Tag Archives: survive2020

Choose Festivity

The Covid-shutdown shuffled around our income. In the transition, we find my husband now working most holiday mornings. It was not a change I would have lobbied for.

You see, I am an extrovert, and as an extrovert, I crave conversation, discussion, a rational witness to the work I am undergoing, a companion on the journey. When I am excited, I am elated. Along with being an extrovert, I have a choleric temperament, meaning, in familiar words, I am dramatic. When disappointment comes, I am crestfallen.

We have our traditions for Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day. Shoot, even Saturdays in winter now have traditions attached to them. Each tradition accentuates the rhythm in the lives of my children, giving them something to look forward to and a memory to hold onto.

“Remember how daddy always built a fire on cold Saturday mornings?”

“Remember how we always watched Miracle on 34th Street on Thanksgiving?”

I want to make sure they have plenty of “remember when’s.”

Things are fun. They are festive.

What happens to the extrovert whose festival day now includes a morning of normalcy, not festivity, when the husband is at work and the wife is home with the children who have not yet learned to gratify the needs of the extrovert, being themselves so demanding?

Choose festivity.

A spirit of festivity is a choice.

It does not require perfection.

It does not require a crowd.

The festival exists whether or not we participate in it. Why not choose to participate?

We can choose to allow each day to be just one more day, another day of diapers, dishwashing, laundry folding, earning the bread, taking out the garbage. Or we can access an internal locus of control, believing in our efficacy in a situation, and choose to make this day something special, something that aligns with what it actually is.

So stop working, start celebrating.

Even if my husband is gone for a few hours, bringing home the bacon, I need to stop cleaning and start being.

Rather than taking advantage of the extra time, as if the festival had not started yet, I need to access the traditions and do them in a new way, reapplying the trial and error that cemented them as our traditions and find a new and adjusted routine.

We should plan ahead to free up the busiest hands on that day. It is not festive if the mother is slugging away at the dishes while everyone else relaxes.

Limit television and screen time, stay off social media. In fact, eliminate any technology that is not communal – so if you like a Wii game – do it as a group with spectators (not everyone has to play but be present), if you watch TV, do it as a group, the exception the rule being the posting of a few Instagram pictures because those communal pajamas look sharp.

When the heads of the house choose to be festive, the rest will fall under the spell.

Our kids usually need a pep talk the day before to remind them not to lose it in the afternoon when their excitement has exhausted them. Knowing I will not be able to fully unleash the power of my extroversion until later in the morning, I probably need a pep talk too.

Take photos in the morning when the kids (and everyone) is more excited.

Clean the day before, or let it go entirely. Festivity is not about perfection.

Drinking might feel like keeping spirits bright, but if you get so sloppy that you can’t dance at the end of the night.

2020 is a drag.

Choose festivity.

The things that make us Human

I felt the pain creep into my hips and back. In the afternoon, finding a quiet moment, I lay down on the wall-to-wall beige carpet in our living room prepared to pull this leg and that against my chest, so many seconds at a time, following the instructions from a physical therapist.

Right leg. Left leg. I hear a squeal behind me.

A light-weight stomping of hand after knee pitter-patters its way across the room. Before I know it, the infant has come for me. I brace myself, pull my hair into protective position and prepare to engage.

She goes first for the hair, as I anticipated. I win that round. But then, the little heathen strikes for my face. My forearms shield me. Opening my eyes, I see her press her face between my arms, seeking to worm her way through my fortress where she can lick or bite my nose or do whatever it is a ten-month-old wants to do to her mother in this vulnerable and reduced position.

She shrieks with glee.

I shriek with fright knowing I am done for.

I call for help to those idle witnesses who think, “maybe someone else will help that lady,” and watch from across the room, pretending to do their school work.

“Help me! Help me!” I cry. Now, the baby is on top of me, pressing that chubby face down into my personal bubble.

They rush to my side, finally, but it is too late. She weasels through. She slimes me.

Her droplets smear across my cheek. It is finished.

I crawl out from under her power to wipe away the aftermath of the spit-sport. Even I have my limits.

Face to face. Droplets. Close proximity. Physical contact.

We do not just miss the old way of living because we are anxious for the crisis to end, impatient to the waiting to be over, exhausted by the grip of fear, or frustrated by the yo-yo of moving tier to tier.

We want to return to normal because, in the effort to be safe, we have sacrificed good, normal things that are part of being human. Seeing each other face to face, standing in close proximity, eating together. Those uniquely human things are the building blocks of relationships. Those relationships form families and friendships. The proximity of these little societies builds community. All this is part of the core of our being human.

And we put it on hold while experts searched for answers.

But I am afraid for the future. I fear for those already struggling with depression, loneliness and isolation as Thanksgiving passes and an already chilly winter sets deeper in when we know those already prone to it are likely to experience a rougher time around “the holidays.”

I am afraid of what will happen if we do not find creative ways to reach out to each other, those we know and those we do not know, the neighbor who is my friend or the neighbor I would never know because of our differences if it weren’t for the fact that we are neighbors.

I fear we are going to lose something better than our physical health, something that was built, not just by my effort or the effort of those I am in relationship with, but built by the many persons and many relationships that collaborate to form this community.

Therefore, I want to make an extra effort to find those ways, ways that are not illegal or prohibited right now, to attempt to hold community together, to hold onto what was built before me and what I pray will come after me.

They did it with the Hughson Community Thanksgiving Dinner, feeding 570 bodies with turkey and stuffing.

They are doing it again with Christmas baskets. I cannot be one of the 12 volunteers in their reduced-size group, but I can make a flyer to promote the Toy Drive on December 5 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Hughson United Methodist Church.

I can say to you that turning outward through service is a protective factor against depression. I can tell you that working together towards a common goal helps to heal division. I can ask you to please, even amid sheltering-in-place, following whatever protocols come out this week and next, that there are still things we can do, not just to feel normal, but to feel human again.