kindredSwell

It always starts on the approach. Looking out over that country pulls on something that I still don’t know how to name. Try as I might, I can’t remember what it was like the first time we approached. It definitely wasn’t what it has become. I think it was lighter, maybe even happier, I guess expectant, but void of meaning. Since then, it has changed. I gaze wearily out at the low houses. They seem bunched together on purpose, to help hold each other up. Roofs of corrugated steel that surprisingly stay in place. There is nothing bright or flashy at all. Everything one level. The shades of brown and orange and a bit of green are all subtle and unassuming. Like a Polaroid taken years ago and uncovered in an attic years later. The original sepia. Quiet. Simple. Indescribably like home. I always watch the approach and more often feel closer to tears than smiles.

This time I’ve come alone. It was just how it had to be but it was also just time. They’ll join me next month, and I can’t wait. I started missing them the moment we made the decision. I do hope though a month is long enough to empty the cobwebs and start the process. As I step off the plane the familiar cushion of heat hits. It requires a few deeper inhalations and longer exhalations. I almost feel my body respond and understand what will now be demanded of it. My mind relaxes and understands rest is near. Though I’m nervous to do all the next steps myself, I know it will be okay. A few smiles later, I’m in the Toyota heading towards the ocean.

The drive isn’t that complicated; nothing here can be. Things can’t be complicated in this heat. The usual sights keep me entertained. Garbage lines the road as it always does. Occasionally someone will be trying to burn its plastic shreds and shards in a small pile on their stoop. If you didn’t know better you’d sigh about how unfortunate it was ‘they’ had garbage everywhere. When you knew better you just understood that we all had garbage everywhere, some of us just try to hide it, but it’s still there, everywhere. Again, that’s complicated. Nicaragua doesn’t do complicated. As the houses slowly separate and change into fields, those big trees start to line the road. You could imagine what it looked like here before the fields were created with those majestic trees in their forest. But the fields are okay too. Most of them have an emaciated horse or two tied up out in front of them, I suppose someone’s ride home or some thing’s ride somewhere. Some of them have herds wandering them. Some of them have rundown shacks on them that, if you didn’t know better, you’d think had been abandoned years ago. Of course, that is wrong too, they are still someone’s palace.

As I’ve started to recover and re-calibrate, I roll down the window. The heat swirls in again and I relax a little more and smile unconsciously. Can temperature inhabit you? The houses bunch together again and each one of them has someone tending to them if you look hard enough. I love that. Floors of dirt are neatly raked. Entrances are lined by perfectly placed stones. Shanty towns with wild hibiscus bushes perfectly blooming between each house. If you run by a house during laundry time you wonder why your laundry never smells like that and why your children’s clothes are never that clean. Of course this is just a romantic outsider’s view. Sleeping on dirt. Living in dust. Having your house flood each night for six months of the year isn’t something to be yearned for in the name of simplicity. It’s a little trite to desire anything at all about the situation, but I do love how the houses are tended to.

I roll on, thankfully almost on autopilot as I’m tired, and I finally I get to the house. I’m thirsty and have a headache from not eating properly for the past twenty four hours. It’s four o’clock. Four o’clock it the most beautiful time of day here. The heat has start to lift, the sun is little lower, they day’s work is over, and the country invites you to sit down and take notice before it provides its final gift of the day. I grab a beer and wander down to sit in the chair outside our bedroom. I see our bed and smirk. God, I love that bed.

I went for a run this morning. It was the first time I had run in two weeks. Every step in the first five hundred meters was exquisite pain.

My mind raced: It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. Why am I still running if it hurts? Why don’t I stop? Why don’t I just walk? My heart raced, not from exertion. Tears welled up in my eyes. I changed my playlist three times: from a mix of old classics, to Bob Dylan, to Matt Maeson. And I kept running; contemplating just about everything. My legs shook. But, oh my god, I couldn’t stop. I had been resting my body for the past two weeks. That is apparently what you do when you are injured. But this morning, despite the awful aching reminder, I was driven to put on my shoes again and return to the only thing I knew. The only time in the day that I was free to be with myself. My only space away from all of you.

The pain slowly eased as I continued to refuse to stop. The words and poetry settled me and brought me back. And then they all just broke free from whatever cage they had been put it. My thoughts. My own thoughts about my own things were allowed to have priority for thirty goddamn minutes. At first an expansive, sparkling cloud, but then a contraction to a crystal clear, star-like, focus. My body kept up and we all moved together and it became so obvious: I can’t keep fighting your battles, I need to fight my own.

For the past two months, 2 years, 35 years, I have been tirelessly trying to fight your battles. I’m am really, really good at this. This is why you always want me on your team. Time after time you ask me to help. You seek me out. You talk among yourselves about how great I would be at it. Then one way or another you involve me. It’s not your fault at all. I enthusiastically rise to the challenge. I love it. It feels so good to be at the top of the list, invited into the ring because someone thinks you are a winner. A gold star is placed. An A+ is given. In an illusory way, doors appear to open. And the best part? Your battles are such a welcome distraction.

I always think your battles will be so great; they will fill the void, provide satisfaction, enlighten, expand, stimulate. They never do. It’s not your fault. On the other side of every battle is never a win, never an exaltation. There is only a piece of me gone, more time lapsed, and boredom and an anguishing frustration. I don’t think even you are ever served either. It is a proverbial lose-lose.

I can’t be in your games anymore. I can’t be held to your rules.

