Weeks 14 - 16 | Quarantine Chronicles

Quarantine Chronicles

Weeks 14-16

It’s been another three weeks of pictures, carrying us through and documenting this crazy time In all of our lives. In my journaling, something I’ve realized is that I don’t think I’ve fully processed what is actually happening. I’m present, I’m in the moment, I’m not only surviving, but thriving in my space with all of the tools I practice and preach, but like every type of grief, it’s so complex I often don’t even realize I’m feeling it. I think it’s our brain’s defense mechanism to ensure survival or possibly the Ego’s defense mechanism to ensure it’s not deflated by the fear and discomfort that our reality could inflict upon even the biggest of Egos.

So, while I have the awareness to know I’m swimming in grief, I am still not fully sure that I’m finding complete presence in moving through it. Hindsight is 20/20, so I suppose I’ll commit to using this keener vision to find my wounds and help heal them. In the meantime, I continue to use my camera to keep me grounded, find my intense gratitude and appreciate my world in abundance instead of in lack. Because these are the parts I can control.

My second to biggest breakdown happened last week; perhaps it was an aftershock to my first. Regardless, it catapulted me into a place of action. As I sat with this, it’s my realizing that in my lower points, I always find myself ending up higher than where I started. Understanding this always offers a sense of peace and trust to the process; to know that I am breaking down so I can build up.

In my breakdown, I found myself in a state of determination to “figure out how I can feel better than this” and it drove me to finally part of a new scheduling technique into a concrete format. One I am hoping others can use, not only now in a quarantine, but in their forever so they can find small action steps in every single week of their lives. Intention, awareness and purposeful, chosen action to design the life they WANT to live. And I’m using this just the same, to continue my chosen trajectory and take accountability for what I want in my life and how I want to feel. You can get your copy here.

And, as I take pictures, I end up seeing and feeling so much more.

It’s like stopping to see life through my lens helps me see things more clearly. It helps me feel life to its core.

Here are the past three weeks of pictures and my reflections. These reflections are like journal entries. They are helping me make sense of all of this. Perhaps this is me moving through my grief and its complexities and I’m not recognizing it as that because there is a flow and a rhythm through this rollercoaster.

Our life is now in these four walls. My workouts are on this purple mat with a loyal pup offering moral support and extra weight through the entire thing. My daughter’s classroom is now the bay window desk in our kitchen. And our pup is getting used to sharing my attention with everyone 24/7. Whether he likes it or not. It’s a new normal that will soon enough transform again.

It was early in the morning as we all sat on the couch, our new routine; they snuggle up next to me to watch a show as I finish up my meditation and card pulls for the morning. I looked over at him as the early morning sun hit his face, illuminating the polarity of my baby boy and the big boy he is seeming to turn into over night. I stopped and stared at his profile for so long it felt as if my heart was crying and beaming light out of my chest seemingly to rival the beam of sunlight which which highlighted the very thing that created my internal light. The grief of seeing him grow is intertwined with the greatest joy I have ever felt. Motherhood is one of the most profound experiences I believe any human can experience.

This. This is our new life. For now. My pre-K kiddo who is growing leaps and bounds despite not being in the classroom and my first grader who is incredibly diligent and focused on her work. While my wedding photography was turned upside down for the spring and comes with its own unknowns, it has also created this abundance in my life. The ability to devote myself to them and their academics. There truly are silver linings in everything. And while I don’t believe in ignoring the rain clouds, we need to accept the good with the bad, and this right here is good.

Since we moved into our home a year and a half ago, walking my dog our 2.5 mile walk every week has been a constant. It’s not every single day, but it’s several times a week no matter the temperature or weather. We’ve walked through blistering heat, below zero temps, pouring rain and snow. My crisis… my quarantine…. happened 4 years ago. It went through it alone, my world being turned upside down, nothing making sense anymore and being forced, by my body (not the country) to slow down. I’ve done nothing perfectly since then and occasionally lose sight of my slow, but it was then that I learned how to say no, how to make family dinners a priority, family walks, my movement, meal planning, budgeting, meditating, mental health… all of these things are what I learned four years ago. Seeing the world in the same type of crisis brings me great sadness along with great hope. I am curious to see what we keep and what we forget from this forced slowness.

