Corona 2020 #3: Rhythms of Quarantine

April 3, 2020April 7, 2020 ~ Georgia Coats ~ Leave a comment

Sunday, March 29: In harmony with my heart

Virtual church at 11-ish. Pilates and worship. Coffee with my Sweet. I’m grateful for his enthusiasm in making my perfect cup. I have been working on the right lyrics that are in harmony with my heart. Simon and Garfunkel always have space in my struggles. But they must be interspersed with strength of the human spirit, and the hope of worship. My heart is tender towards key words: shelter, isolation, hidden, breath…

Walking makes me feel better, and alone. The city is quiet and desolate with pockets of families huddled together.

We are defined by our safe people and everyone else. Who are the people bio-connected to each other? What about those who live alone? Who are their bio-connected “we”?

Following news out of Detroit. Things are exponentially worse. The Henry Ford hospital is where my hematologist of 15 years lives. My babies were born there. It is a state of emergency.

Michigan seems like a dream to me now… I’ve come to look for America… Michigan feels like a dream to me, too, Simon & Garfunkel.

The Value of Closure

I am struggling with closure. Some things have ended abruptly and I find they wreck me more emotionally than they would at another time. My resilience is thin. With tears, it’s best to sleep on it. If my resilience is thin, others’ is too. God, help me to see as you see.

Strong for my people. Rest. Prayer. I am ready to take a small courageous step towards healthy closure in uncertainty. Courage is fear prayed up. Yup.

Monday, March 30: It’s okay not to be okay

Ella is in tears. She feels socially limited in the middle of her brother and sister. She has done everything we have thought to do at home by lunchtime. Aimlessness brings sadness.

She needs her middle school peeps. I tell her it’s okay to cry. It’s okay not to be okay.

Magic in the little things—a fixed bike, fresh berries and a can of whipped cream. Zoe and Ella set off on a park adventure of their own. Then we make lentil soup. I see her perk up just a little.

It’s okay not to be okay.

Jamin’s new tetherball arrives from Amazon. Steve and Jamin head to his school to hook it up to the pole there. Jamin is that 5^th grader—the one who has prayed for school to end since it started. He is in a happy place.

My walks get longer and more emotional as I listen through my varied lyrics. I am weak. I am strong. It feels like winter and loneliness. I rise up. I have breath. I shelter in with people I love dearly.

It helps to have purpose and set baby goals…

I have a little space in my emotional reserves to follow up my concern for my refugee neighbor friends. I check in and brought Legos for the littles (after running them through the dishwasher). I inadvertently photobombed their cute family pic—at a distance.

Seeing their faces made my heart happy. 😊

I walk in the rain and the sunshine. I am oscillating. Laughing. Crying. Purposefulness. Aimlessness. Weight of the world. Isolation. Safety. And Fear.

Everyone check in with someone, ok?

Celebrating my small mom victories. My kids seem more settled. Cake pops made. Tetherball played. Lentil soup is perfectly seasoned comfort food—reminiscent of homemade dhal from a past season of life and friendship.

Brother, let me be your shelter

Never leave you all alone

I can be the one you call when you’re low. NeedtoBreathe

I hug my people. I have people to touch and kiss. We pray together anticipating the new day. The new school schedule. A plan. A purpose. We pray that summer camp won’t be canceled.

Tuesday, March 31: Collecting scattered thoughts

Everyone sets an alarm. Online school is starting, and we have family implementation plans in place. Ella is chattery about her teachers and friends. Her eyes light up. Jamin is moaning but following the plan. Zoe persists with vigor in all her endeavors. Steve’s virtual work continues per usual. I write 3 new virtual meetings set on my empty calendar.

Time to write. To think. To be alone with my thoughts in my bustling home. Interruptions are frequent. Flexibility of this new norm.

Clarity of thought. Processing negative emotions in healthy ways. Moving forward.

Deep breath. I will turn on the news.

