to read. There was nothing there.  My imagination went on strike. Instead, there was an empty white space where those colorful events and dreams used to reside.

Things just didn’t seem worth it. So, I chose to do the easy thing; I drifted on the internet. Internet-drifting, while maybe fun for about an hour, is not great for the self-esteem. An Instagram post there about how I should be getting this ripped-bikini bod here. A rant on how we’d never leave our houses again there. 

It just shoved me more into the hold of the blank emptiness. I’d violently spike into an over-active emotional state and then come crashing back down again.  

So, if anyone asked, I was fine. Yep, I was fine. Totally okay.

And then I wasn’t. I wasn’t okay. I was banging cabinets, snapping at brothers, and collapsing into my mother’s arms to cry about how crappy my life was. Just play the Titanic soundtrack and let me eat my Cheetos in peace.  

Given I was 21, this was not acceptable behavior. But quarantine did bring out the worst in me. Everything my life might’ve been this year was taken; my dreams of going to conferences and traveling. My world that had seemed so big just months ago was now reduced to eight rooms and a basement.  

My weeks went from getting up on Monday, going to the grocery store—to it suddenly being Friday, and doing the laundry. Maybe a few walks were sprinkled in, but to put it in the most eloquent terms I know how:

It sucked big time.

By month two, I’d gotten the mood swings mostly under control. There was no “EUREAKA!” moment, just a gradual acclimatization to “Oh, so this is how life is now.” The walls of my house weren’t closing in on me. I wasn’t haunted by this almost spiritual claustrophobia.  

Soon enough, restrictions began to lift in my country.

I live in Germany. I’ve grown up here, and I wasn’t surprised at all by the citizens response to lock-down.  Most everyone was conscientious and followed the law. When the government told them to do something, they would do it with their typical rigid obedience.  

When lockdown began to lift and things began to open, I found myself thankful for the most ridiculous things.

I could visit the bank and not worry about making an appointment? I could work a 9-5 job? I could go swimming in a public place?! I didn’t even enjoy the pool and I was thankful it was open again.  

Little things like new flowers from the market made my day. Getting up to go to work seemed a blessing sent from heaven. My pen slowly drifted towards a sheet of paper again. A few short stories here and there and I began to look for publishing options for manuscripts all over again.

I started to look at the now-wide world around me. Things that had been “someone else’s” problem at the beginning of the year, I now felt for. I started to get involved in local politics, try to connect with the world around me in different ways than before.  

I switched jobs and found a place that I really enjoyed working. Not only am I still in public service, but I get to serve baked goods all day! Hardly anybody comes in a huff when they’re getting a box of doughnuts.

I connect not only with my co-workers, but also with wider world in general. I have a unique appreciation for my close-knit community. Family means so much more.

As for my writing, I’m brimming with ideas and unlikely plots again. My determination is renewed and I have a new perspective to bring to the table.  

So, while COVID might’ve trashed my plans, I might’ve come away with something different. An assuredness, a sense of gratitude, and confidence. 

Would I want 2021 to follow in this year’s footsteps? Absolutely not. But this year was not a waste!

And that’s enough for me.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Emma Vale on Twitter @EmmaValeWrites.