Month: June 2020

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One Giant Leap

When I peeked into the bedroom, a pair of deep brown eyes in a furry face stared back at me. From a much higher elevation than usual.

“Blake?”

“He jumped up,” Heather said smiling, as 85 pounds of English Labrador curled into her on the mattress of our bed.

This was big. And not just because of the sheer canine mass involved.

It’s been a long time since Big Blake managed to fly.

Mind you, in his younger days, Blake would leap for the bed about as regularly as he’d raid the trash, and with fewer emergency vet visits involved. If both of us happened to be there, he’d happily land among us like a moose onto a parade float, exultant in his accomplishment even as he inadvertently crushed anything nearby. If one of us had briefly gotten out of bed for any reason – to visit the bathroom, to get a book, to check on Missy – then the spot would be claimed by a furry black-and-white mountain range, requiring contortions, pleas and the liberal applications of snack food to alter the terrain by even an inch.

But that’s been a while. A 14-year-old dog’s knees just don’t have the spring that they used to. Medicine helps a bit. Steps get ignored. These days, Blake either gets a boost from one of us, or he stays grounded. Most of the time.

But sometimes motivation matters.

Like, say, the world suddenly exploding. Every night.

Blake hates the Fourth of July season. Hates it. The random booms, bangs and bursts that fill the air for two weeks before Independence Day and a week after it turn our big, bold hound into a nervous wreck. He’ll do what he can to find safe spots to curl up, places where he can feel less of the vibration while staying near people he trusts.

And if that means learning to fly again – so be it. Falling from a failed jump is scary. But maybe not as scary as the alternative.

You focus on the goal. And you do what you need to do to get there.

If ever there was a time of year to remember that, it’s this one. When an entire country took a leap into the dark and hoped.

I’ve said it before: the American Revolution was not exactly made for Hollywood. Sure, sometimes you’d get a Saratoga or a Yorktown, a battlefield victory to evoke cheers and celebrations. But most of it? Retreat, evade and endure, with a healthy dose of “survive” on the side.

“We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather bed,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in the midst of all. And we weren’t. The daily victory was staying alive by any means necessary, whether that meant getting out of New York one step ahead of the British, abandoning the “capital” at Philadelphia, or hunkering down for a long winter of next-to-nothing at Valley Forge.

In a world like that, it’s easy to get impatient. Easy to lose sight of the long-term goal. Easy to forget that the discomfort and struggle has a purpose.

But when the world is exploding around you – in revolution, in fireworks, in pandemic – you do what you need to do to keep moving forward. Because falling back isn’t an option.

And there is a “forward.” However hard it is to remember sometimes.

“Yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory,” John Adams wrote. “I can see that the end is more than worth all the means.”

We’re in mid-leap. If we keep our focus, we will stick the landing.

Even if it means working like a dog to get there.

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Moment of Truth

Every actor can tell you about the nightmares.

I don’t mean the ones that confine themselves to the world of sleep, like showing up for an audition and discovering it’s opening night, or picking up a script and discovering that all the words have turned into Esperanto.  Dreams like that are part of any high-stress situation – after all, how many of us have had the Final Exam Dream™ years after graduation?

No, these are the nightmares that turn into reality. A set that falls on you from behind. A prop that disintegrates in your hand. A costume that goes missing mid-way through the show. The best ones turn into “war stories” years later, proof that the show must go on. But there’s always the fear of the worst. The one that breaks you.

Long ago, the worst happened to Sir Ian Holm.

That’s when the freeze hit.

It sounds unthinkable now. To be honest, it sounded unthinkable then. When Sir Ian – who passed away Friday at the age of 88– took the stage in 1976 for “The Iceman Cometh,” he was already a respected actor, even a Tony winner. But all at once, the gears locked midway through the show… and one of the worst cases of stage fright on record set in.

“Here I am, supposed to be talking to you … there are you, expecting me to talk,” he remembered telling the audience in his memoirs. He fumbled his way past the actors, off stage, and all the way to the dressing room, where he was found curled in a fetal position unable to return.