You’ll see a similarity in all of my self portraits. If you’re a photographer, you’ll see more. I randomly, honestly very randomly, grab my tripod and sit in the same spot and just start shooting. It’s, without question, become a type of therapy for me. On this day, my daughter came in and she watched intently. As she cocked her head slightly, she asked, “Can I take your picture now?” Without hesitation, I said yes. I let her hit the trigger however and whenever she wanted and I simply grounded into myself and allowed her to see me. Through my daughter’s eyes.

These pictures are from hours apart. The rainbow is what I am calling the rainbow seen around the world… maybe it was only a few counties, but I’d honestly never experienced anything like it. My daughter, newly addicted to Messenger Kids, which I can’t fight since this is her only way of connecting with her friends, ran outside with the phone, her “bff” on the other end. Her friend, only living about a mile down the road, told Hannah to go outside and this is what we saw. A remarkable double rainbow spanning across our neighborhoods. And then, later, it’s all I saw in my newsfeed from people spanning across Pennsylvania and maybe even further. I’m not sure if anyone else saw this connection, but it’s one that hit me in my gut. This rainbow was not just any rainbow. This one was a very special one. And then this full moon. The meaning of this full moon was “finding equilibrium and collective consciousness”. None of this… NONE of this is coincidence. God works in the most magical ways.

Birthday number 12 for this old man cat. It’s a mazing to have a pet travel with you through your adulthood. We got him as soon as I moved out and in with my husband; we were dating then and taking our first big step by flying out of our parent’s nest. My childhood cat, Holly, tragically and unexpectedly died a few months before I moved out… possibly a blessing. And this guy found a special place in my heart right next to Holly’s space. They say cat’s bond to their owners like children. There’s not question this guy is my baby.

And this sky. No words needed. Feel the life. The grief and the joy painted like effortless brush strokes driven by our hearts’ energy.

The lake. Our second season. Opened less than seamlessly, but we did it. It wasn’t an easy trip, needing to stay quarantined, unable to give big hugs to our neighbors, fighting the frigid New York weather and being out of routine, but it was worth it. To feel the stillness and the healing of this lake is always worth it. 

We trekked up our .8 mile long driveway, exploring and burning our energy. We much rather had been blasting DMB in the boat with the waves sprinkling us with each jump over the wake, but we made due. On this unorthodox Easter, we connected with our earth, our bodies and each other finding gratitude with each breath.

I rolled over nearly annoyed that I had to wake up again. This quarantine is putting my in a cycle of needing the stillness of night as if its a glass of water on a hot summer day only to lead to the mornings coming way too fast full of high energy kids and a low energy mama. With one eye open, I instantly was transported from our bed at home to the lake followed by the realization that the sun was actually out at sunrise. I popped out of my bed as if an infant was crying to be nursed, likely startling my husband and then I stood on our balcony with my camera to my face nearly threatening my retina’s while embracing the beginning of a new day through my dirty viewfinder. And then the sun went behind the clouds and quickly as it reared it’s glowing self from behind the mountain as if to only let me get that one glimpse. The one that sets my soul on fire and fills my insides with new air. The air I needed to keep going.

There are days where it’s far less than effortless to find something to photograph. It’s not everyday that the gratitudes flow through without any obstacles or egos to pierce. But it’s on these days that finding a picture worth taking is like taking a sledge hammer to the obstacles. Something as simple as morning light being music to the plants, giving them a dance floor on the walls or the device break and thumb sucking that she so desperately is wanting to let go of… that last little piece of being my baby girl clinging on for dear life. These are the days, these are the pictures, that remind me that it’s okay to see the simplicity in the day. To embrace the nothingness that some of these days are bringing. The beauty hides beneath the surface and once it’s exposed, it’s impossible to unsee.

Never in my life would I have expected to see this. I went on my walk today to see a drastic spike in mask wearing. Something that was mocked a week before and days later would be mandated. My walk was filled with gratitude, smelling everyone’s dinners seeping from the previously lonely houses, the fresh cut grass, the cardinals singing. Only to be interrupted by a sudden onset of grief that was find itself stubbornly lodged in my throat to only escape through tears. Grief found in the 6 feet of distance. Grief found in the masks.

Our life is divided, evenly, in light and shadows right now. It’s how it feels to me, anyway. In the same frame, there are intense gratitudes and joys met with fears and unknowns. They are so intertwined right it’s sometimes hard to even discern what it is I’m feeling. One thing I know is that we have a choice of where we want to stand. We don’t have a choice of what shows up in the frame, but you can decide if you want to stand in the light or the shadows. You even get to choose if the shadows fall behind you or in front of you. Choose.