Coronavirus is Our Experience, Like It or Not

Whoa, I need to get it together. Looks like I haven’t posted in over a year, which is crazy since puhlenty has been happening! How many wood-turned bowls have I made since my last blog? (Lots—and thank goodness they’re looking better and better!)

At this moment, no news competes with the pandemic affecting the world. COVID-19, a coronavirus, is threatening the health of everyone and yet little is known about it or when/if there will be a remedy. In response the world is shutting down! “Social distancing” and “flattening the curve” mean thousands of businesses are sending employees home to work remotely, families are ransacking grocery stores and isolating, schools have announced month-long closures and most events across the globe are being cancelled. People are dying by the thousands! Every industry is affected and the stock markets have crashed.

What seems the plot for a doomsday movie is shockingly real.

It feels as though there is little anyone can do besides lay low and try to dodge infection or infecting others. Those who are 60 or older, especially any with medical issues that already exist, know to avoid exposure, because they are most vulnerable to the virus’ effects.

The financial ramifications around the planet are dire.

Life, though, has a way of going on, even in the face of craziness and loss, doesn’t it? It won’t stop for most, even during what verges on worldwide panic.

My update may feel a little trivial… but the timing is surely providential.

Next month, my year of planning (and daydreaming) will end as I load up my very specific backpack with very specific items that my research says will help sustain me during five months of hiking along a western trail that stretches from the border of Mexico upward to Canada. I must admit it seems a great time to retreat into nature, far from cities and the petri dish of society.

Yes, I’m going to walk a very long way, hour after hour, day after day, despite it being an unfathomable struggle. I’m told it will also include unparalleled joy!

Sometimes I’ll stop in a town and inhale a burger or three. I’ll bathe. I’ll wash my one outfit. I’ll prop up my feet and air out my toes.

Then I’ll find my way back to the Pacific Crest Trail and continue putting one foot in front of the other. You can follow my journey here.

At times I feel the need to conjure a reasonable explanation for why I feel compelled to do such a thing, but in truth it’s simple: I just want what the trail offers.

I want to move forward.

It’s what we do, anyway, right? Life is meant to be a verb. Even if we have a setback, whether it be sickness, loss or just a funk, eventually we find our way from the couch to our feet. We move on.

Of course, that’s not always easy.

I’m pretty sure easy is not why we’re here. Well it is and it isn’t… and that’s a big deal.

Hang on and I’ll explain.

A few years ago, I woke up with what felt like sudden clarity about “why we’re even on this earth.” Sure I’ve been in church my whole life and have led my own children and quite a few girls toward faith through their school years. I’ve tried to pour wisdom into them, since lawd knows confusion trips up all of us as we try to grow into our best selves. Yet I found that even I have been perplexed about why God would bother to create us. Truth is we’re a helluva hassle. So why on earth would we be worth that?

It hit me and I was awakened that day with a solid answer fully formed:

We’re here to Experience.

Not just experience, but EXPERIENCE! We share this strand of life and what we do affects each other, though we’re given free will to make our own choices. This free will thing is the game changer. What better way for God… and ultimately us… to Experience every possible variation of everything there is to experience… through each other… without controlling ANY of it??

You don’t even have to believe in a Supreme Being to recognize how fascinating that would be! Through God… through this force of LIFE that connects us all… everything is shared and through each other everything is Experienced.

(It’s why we should care what’s happening to people we don’t even know.)

So no experience is unworthy and every single one has value… whether easy, difficult, heart wrenching, uplifting, trivial, scandalous, inspirational, detached, unwise, inventive… no matter what.

We’re never truly alone in whatever it is we’re experiencing.

I find that thought… who can say for sure what’s true… to be empowering.

It means I can just be me.

Being goofy, disappointing and embarrassingly inept at times is perfect. How else would those particular experiences from my perspective be known? That goes for everything else I may be in a day. On some level every experience is shared with each other. My courage is your courage and your fear is mine. At the end of the day, we really are the same.

We are never insufficient; we fulfill our purpose, no matter who we are in any moment. I see that as an invitation to embrace and try to understand myself and each other with compassion. (Even if we don’t, hey, that’s another Experience!

It’s. all. valid.

Lest that convince someone they can be horrible, it’s a universal truth that consequence for all behavior, good or bad, is a given. (That, too, is Experience and it can suck.)

Brilliant!

Anyway. I’ve gone down some interesting rabbit holes pondering my theory/epiphany and these days it seems I’ll have plenty of time for more. I’ll even see some real rabbits along the way.

First things first, though. Next week I’ll have a doctor visit to follow up on a red flag in a recent lab test. That means going to a medical office in the midst of an international crisis that no one wants to lead to a medical office. It’s unlikely that what they’ll find will unveil bad news, but we always wonder, don’t we? The good news is I learned a long time ago to trust Life’s unfolding. I truly do.

My intention, each and every day, is to face the future with curiosity, hope and occasional wisdom. Do what you can to stay safe out there and remember to make the most of y(our) Experience!

After all, we’re in this together.  ♥