I don't feel like it because so much of what I love about it thrives off being in close physical proximity with other humans, a thing that just isn't possible right now. I thought I could be bringing myself some joy during a dark time by putting on some tunes and groove-improving around in my basement (movement space), but I haven't wanted to. I haven't wanted to improvise, really.
I think this is part of why I've been gravitating to practicing tap basics. It allows my body to feel groove without having to come up with it on my own, and without being reliant on others. There has been something comforting to me about the precision and repetition. I suppose there is an amount I've been seeking comfort. I hope it's more that and not that I wish to avoid really sinking into the moment and connecting with what I'm feeling, out of fear it feels far worse than I actually know.
Even writing what feels so negative to me when I pride myself on being a pretty positive person gives me a clue into what might be bubbling underneath. Perhaps I need to accept that I, like many, am just feeling the darkness right now. No wonder my most inspired moments have been when I am alone, taking pictures of the bleakness of nature in my neighborhood. Alone. Behind a camera. Not usually where I find my inspiration.
Perhaps the issue here is that "usually" concept. From the get-go with this dark situation (which I've mostly been calling "challenging," as a strange grab at optimism), I've been motivated to retain any semblance of past routine and to build new ones. I think this has been a grasp at productivity and normalcy, both of which are good things as much as they are feasible. Maybe they are both just a bit less feasible right now than I previously thought.
Yesterday, I loosened my grip on those expectations by not writing up a schedule for my day, choosing to instead trust that I would do well with my time. And I did. Today, I will loosen by grip a couple ways too: I'm going to drip back toward my M/W/F and 'when I feel like it' professional social media posting schedule, and I'm going to throw away my star stickers. As for posting, I've been quietly pressuring myself to post at least one creative thing a a day on at least one of my social media accounts. I was doing this because 1) it was helping me cope and 2) I hoped it would help others cope too. It's now starting to feel like pressure I'm putting on myself that I don't need, so I'm going to back off. Patterns can be tried and changed.
As for my start stickers . . . I have these gold, silver, red, green and blue star stickers that I think have been following me around since middle school. Somehow, despite years of generally minimalistic tendencies with items, these have stuck around. There have been several occasions in which I thought they'd be useful, and they were. For a bit. And then they'd fade into the background and disappear for a bit.
Yet they'd continue to unearth. They've unearthed during this time as a method of tracking. Initially, I thought I'd like to make little videos to post on social media, handing out one a day to someone I'm connected with in those spaces who shared something creative or positive that day. The idea sounded kind of fun at it's inception in my mind ("Gold star!"), but didn't take off. I've been hesitant to be gratuitous in live-streaming myself (as discussed in my previous post).
Then, I decided to take the stickers and keep them more personal, putting one next to each C19 day in my journal. This was fun at first, and up to today (Day 12 for us, according to my journal). That said, there has been a nagging in my brain that something about this felt wrong. I realized on my walk this morning that I've still got a lot of stickers left. There is something kind go hopeless to me about thinking I've finally found a way to use all of them . . . marking all the fucking days we have and will be physical distancing during/ in this CRISIS. Fuck. There it is. Crisis. Haven't used that word. "Challenging time," she says. UGH.
I have accepted that peaks and valleys, in all parts of life including this one, are real and need to be respected (or at least not made a source of guilt). Acceptance DOES make it/ things easier, but doesn't solve them. And that's ok. Sit with it/ things. Sit with the feeling, even though you seem to be doing just as much work as you would on another day (albeit different work than you've been planning on from day to day), that you often just don't feel as accomplished. That's information for you: often accomplishment, to you, seems to require shared experience. That's ok. Sit with it/ things.
Farewell, star stickers. I'm loosening my grip.
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