Tag: pandemic

The Importance of Hugs

I never knew the importance of hugs until covid-19 kept us six feet apart. My hug-o-meter is on E. Running on fumes. Easily angered or on the brink of tears watching American Idol.

Yesterday, I graduated from Smith College. The commencement–a day of pomp and circumstance–took place outside my house on the deck. My husband set up a big screen TV to help give me the feeling of being at a real commencement. Soft breezes nudging my thin black gown.

Like many graduation ceremonies this May 2020, it was virtual. No picking up my sister at the airport. No making beds for my daughter and two granddaughters to stay a night or two. I felt un-tethered, texting them to make sure they didn’t miss the flash of my photo and name on the screen.

Names and faces flew by at record speed. No walking up the stairs and across the stage to exchange handshakes for well-deserved diplomas. No flashing cameras held by proud and teary parents. At the end, my husband videotaped me as I threw the mortar board up, into the backyard.

I felt the absence of my parents more deeply than the respective days they died. I’m 64. Still hoping they’re proud of me. Still wanting Mom to help me don my regalia. Maybe it was their spiritual presence that overwhelmed me with grief as I dressed in the bedroom alone before the big event. No hugs.

When the commencement ended, I ceremoniously moved my tassel from right to left. They never instructed us when to do so. I guess they assumed it would just be done. But we were watching from all parts of the globe at different times of the day and night. I felt disconnected. There was no patchwork of live faces on the screen–like on American Idol–with whom to share this rite of passage.

When the screen turned blue, we packed up wires and tissue boxes, went in the house, and watched TV. But not before I got a hug from my husband who said, “I’m so proud of you.”

Is covid-19 the 2nd coming?

On March 31, 2020, I wrote this in my journal:

This covid-19 virus has not even peaked yet. We have at least another four weeks of social distancing, which means businesses remain closed. This is going to be a game changer. I have to have F.A.I.T.H. and trust the Universe. (Float freely, Allow, Imagine desired outcome, Trust, Heal.)

On April 7th, I wrote this in my journal:

Yesterday, my husband was applying decal lettering on a police car in our driveway while the officer stood behind him, watching. I could see from the window that he (the officer) was not abiding by the obligatory 6 feet apart social distancing rule. I went outside and asked him politely, “Are you keeping 6 feet apart?”

He smiled with his baby face and took a couple steps back, but with the look of a teenager’s “whatever” attitude. It bothered me because he’s a first responder. He should be modeling correct practices, if not for himself then for others.

Anyway, apparently it stressed me out because I woke up this morning at 3 a.m. in a stressed panic. But I knew I had to snap out of it, so I took a couple of deep breaths, reminded myself that I’m not in control, nor can I predict the future. I tried to relax my body while I talked myself off the ledge.

Then a thought came to me: What if this virus serves as an opportunity for God/Spirit/Universe to clean house–not just Mother Nature doing a re-boot, but also God intervening to save our souls from ourselves. A second coming! Lol. What if this is “Jesus” coming back as a virus?!

It would be the perfect opportunity for walk-ins, spiritual beings who reincarnate into existing humans. Easily done if someone is feverish and out of it or in intensive care. Meanwhile, the elderly are dropping like flies. I don’t mean to be irreverent, but they had their lives and now a new dawn is coming that perhaps energetically they won’t resonate with. Maybe God is picking and choosing who gets to stay.

Maybe some with severe symptoms plead for their lives, vowing to change if He’ll let them survive. Maybe the virus is God’s way of saying, “Namaste, dammit!” I mean, we’re killing the planet, we’re killing each other, holding tight to our right to bear arms, all in the name of F.E.A.R. (False Evidence Appearing Real).

I believe we are capable of loving each other and this, our only planet. We don’t have time to fuck around! It shouldn’t take a crisis for us to change.