Physical goals: Engage my core muscles more often—to that end, wear less leggings and more regular pants. Walk a little further. Add a few extra sit ups, crunches, or pushups each time I do some. Baby steps in physical exercise make me feel like I can control something. And move forward in something.

Wednesday, April 1: Tears are my superpower

Aimlessness is real.

Scheduling is helpful.

Technology is frustrating.

Closure…find closure where you can on even the little things, since so many things ended or were put on pause so abruptly.

Zoe and I enjoy the show: Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. Episode 8—Zoey’s Extraordinary Glitch—was so embarrassingly awkward. The main character can’t stop herself from bursting out in song to express her deep, undealt with emotions.

I courageously show up for my meeting to find closure, and I cry through the second half of it. I guess I’m still not ok and it’s going to come out somewhere—like Zoey does with song and dance in the show, I do with tears. Closure on this one thing feels good and right and satisfying. But I’m still crying. Awkward, but unapologetic. Express gratitude. Everyone’s resilience is thin. It’s okay not to be okay.

Rollerblading with my girls is a sweet time on a beautiful day. Normal, not normal. Strange, not strange. No one is out. Everyone is distant on a college campus in spring. I feel simultaneously content and overwhelmed. We go about our days distancing, while others can’t breathe. And others die. How does closure come for loved ones who experience loss?

At the end of the day I’m both relieved and bummed that there were no innovative April Fool’s jokes going on at our house. Not in a place to create and laugh and bounce back just yet.

Thursday, April 2: Wearing mascara doesn’t prevent tears

Time to face my fledgling teaching plan. A meeting with my boss. I teach adults. Moms like me who show up to my English language class after their kids are settled in school. I can just barely settle my kids to move forward with a plan of any kind. I barely have a moment to catch up with my own thoughts and emotions… innovation is measly and uninterrupted minutes to wade through emails and move towards problem-solving are things from that other life realm.

Deep breath. Grateful for the closure I found yesterday. Like the strategy for debt snowball—knocking out smaller debts first.

Moving forward.

It’s okay not to be okay. But it’s not okay to cry in this team meeting with my boss. Maybe mascara will help prevent tears.

I choose Pilates and prayer over fine-tooth-comb reading all the pertinent email strings before my meeting.

Deep breath, again. In for 3, out for 4.

🎶 And I’ll rise up…

I’ll rise up
In spite of the ache
I’ll rise up
And I’ll do it a thousand times again
For you… 🎶

Innovation, momentum, problem-solving and resilience—in short supply. Like ventilators for patients and masks for healthcare workers.

Mascara does not help prevent displaced tears in zoom meetings. But actively turning off video or audio as needed provides a sense of control over the little things.

And having a boss who hears you… doesn’t prevent tears either.

It’s cold today. There is no mustering of motivation to run the track. No energy to even think about trying to psych myself up for more than a cold, grey walk.

Listening to Simon and Garfunkel and remembering that time when I was on an island. And I missed my boat. And I cried about it… 😭💕🏝

🎶 I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room,
safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me

I am a rock
I am an island
And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries 🎶

Islands are surrounded by salt water… you would never know if they were crying.

Overwhelmed and grateful. I am definitely not an island.

NY2020: Happy to Dis-appoint

February 1, 2020February 1, 2020 ~ Georgia Coats ~ 2 Comments

Dear Disappointment,

I’ve spent way too much time thinking about you. But don’t flatter yourself. We’re not becoming friends. In fact, I’ve acknowledged you, unwelcomed, inside the kingdom walls of my heart. I just needed a moment to reset, refocus, breathe. I guess I also needed to spend way too much time in the shower on a Wednesday morning. Rest my thoughts.

Now I’m ready to take some action.

Here’s what I know about you: You work from within to kick down little appointments. You damper dares and infect healthy fear. You friend frustration and fiend innocence about it all. Your M.O—If you can frustrate small fulfillments of goals and longings, you can make room for your older, stronger relative—discouragement. But discouragement is harder to go unnoticed, like you.