That could have been the end.

Actors go to a strange place – an intersection where illusion meets reality, where the personal ties to the universal. It’s a beautiful bridge, but it can be a fragile one. And when it breaks, there’s suddenly nowhere to go but down.

Most of us know the feeling, I think. Even if we’ve never set foot on a stage.

And that’s because most of us have been at a moment where life completely fell apart.

The loved one that was lost.

The perfect health that suddenly wasn’t.

The job that went away.

The world that changed into something unrecognizable.

It may have come without warning or with a “check engine” light that went ignored for years. Either way, it’s devastating, and not just because of the crisis itself. As I’ve said before, we like to believe that we’re in control of life – that we can make plans, anticipate problems, set ourselves up for a good present and a better future.

When we’re reminded of how little control we really have, it hits hard. It’s terrifying.

And the scariest part is facing the question “What next?”

Are we just the circumstances that came before us, breaking when they’re shattered, melting when they’re dissolved? Or is there something more that can emerge and grow?

I’ve had to take that look at myself. Maybe you have, too. It’s not comfortable. But in that place of truth, when we stand stripped of what came before, possibility can be born.

It doesn’t have to be the end. Just an end. And therefore, a beginning as well.

Sir Ian certainly found it so.

It was years before he ever stepped on a stage again. But he rebuilt his bridge on the screen. From “Chariots of Fire” to “The Fifth Element,” from “Alien” to “The Lord of the Rings,” he won over entire generations who had never known him through anything but the movies. And whether he was a determined track coach or the legendary Bilbo Baggins, the truth of who he was and what he had to say shone through.

The freeze didn’t have to be fatal. For him. Or for us.

That’s a dream worth holding on to.

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The Great Escape

It sounded like the checklist for a bank robbery. Masks on. Remember how we practiced this. Get in, get out, go home.

“Are you ready?” I asked Missy.

“Y-yeah!” The cloth hid her grin but her eyes were bright.

And with that, we crossed the street to the comic book store. Our first (extremely brief) foray downtown since the Great Stay-at-Home was underway.

For Missy, it may as well have been a lottery win.

Regular readers may remember that when the world went into lockdown, our developmentally disabled ward went into frustration. Missy doesn’t talk a lot but she loves being around people, the extrovert’s extrovert who’s happiest in the middle of a dance floor, or a crowded restaurant, or a knock-em-down day at the bowling alley. She’s never forgotten a face, so any trip around town tends to produce a “Hey you!” and a wave as she works her way over, while I quickly try to remember if this is an old friend of hers or someone who’s about to become a new one.

So as you can imagine, COVID-19 has been her personal Lex Luthor. Only without the cool gadgets and shiny green rocks.

No restaurants. No crowds. Nothing beyond the walls of home, really, since with her disabilities she’s considered part of the “vulnerable “ population. And with her favorite businesses and weekly activities closed, there wasn’t anywhere to go.

I can hear some of you nodding your heads. Yep, familiar situation. A lot of folks were in the same boat – they just couldn’t share crew space.

That’s not easy. Especially for the most social folks among us who need a visit, a hug, a change of scenery the way that some of us need oxygen or water.

And it’s one reason why we’re finding re-opening the world to be a lot harder than shutting it down.

If you are or have been a parent – Happy Father’s Day, by the way! –  you know what I’m talking it about. Saying “NO” is frustrating, but clear. Saying “Yes, we can, if …” is a lot harder. That usually means conditions and rules and promises. And promises are easy to make but hard to keep in the heat of the moment. Of course I’ll walk the dog if we get one! Sure I’ll clean my room before going out!

We mean well. But we get excited. We want to hurry things along.

And in a situation like this, where careful steps are needed, that over-eagerness can trip things up fast.

The good news is that we’re still in a place where careful steps can work. Where they have been working. Where thinking about what we do before we do it can make a big difference.