Because as good as I am at fighting your battles, oh man, I am even better at following your rules. Your rules keep me right in line. I know you don’t see the rules you set, but I do now. Your rules make sure that every battle has a consistent pattern: I enter the ring, I get you a little of what you want, the team feels jubilation, victory seems in sight. But it is only at this point that I start to understand the problem more truly. I start to see and feel and hear. My insides start to turn. I yearn. I try. I inevitably start to speak and try my hardest to help you understand and I fail. I always fail here. I am asked to take a seat. I am asked to dim. God, I cannot do this anymore right now.

Your rules kill us both. I have never felt alive following your rules. You can’t be alive following your rules. If I flip through the Polaroids in my mind of times when I’ve felt electric, free, loved, me, every time was when I let my guard down and stepped out of your game and said fuck it to your rules.

Earlier this morning I asked my eldest, my most perfect reflection of my rule-based others-battles-fighting self, to make a little schedule for herself to stay a bit focused now that there is no school. I asked her to consider what she wanted to get better at or do more often and allot some time to it over the course of a week. I told her to just be realistic, set a few goals.

When I returned from my run I asked her how she was doing on it. She said, she couldn’t do it, she wasn’t good at being realistic like me (how interesting, eh?). My husband and I both spat out what we were drinking.

“Honey, your mom is the least realistic person there is.”

“Yes, Isla, there is nothing that I do that is realistic. In fact, being unrealistic is the entire essence of my every problem.” And there it was. Inside my head I started going down the list: myself, my limits, my energy, my work, my time, my peers, the world, ….

Meanwhile, Scott piped in: “This is true. You can imagine how her expectations of me have been dashed” he joked.

“Actually NO.” I said dead serious. “You, you, are the one and only thing in my life that has exceeded my expectations.” And there it was again. Clarity.

And it is all so true. I have needed so much more from everything, from all of you.

Consider my sword laid down. Armour off.

You can’t have my passion, my expertise, my strength, my voice, or my power anymore. I need it. God, I need it. I gave your battles a chance but they have only left me lacking and wanting and searching harder. It’s just not there. I am so tired.

A good friend posted a picture on Instagram the other day. It was a picture of a dog on it’s back, on lush grass with the sun shining on its belly. You could tell it was rubbing its back back and forth and wagging its tail in pure bliss. My friend captioned the picture: find something that makes you feel like this. I don’t have anything like that most of my days. I haven’t allowed myself to find it. I thought you had it to give to me. You clearly don’t. I suspect this is indeed the lesson isn’t it. So, off I go. Under the ropes, down from the ring. Now to open wide and start to swallow the things that arouse my own desires instead of yours. To follow my agenda, not yours. To direct all I have to offer towards myself and, unlike you, worship all of it. You will call me selfish and dramatic. You will wonder if I’m depressed or in crisis. You aren’t used to your leaders bowing out. Only those that really see me will understand that none of this is the case at all. Every day I will try to tell myself the same. I hope to become invisible to you and, as that veil falls, that another curtain rises and reveals the vibrancy and depth and love that I’ve refused to search for until now.

Three weeks ago, travel weary, we returned home from Nicaragua. My head and heart full of vibrant life. My spirit was light. My family was bonded. The world seemed to dazzle and we were at peace. But as my feet stepped off of that plane onto the tattered grey carpet, almost right away, they started to walk with bigger strides, then at a faster pace, soon after a light jog was needed. That was a Friday. By Monday, I felt in a full sprint, heart rate a little higher, breath a little shallower, and, only today, do I feel, out of necessity, that I’m stopping at a rest station along this marathon’s path.

COVID19, I hope, will be our great teacher.

Two weeks after it started, I sat at my husband’s desk. I was using his email to log onto my new office system and website to see if it was working after toiling on it for hours. It was late at night. I put my hands in my lap, slumped my shoulders over, and stared forward. I felt a tidal wave of grief. “I don’t want to be in this place in history, I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here.” Tears swelled in my eyes. My husband was up in bed. I felt guilt about how preoccupied I’d been over the two weeks prior. I felt scared to kiss him. My kids were asleep. I had fear about what all this was doing to them; seeing one hundred percent of their parents’ talk be focused on an illness and how to protect their office from it, news running constantly, mom a little manic, dad worried about mom, no friends to be with, no playground, no structure, everything shifted. In that moment, COVID19 felt like my enemy. An enemy I didn’t want to fight. An enemy that was winning. The weight of defeat was heavy.

The moment was just that though, a moment, and it passed.

From then, the days ticked past. Each day felt a week, each week a month.

COVID19 and I have a new relationship now.

I’ve gone for early morning runs and watched the multicoloured light rise over the ocean and mountains and I’ve understood that this was necessary. I’ve heard the message being sent. I’ve looked in the eyes of those out there too, in those early hours, and felt connection; every wrinkle around their eyes like a hug around my soul. I’ve sat down, taken a breath, and received from patients as opposed to always feeling the urge to give. I’ve let it happen. Gifts every day. I’ve opened my eyes to what true leadership is; those who have never been humble before, being humbled now, live. I’ve seen my family grow.

I’m not on the front-lines of this. I will not see the death that others will. But the fear that death may come nearer than it has before is now always present.

But, now I walk with COVID19. She is mentor, I am mentee. When at work to protect patients and reinvent primary care delivery, I’ve found a drive and focus that I’ve not seen in years. The synthesis of information, the deciphering of truth, the execution of change, is coming, with more ease. Science, my first love, is back in my life again and I love her anew. When at home with family, I work too, but also witness what my children are truly capable of, I’ve been underestimating them before, I should have known better. Though worry and death and fear roll in and out frequently, love and gratitude and hope always follow them.

I’m am willing to go through all of this as long as what I learn, I remember. As long as what we learn, we remember. Let this time in history save you, let this time in history save us. Look at the morning light, look into each other’s eyes, sit in it, understand what it is you needed to learn and let this illness save you.

Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash