Collier’s Cranes, Gates Atrium, MIT PHOTO: Mary van Balen
These days of pandemic are challenging in a myriad of ways. One is the dilemma of finding a way to respond. What can I do in the face of this? How can I help? Answers to these questions may be difficult to find. I offer this example.
Sometime in the past couple of weeks, a load of stress burst from wherever I had hidden it and overwhelmed me. When friends asked how I was doing, I usually had answered “fine.” After the initial shock of the pandemic and fear of contracting COVID-19 (I’m in a vulnerable demographic), I thought I was dealing with the situation pretty well.
I was, and then suddenly I wasn’t. Just like that. Working from home, I couldn’t focus. Talking with my daughters and friends flooded me with desire to see them, hug them, or share a meal. Of course, I couldn’t. Tears surprised me at odd times, like while I was folding towels or making dinner.
Instead of taking life one day at a time, I spent time wondering about the future. When will I feel safe going outside, visiting family and friends, or sitting in a favorite restaurant? There’s no going back to “normal.” Will we emerge with a heightened sense of interdependence with one another and our planet? Will we be willing to make changes required for a more just and sustainable future? No answers.
I ended up washing the floors in my apartment. People who know me well will surmise the level of stress. Housecleaning is near the bottom of my priority list. If I’m cleaning, either company is coming or I’m dealing with something.
In this case, it was my sinking spirit.
So, last night, I listened to my heart instead of my head, which was telling me to get to work on my column or clean off the table. My heart, on the other hand, pleaded with me to stay put on the sofa, smartphone in hand, where I was singing along with videos of Peter Seeger and the Weavers from their 1980 reunion at Carnegie Hall.
The concert was pure joy. When Pete threw his head back and belted out the song “Wimoweh,” his energy surged right out of the phone. (If you’re don’t remember the older versions of the song, you’ll remember it from The Lion King.)
Moving from song to song, I ended with the one that closed the concert: Good Night Irene. Slower. Softer. It was perfect.
Cheers and applause exploded in the packed hall, washing over the performers who returned the sentiment by standing and clapping for the audience. Love wrapped everyone in a long embrace. Me included. It didn’t matter that I was listening decades later, and hundreds of miles removed. Time and space can’t keep Love contained. Once it’s loose in the universe, it doesn’t end. It expands. It heals. It gives hope.
The Weavers and those who had travelled from around the country to attend that concert felt the power of love that evening. But they couldn’t’ possibly have known that forty years later, in the midst of a pandemic, their talents and effort, their appreciation of and presence to that moment, would buoy the sinking spirit of a woman self-isolating alone, sitting on her living room couch, singing along.
We never know what healing and hope our acts of love will unleash into the world. In these days, when most of us are sheltering in place, our contributions may seem small, but every one counts. Every one.
While front-line workers release love into the world, so do those with more hidden work to do. It all counts, whether we’re cooking for elderly neighbors, making grocery store runs, staying home, wearing face masks when outside or in a building, reading to children, contributing to the public discussion, or even writing a column.
Being faithful to what we have been given to do, large or small, does indeed matter – now and always – because every act of love is an outpouring of the Love that creates and sustains all.
© 2020 Mary van Balen
Mary, you have such a gift for transcribing with words the emotions that many of us also share. Thank you for sharing with us your moments of vulnerability and your finding source of hope and light in the love shared by the community. Thank you also for your column last week. So moving to read some War stories of our family in your column .( Pretty sure i guessed which dutch cousin you talked to ?)
You’re welcome, Beatrice. Isn’t it amazing that the love shared in community, no matter when or where, can be, as you say, a source of hope and light. Thank you for sharing yours. I’m glad you enjoyed the earlier article as well. Inspiring stories of brave people.
Beautiful reflection, Mary. Thank you for reminding us that there is strength in vulnerability, and that every little thing we can do matters. In the face of this enormous suffering, it seems so little but it DOES make a difference because we are so intimately connected. So grateful for your presence in my life – in writing and in person!
Thank you, Anita. I appreciate your presence in my life as well. I wonder if, in years to come, the realization of our interconnectedness will remain and direct our actions. I hope so. It is my prayer. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Mary,
Over the years we have known each other I have been the recipient of so many of your acts of love. This is just another example of one more–a powerful piece that pours from your heart and reminds us that everything we do for each other matters.
Thank you. In these times especially, it is important to remember that all acts of love contribute to the good and healing of this world. I appreciate your comment.
You nailed it this time, Mary. I guess I felt like the only one who felt these things. Good to know we’re not alone.
Thanks for sharing Judy. When we are staying at home, especially those who live alone, it is easy to think we are alone in feeling the emotional swings and doubts about the value of what we are doing. As you say, we are not alone!
Mary
I hope you still have a guitar! Break that puppy out! Belt out your beautiful voice that sang at our wedding 50 (!!!whaaat???!!!)Years ago!
I have definitely not allowed myself to think more than a day or two ahead. I can handle life a few days at a time!
How can your wedding be 50 years ago! I do still have my guitar and banjo.I’ll take your advice. Thanks for your comment.
Mary, my thoughts about loving and touching and distance and missing so many people align with yours and those of so many others. I tried Zoom for three but it just wasn’t the same.
I will offer a housekeeping quotation I re-discovered recently. It’s from First Lady Lou Hoover who was fearless dodging bullets during the Boxer Rebellion: “It takes just as much courage to stick to the housework until it is done as it does to go out and meet a bear.” When I shared it with a friend, she laughed. But I didn’t. Mrs. Hoover also mentioned that walking into the White House kitchen gave her the willies.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Pat, and that great quote. I think Lou Hoover knew what she was talking about!
One remarkable result of this pandemic is that for the first time ever the ones who stock the grocery shelves have caught the public eye.
So true, Wilfred. How many people do such unseen jobs that keep the world moving, day to day – people whose efforts and importance to all of us, go unnoticed. Thanks for writing and sharing your thoughts.