Sit. When you can't sit, write. Stay with yourself.

So often, the hardest thing I do all day is simply sitting down.

My husband and I have new rituals, built around our life during quarantine. Recently, we’ve made Monday night into Movie Night when there are no new Stephen Colbert or Trevor Noah videos on YouTube.

Last night, we watched “Sound of Metal," on Amazon Prime. The film plays like a documentary but isn't - it's a powerfully acted drama about a heavy metal drummer who suddenly goes deaf in the middle of a national tour. He's an addict and his girlfriend calls his sponsor, who finds him a place in a deaf community where he can learn sign language and adjust to this twist of fate. The only requirement is that he follow the rules. No cell phone, no contact with the outside world.

He hands over his car keys and checks in.

Trapped inside of himself by deafness, hemmed in by the restrictions of the monastic rhythms of this new community, he has trouble adjusting. So, the program director, sets him a task: Every morning, make coffee and take it up to the study, a monk's cell with a desk and a chair and a single window. “Go up there and sit," the director instructs. "When you can't sit, write. But stay." That's the whole assignment.

Sit. When you can’t sit, write. Stay.

"I wish I could do that every morning,” I say to Matthew.

"You do, he says.

"I should but I find a million reasons not to.”

"What reasons?, he asks.

"Dishes, checking Facebook. Organizing. If it gets really bad, I make a list. I run out to the store."

He nods. We watch the movie. They are doing sign language. I show Matt how to finger spell my name. A M Y.

"I am an addict, Matt says.

"So am I, I say.

"What are you addicted to? he asks.

"Food. Facebook. Doing the dishes.”

"Ah,” he says.

“What are you addicted to?” I ask him.

“Work, stress, speed…”

“Ah,” I say.

We watch the movie lead to its inevitable end.

“Good story arch,” Matt says.

Normally, I would correct his word choice. I don’t say, “It’s arc - not arch.” I am addicted to grammar, I think. I smile.

“It was,” I say.

---

The next morning, I got up before dawn. I made tea and I carried it to the window where I like to read and watch the sun come up over the farm across the road.

I picked up the book that I'd left here last night and sighing with pleasure, I opened the cover. On the very first page, I saw something that I wanted to share on Facebook.

I picked up my cell phone. One thing led to another. I started clicking through portals the way someone with OCD taps doorframes. Click, Instagram. Click, email. Click Click click click on the news summaries from the Times, the Post, the...

I looked up. The day was here - I'd missed the sunrise. The snow was bright. The winter light grey. I sighed. Another day of boredom, another day stuck at home.

My body flexed toward relief. I leapt to my feet. I was standing in the doorway, keys in my hand, on my way to the market when my eye fell on the book, resting open on the side table by my reading corner.

"Ah," I said. (out loud). I peeled off my coat, put my keys in my purse, my purse on its hook by the door.

I came to the window. I sat. When I couldn't sit, I wrote you this post.

——

And here is the poem that I found in that book.
It seemed the perfect offering for our passage through the winter’s dark

Monet Refuses the Operation, by Liesl Mueller
Read it today as you sit In the dark, trapped indoors by pandemic and snow. Read this poem and celebrate the miracle that is (always) also going on. Here’s a wee excerpt, to get you started.

Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.

I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see . . .

Go and read the rest. It’s lovely.

And when you come back, if you’d like to talk or workshop with me, these are my current offerings.

---

Photo by Sid Leigh on Unsplash

I wish you all the blessings of this beautiful time of year. Including the blessing of shortening days, the invitation into silent reflection.

~ Amy