At Home

“Unacceptably high risk,” is what my doctor told me. When New York was slowly reopening, the latest COVID studies told people like me (I’m high risk because of a non-curable kidney disease that also affects my liver which all was a genetic mutation at birth) to continue to stay home. I asked my doctor if there was a chance it was overblown, if I was ok to resume “normal” things, and if there was a way to walk in wisdom and not just fear. 

She had no real answer. She told me to be in it for the long haul. To assess the risk of every outing. To consider who I want to see, and who I won’t see for awhile. 

And so, while it feels like everyone else’s life has resumed some normalcy, I feel stuck in Groundhog Day. Maybe it’s that familiar fear of “Is everyone hanging out without me?” and the reality is, yes. Yes, they are. 

My days move molasses slow. Even with two kids and homeschooling and gardening and emailing and preserving, I still feel like I’m in a time warp. To be totally honest, it’s hard to not slip into a depression. The kind that no one notices because who is around to see it? The kind that can be covered up with exclamation points and gifs in a text. The kind that doesn’t have words to match it. Just a hollowness that carves out the joy when I’m not paying attention. 

And for what it’s worth, social media doesn’t help much either, does it? Between a world of hate and anger, grief and death, national headlines and private stories of loss, it’s a continual reminder that what we’re all “returning to” isn’t always beautiful either. I see the posts from people who say that COVID only seems to affect those with underlying conditions, “...so what’s the big deal?” I see those words and push back against the diseased organs in my own body, the ones that have decent function right now but COVID could kick them over the cliff edge and I wonder if that’s all I am to people. Just someone with underlying conditions. A likely statistic. “She was going to die anyway. She had underlying conditions.”

So I take those thoughts in tears to the Lord. To my husband. To the garden where the tiniest gourds grow on vines, surviving the scourge of squash beetles and powdery mildew. If they can outlast the disease, maybe I can too. Even if the risk is unacceptably high. Maybe the bigger battle I have here is against fear itself. 

I haven’t returned to church. I haven’t been back to the office. We’re homeschooling which means no school pick ups, drop offs. No more days of childcare so I can go work or write. Cancelled speaking engagements. The same day in and out. 

But also the daily dose of the same beautiful faces who I get to serve every day. New recipes. A garden full of growth. Music at 6am with coffee. No rush. Singing with my husband at 10pm with a little whiskey in a tea cup. Simple ease. Seeds collected from dried flower heads. Herbs hanging from the ceiling. Tinctures soaking in the cupboard. Lavender and sage and eucalyptus. Nina Simone and Glenn Miller and The Andrews Sisters. Beeswax candles and chocolate chip cookies and fresh sheets out of the dryer. I certainly feel pressed, but not crushed. Losing parts of myself and who I wanted to be and also finding new pages, places where the Lord is pushing and pruning and working as the ever-faithful gardener He is. 

I know we’re all in different places throughout all of this. I guess I just wanted you to know that if you’re waking up at 4am in a panic, or crying at home at 8pm on a Friday night, or if you’re not sure what’s next and that terrifies you too, I get it. I think we all need to remind each other that no one is handling any of this perfectly. Give grace like daily bread and seek grace like living water.