With Missy, that meant practicing regularly with her mask, making sure she could keep it on, and using her wheelchair when we finally went out for real to reduce the chance of wandering.

With us as a society, it means continuing to look out for each other. To not just focus on the stuff we want to do, but to learn and practice the things we need to do, in order to make sure that we all get through this.

It’s easy to get impatient. But if we keep it doing right, even the small victories become a big deal. And the big victories come that much closer.

Thank you to everyone who’s been doing it right. Who’s given us this crack in the door. Together, we’re making life just a little more normal.

For Missy, that’s an excitement that nothing can mask.

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The Land Outside Time

As Heather watches social media, she’s starting to get a sense of satisfaction. Mixed with more than a little déjà vu.

“So is today Blursday?” “No, it’s Blendsday.”

“Longest … month … ever.”

“You guys, I just missed a call because I forgot it was Friday.”

On and on they come. An endless stream of quarantine-laden quips, comments and memes, all on the same subject: time has stopped. Or lost all meaning. Or slowed to a pace where you can feel continents drifting.

For most of us, it’s a new reality.

For Heather, it’s yesterday. Whatever day that was.

“Now they get it,” she told me. “Now they know what it’s like.”

For those who joined the game late, Heather is chronically ill. OK, that doesn’t really go far enough. Heather is a walking encyclopedia of chronic conditions, who once inspired a doctor to call in his intern for the appointment because he was never going to see another situation like this. Crohn’s disease. Multiple sclerosis. Ankylosing spondylitis. At one time, endometriosis. The list goes on and on, in a list of melodious-yet-poisonous syllables that have brought neighbors to bewilderment and spell-checking programs to tears.

Life has gone on. It’s had to. But it goes on in different ways and follows different rhythms than most of the world. Or at least, it used to.

With the descent of COVID-19, the gap has narrowed significantly.

Now others walk the path she knows so well and begin to learn the itinerary.

There’s the loss of time when you haven’t been able to leave the house for a while. The calendar turns into a map of the Great Plains, a featureless expanse devoid of landmarks, where one stretch of the road looks much like another.

There’s the uncertainty in making plans. Today’s intention may turn into tomorrow’s frustration, whether it’s due to a flare-up or a new emergency restriction imposed by executive order.

There’s the persistent watch for any medicine that might make a difference, reinforced by the knowledge that none of them are as simple as aspirin. They’re expensive, they’re in limited supply, they’re not guaranteed to work, and they come with a long list of side effects that can be as dangerous as the disease itself.

Most of all, there’s the constant background awareness that health is not a given. That you could become sick at any time without warning. And that if you do, there is no cure.

It’s fatiguing. Frustrating. Maddening at times.

And now, it’s everyday life. For most of us.

Which means there may at least be a cure for the most maddening aspect of all. The part that Heather calls “compassion fatigue.”

I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth revisiting. As a society, we’re not used to serious illnesses that don’t kill somebody but don’t go away. We want resolution. We want answers. We want to be able to think about something else for a while.

So when a friend or loved one reveals that they have a long-term condition, the first result is amazing compassion. You get offers of help, notes and calls, little bits of thoughtfulness just when you most need them.

But then – nothing changes. And people get tired. “I’m so sorry, how can I help?” slowly turns into an unspoken “Do you STILL have that?” It’s almost a resentment: how dare you stay sick and remind us that life isn’t always so wonderful?

No one can be Saint Francis for 24 hours a day. I get it. No one’s asking for constant mothering. Just for understanding.

And maybe, just maybe, that understanding will be a little easier to come by now.

Most of us are lucky. We will get to routinely leave the house again. We will be able to resume normal lives, dispel the fear, restart the world we know.

When it happens – don’t forget how this felt. Keep hold of that memory for the sake of those still caught between ticks of the clock.

Long after social distancing goes away, there will still be a distance that needs closing. Use the memory of now to build that bridge.

I know Heather will appreciate it. And many like her.

See you next Blursday.