This—for the time being—is my new work space. I have done what we’re all doing and temporarily moved everything to the shelter of home, to navigate new daily patterns and this shift in priorities we’re all trying our best to figure out.
It is April 2020, and we global citizens are in the middle of the Covid 19 pandemic lockdown. Just for the record.
My work table at home sits in front of this print which I made for my 100 Days / Words To Live By project. I face outwards into a light, spacious room, view through the window to lovely blue sky, plants along the top of my shelf which are getting more attention than usual and looking lush. All my sewing kit which I usually play with here is put to one side to make way for the tools and books of my working life and I’m trying to fill this corner with as much serenity as I can — a sort of refuge from the world — and when the jitters strike, I go for my daily walk, plant seeds, dig some soil. Breathe in and out. Or I pull the sewing kit out again and make a set of NHS scrubs for a doctor.
I have a lot to be grateful for, and make an effort to acknowledge that every day, sometimes ten times a day.
But it is proving so hard to pin down much at the moment. Focus is scattered, and deep work elusive. That doesn’t mean the ideas have stopped flowing – in fact the opposite is true! Some days I feel as though I‘m helming a big ship loaded with a full cargo of plans, except someone spilt beer on the map and there are sandbanks to navigate in every direction. Things are falling overboard and this choppy, fast moving stretch of water is sweeping them away out of reach. Can I catch up with them?
Today, this week, it feels tricky to pin down a clear vision that I’m working towards, so I’m leaning back on these ‘words to live by’ today, probably tomorrow, and forever, because despite everything unknown and impossible to grasp, I have a sense of conviction that these words are true and about one of the only reliable things I know when nothing else makes sense.
Permission to not feel sure today. Permission to be overwhelmed with ideas and possibilities, and helpless in the face of all that. Permission to accept that stepping back from the busyness of our world as it was a few weeks ago means coming home to roost quietly with ideas that sometimes whisper too softly to be heard when the world is full of noise, but it turns out, not at the moment. And permission to raise a hand to say, “Me too,” when someone else talks about being too distracted to figure out how to make it all happen this afternoon.
It will all work out in time.
Love IS the answer. Let’s start there.
{Today’s Soundtrack: Bill Evans – Peace Piece}