Trusting the Process: Getting There From Here

Wednesday night a beautiful new song by Wilco was aired on Stephen Colbert’s Late Night. Seeing Jeff Tweedy and all the band members in their homes, most with partners and children, gave me an entirely new appreciation for my brother’s favorite band. Tell Your Friends is set up on Bandcamp as a fundraiser for chef José Andrés’ enormous relief efforts through his World Central Kitchen. Wilco’s song perfectly captures the feeling of appreciation for our closest personal connections during this time of physical distancing. Never before have the telephone, snail mail and virtual meant to reach certain others mattered as much to so many.

The song can be streamed from a link in this Rolling Stone article which includes additional links. Tweedy also recorded an acoustic version of Jesus, Etc. for the Colbert show. I so appreciate the power of these Zoomed and live-streamed concerts meant to reach through to us and simultaneously affect change. Leave it to Wilco to do this so well. 

We are experiencing Pandemic Time in separate realities through unique lenses. After two months I seem to have turned a corner in how it feels for me.  As I move from engagement with one thing to another, one completion or ebb to resolve or not (considering the weather or the presumption of another day), time rolls on without additional layers of external demands placed upon it. All these years later the fluidity of child and young adulthood time has returned. Sounds of cars may be whizzing past, but my own world has stilled, allowing me to reground in a continual present.

In Pandemic Time maybe it’s OK not to be frantically producing, not to be setting increasingly higher expectations and demands on a self conditioned to being judged by the outside world. It may be possible to reassess life itself when assumptions have been upended and people in every kind of situation are re-imagining their own ways forward. We are experiencing and/or observing both the best and the worst of human behaviors. The flaws within our social, financial and political systems have been exposed. How will we personally and collectively grow from this Time Out and reemerge into healthier and more sustainable states of being?

I didn’t watch much television as an  adult, nor did I have time to see Oprah Winfrey, or even read the majority of the books she recommended on her famous list. Today, however, I watched a 53 minute-long interview between Oprah and Gary Zukav (author of the Dancing Wu Li Masters and Seat of the Soul, among others), that occurred three years ago. Maybe the message of their conversation, interlaced with snippets from previous ones, may be heard and understood even better during the pandemic. Michael A. Singer and Tami Simon, of Sounds True produced another helpful interview, Resilience and Surrender in Challenging Times. Singer offers advice for those having a range of difficulties, and explains larger ways to consider what is happening.

Resilience takes many forms. My favorite Amplifier Foundation poster, Ernesto Yerena’s beautiful artwork honoring Lakota native activist Helen Red Feather, hangs framed at the entryway to my studio. It reads “We the Resilient Have Been Here Before”. I chose this image years back to remind myself of my own resilience throughout life so far, and of the work there is still to do, perhaps with a deeper appreciation. May we all  become resilient enough to help create a future based in the kind of soulful connections we value most. May the world that arises Post-Pandemic be a better place than the one so dreadfully harmed by our collective mistakes, and may that harm not be beyond repair. Let’s remember to tell our friends, “This is going to end. Oh, and I needed you. Oh, and I love you. I want to hold your hand when I see you again.”

Stay safe and well. 

©2020 Janet Maher