Your goal is to impede me from moving forward with mine.

You see, my 3 words for 2020 are…

small…

…..daring…

………… worthy.

It’s a tremendous trio. It’s diamond strength I’m learning to weild.

Just in the first few weeks of 2020, I have seen what you do to daring. I’m on to you. And small—that’s my word, and you can’t claim it. Thanks to MLK Jr., I’m committed to figuring out how to do small in great ways. Wouldn’t you just love to dis-appoint all that, in your small ways?

But then there’s worthy—I have intrinsic value and this is my heart space, not yours. I have authority to appoint. All you can do is kick down edifications and expectations that others have built up. You exist to make us fret the small stuff; you are right there when the cold, full glass of milk spills, and you lie in wait to see what we’ll do about it.

Well, I’m here to dis-appoint you. Because I can.

In the little kingdom of my heart, I appoint hope to reign, which means despair is not welcome in my kingdom. I appoint encouragement as ministry of defense, and offense. Discouragement will meet defeat… outside my kingdom walls.

Thanks to you, I’m taking back my appointment power.

Thanks to you, I’m reassessing what I long for, and what I hope is fulfilled in my schedule of daily life.

Thanks to you, I’m reminded that even the greatest of greats in history faced you. But the ones I aspire to be like looked past their unfilled dreams to fulfill their greater destiny.

You and I are both small. But I have the power to appoint, and you don’t.

You don’t belong here. I can acknowledge when you show up, but I don’t have to let you stay. I don’t have to let you decide who gets to make my heart home.

I don’t have to let your disses make me feel smaller or less worthy, or even less daring. You may have damper power, but I have a fire that goes before me.

NY2020: Dear Disappointment…What’s the Point of You?

January 29, 2020January 30, 2020 ~ Georgia Coats ~ 2 Comments

Dear Disappointment,

You’re not my favorite. You are a slow drain on my motivation. You make my brain fuzzy and indecisive. You send me veering off track ever so slightly. You bring fear to the party, uninvited. I feel more adept at interacting with some of your crotchety and domineering relatives, like discouragement. And over the years I have learned to set clear boundaries with despair. I see nothing redeeming about spending quality time with you.

There’s no hope for you.

I purposely keep my expectations low so I can minimize how often we hang out. I’m awesome at anticipating what is needed and adapting to people and circumstances. I can shake your little solo missions fairly quickly. But you… you just hover in the middle of my weekdays. You look for ways to accumulate and gang up. You are the frown faces in calendar next to all the appointments you dissed—my cancelled meeting, my rejection notification on an application, my feverish and coughing kids, my mediocre night’s sleep.

Recently, I invited daring into my 2020 mindset. And I’m realizing that you come in the fine print. You accompany daring wherever she goes. You are the damper on more daring attempts. You are the reason my risk-taking is so intentional and well-thought out. And yet, I turn around and there you are, still. I see you. You keep one foot in the door so frustration can just slip right in.

Go away!

At least I can learn from failure. That’s how we grow. I understand how healthy fear makes me more courageous. Grief, sadness, shame, guilt, rejection, loneliness…. I’ve had intimate relationships with all of these negative emotions and am better for them. But you? All you do is take, take, take.

What do you have to give?

Chronic disappointment becomes discouragement—the wearing down over time. Chronic discouragement untreated becomes despair—the total loss of hope. But I’m the queen of chronic hope. That was my 2019 mindset. You can’t touch my hope.

King Solomon the Wise of the ancient world said that, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

Or can you? Are you the one who makes a heart sick? Are you the one who stunts tree-of-life growth? Are you the slow deferring of hope that flies under the radar? Are you the one who causes my decision fatigue, for every dis-appointed thing I have to reconfigure?

What is the point of you?

On My Mind

by Georgia

negative emotions

NY2020: Happy to Dis-appoint

Dear Disappointment,

small…

…..daring…

………… worthy.

NY2020: Dear Disappointment…What’s the Point of You?

Dear Disappointment,