Living with Uncertainty

“There was nothing to fear, and nothing to doubt”

So, I think all of the above words apply to me right now, and, I would hazard to say perhaps most of us. This is what trying to live through a pandemic feels like. The difference though, is that there is ALWAYS uncertainty in life, there always has been and there always will be BUT throw a pandemic into the mix and it’s like an endless swirl of miasma on an unnerving daily basis.

I’ve read so many articles, listened to so many podcasts, had talks with lovely friends about trying to “manage” all of this and all the usual things are said (well meaning, of course) about self care, exercise, diet, sleep, social connections as well as “disconnecting” from the onslaught of negative news.

And while that all sounds good in theory and are also very much things I try to incorporate into my daily life, it’s difficult at best, because yesterday when I was out walking I just kept thinking how it feels like so many of us give the “illusion” of being “okay” when we’re really anything but okay — it’s almost like a disassociation of sorts: walking through a movie that seemingly has no real ending — it’s discomforting, to be sure, and yet it’s also quite bittersweet.

I’ve been thinking a lot about connections with others: both those still in existence and also those that have been lost and broken through the years.

Here’s an example: my British friend Mark, who at one time, lived in Oxfordshire UK. We had a strange friendship that often bordered on the romantic/physical/sexual and yet we never quite reached that stage, apart from the one evening I spent with him in a hotel room with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. We kissed and kissed but…unpleasant confession from me: I was still involved in my years long relationship with another who at that very moment was in Provincetown on an artistic sabbatical. I had joined him once, prior and we spent two wonderful weeks together, one of which culminated in his writing of a poem about the two of us quite accidentally seeing a beautiful double rainbow together. Yes, I had a poem written for me, I was his “muse.”

The Flight from Meaning

When the double rainbow shimmered in we abandoned

The street musician, sat by the ocean side park,

Chewing taffy under those full arcs….

How fully we vanish into them, out on some