Last week I wanted to write to you about the banana bread, but the story kept falling apart. I love moments where you gotta be there, and also I’m frustrated by moments where you gotta be there. Magic and anguish cannot be captured out of time, but also there are some ordinary moments that feel as though they defy the odds as well. Such was the story about the neighbor who mistook the box containing my tiny adult skeleton, a study aid for my anatomy class, for the banana bread his grandmother baked and mailed.
The sheepish disappointment on his face when he knocked on our door, asking if we had his banana bread? It was priceless.
But also? That was the story. That one-liner basically summed it up, and the dozens more words felt out of place for a latte. A little meh. It felt small and plastic and cheap, just like this awful skeleton.
Something about the past few weeks has felt profoundly different and wonderfully familiar. While it could be the return to academic study, or my Friday return to climbing after an eight-month, vertigo-induced hiatus, or the fact that I deposited and retrieved my person at the airport this week, I don’t actually think it’s those things.
It feels in more than a few small ways like an alternate version of March 15th, 2020.
A version where the pandemic passed over us.
When the pandemic closed Colorado, I was in a canyon off the grid, somewhere west of Grand Junction sleeping in the back of the truck. The Thursday prior I had led a Learn to Teach Yin training in Colorado Springs, and ducked out of a book signing with Glennon Doyle by passing my ticket to a friend. The plan had been to teach twelve students all day, attend a book signing, leave home at 9pm, and drive until we needed to sleep, resuming in the morning.
With the book signing off my plate, we left earlier, sleeping outside of Grand Junction on the east side Thursday night before diving off grid Friday.
There were stars and a campfire, star-gazing and back-of-truck Earl Grey tea drinking, as I was off coffee. Had been for six months. I was strong - could do six pull-ups in a row - and felt confident with my adorable plan for the year.
As we drove up and out of the canyon and closer to the tendrils of the internet, the pings started. They always do, as each person’s device is infused with the messages that have been lurking in the ether.
But. They kept pinging.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we’re cancelling yoga this weekend, just to be safe.”
”Appointments are cancelled this week, out of an abundance of caution.”
Every message was broad and timid, touting caution as though the sender was slightly embarrassed by their decision.
Is this how it starts?
We drove home, cutting the trip short, in case they closed the interstate, or the powers-that-be shut down county-to-county travel. I remember heading to the grocery store two blocks from our home and purchasing the week’s groceries plus a few added items, and an absurd bundle of twin veggies. Two cucumbers. Two bunches of bananas. Two boxes of blueberries. Two by two, I loaded my pandemic ark and had the thought.
This is how it starts.
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