Just before the long weekend started I set an intention. I went as far as to write it down as a reminder in my phone, not trusting the looseness of an intention that lives only in my mind. The reminder reads: “Be deliberately and defiantly light-seeking and dwelling”.
Lately life has felt so heavy, weighted, cloaked in the drag of ongoing restriction, mask-washing, screen-viewing, world event drowning, and a need to tolerate so much without daring to expect relief. I have certainly felt myself languishing, with songs such as this getting embedded in my head for days on end. My lips have been relentlessly itching, a classic sign for me that I haven’t been metabolizing my feelings very well.
So finally, this past weekend, I embarked on an experiment. I set the intention and wrote the reminder. I decided that I could be the one to give myself relief by choosing lighter thoughts, observations and actions. It was an experiment of resistance against the pull downwards. For example, instead of letting myself fall into thoughts of how terrible it is that C spends hours on the iPad, I gave myself a break by defiantly reclaiming her screen time as ‘for the greater good’. She has a right to choose how she spends her leisure time! I am grateful that she has something that she can do quietly and independently! It felt like tricking myself in the best, most self-compassionate way. I also drank the wine after weeks of choosing not to, determined to have feelings of long weekend-ness. I spent hours doing nothing and letting the nothingness be a non-issue, just a way to be. It felt like a rebellion. I didn’t always succeed. Last night when I finally dragged myself out for some exercise and walked somewhat drudgingly through the drizzle I wasn’t feeling too ‘light’. I started to wonder if I could keep up the ruse.
Then today, with the announcement of B.C.’s “restart plan” I realized the difference between thought-policing myself into feelings of lightness and a genuine feeling of optimism and hope. I felt a joyful pang of celebration and shortly after, the tenuousness of this feeling. It has become harder as the pandemic has dragged on to retain the good feelings, or even to retain any of the deepest feelings, whether good, sad, bad. I remember early on going for walks and catching a glimpse of something like the closed York Theatre, tears instantly filling my eyes. The sight of a cyclist riding by at 7pm, hands off the handle bars so that he could join in the cheering with both hands. Instant tears. I was tender for a long time but now I feel hardened and wizened by the months, and certainly inured to any celebratory feelings.
It would have been so easy upon having my moment of genuine lightness this afternoon to read a few more tweets and opinions that veered into skepticism, doubt, and cynicism, but I refused. Defiant once more, determined to sink into these moments of genuine joy that have become so limited and fleeting. Slow it down, soak it up, take in the good, allow yourself this. Allow yourself the possibility of goodness within it all. There will be time again for disappointment, frustration, irritation, boredom and outrage imminently. I feel the lightness slipping away by the second, with every new opinion and counter argument I read about the restart plan. And yet, for several moments this afternoon it was there. I scrubbed the day’s masks with a little bit less resentment. I sat outside not just watching but encouraging C’s ‘just for the heck of it’ dancing and cheering. I smiled at folks who looked like they weren’t quite finding the light themselves. I dwelled in the genuine good, for a time.
Here is what I conclude after my weekend experiment and this afternoon’s daring celebration: it is possible and sometimes necessary to force the lightness, or will it to be through tricks of thought, but when we are fortunate enough that opportunities fall upon us to just notice the good and let it in, this is a gift not to be squandered. So I resolve, deliberately and defiantly to let the light in without resistance, because it has been a long time, and this sense of emerging feels like a triumph.
