Mash Your Own Potatoes

Good morning! or whatever time of day it is when you're reading this.

As I sit down to write, it's around 10 a.m. on Saturday, the ... what? the fourth. It's Mz's birthday and the end of . . . only the first week of the Stay at Home order in Minnesota?
And two-and-a-half weeks since my last day of work. 

Hasn't it been forever?

People adjust quickly to a new normal, but this isn't a stable normal... it keeps shifting, so it's hard to adjust.

I was more anxious last night than I've been since this whole thing started: I'd talked to Mz after her work shift at the grocery.
No one is being well taken care of at the store, and her coworkers are shut down, some of them, and so was she...
Her flatness was a predictable and even helpful response, but it's painful to see/hear because I know it's caused by traumatic circumstances.

It was hard to witness, but I WANT to share it---it's important.
I can't think of anything else I can do to help that I'm not already doing/ have done, and, of course, my emissary Penny Cooper is on the job...
I'm going to bike over and wave at her this afternoon.
At least it's sunny.

I think it's mostly a matter of me accepting (again, again) that I can offer comfort and company, but I can't stop other people suffering, which is a hard, hard truth.

I went looking for something comforting online and found Elizabeth Gilbert's recent (April) TED conversation from her home:
"It's OK to feel overwhelmed. Here's what to do next."

I like Gilbert about as well as I like Mary Oliver--that is, her Eat, Pray, Love is about on par with "Wild Geese"-- but they do both convey some comfort, like mashed potatoes.

And this is the time for that, in my life this morning. 

The conversation (with two TED folks) is an hour long--I watched 17 minutes and felt better. 
Gilbert helpfully (to me) recommends approaching this (and everything) with curiosity, and dropping expectations of passion and productivity. 
Amen to that!

My judgment flares, though, when she says she's comfortable with isolation because she recently spent 17 days on silent retreat in India. But, you know,  that doesn't negate the good things she says--that we could use the experience of how hard isolation is to rethink solitary confinement in prisons. But then, again, I'm annoyed that she talks as if she assumes her listeners––"we"––are more likely to have been in India than in prison.

I can be curious about my judgment flares:
"Oh, look, Gilbert's, um... boutique spirituality is just the sort of thing that always hooks you! Also her earrings (which appear to be beaten gold)."
Mashed potato, with my own personal barbs.

What are the elements of that?
Honestly, envy is part of it. Ha!
And grief...
And... hm... interesting--she personally irks me partly because I could have gone the way she went--but instead I've peeled away. How did that happen?
What was the mechanism?

When I get all spiky and judgmental like this, it's usually a sign that I need to come back to myself and do my own work.
Yes.
That is absolutely the key--Do your own work, Fresca!!!

And if you're in the mood for Gilbert's perspective, which, all complaints aside, I truly found helpful today, here she is: 

Having watched that, I calmed down--I'm grateful!––and I want to concentrate on something meatier now.

Hm. I would normally delete this sort of wandery, confessional post, but in this time of corona, I've decided to let myself post confused ramblings. I am feeling so scattered . . . so, here, I'll hit Publish.