July 15, 2020

The time is speeding by, which it does constantly now, regardless of what’s happening in the world around us. I’ve remarked upon this phenomenon a lot in my essays because it’s, well, remarkable. I remember the days of childhood, vaguely, mind you, but I recall being so focused on the day that it seemed to last at least forty-eight hours instead of twenty-four.

And maybe that’s the secret. To slow time, you need to focus on each individual moment as if it is the most important moment you’ve ever experienced. Now, you likely wouldn’t get much done, as there would be no looking ahead, but then that’s a perfect description of what childhood was like, isn’t it?

One of the reasons I write these essays every week is to offer up thoughts and experiences which I hope will connect with some of my readers. We are all in this together, this life thing. And because while yes, humans are individuals and there is no other you, on another level, being human means that there are experiences and emotions that are not at all unique.

That’s a source of great hope for me, personally.

And I had one of those moments recently when I read an email from a good friend. She is also an author, and lives in California. She told me she was in revisions for the manuscript she’d submitted, and that her editor was telling her that every single one of her authors has been having creative difficulties during this time of the Coronavirus. Every single one.

Do you know I felt a great sense of relief reading that? Then another friend, when I was commenting about this had five words for me: “these days, writing is brutal.”

Brutal, yes that about sums it up well.

I submitted a manuscript last week, and I know right now it’s going to need a revision. Thank God for my Beta reader, Angie, for pointing out what should have been glaringly obvious to me at the time, but that just…slipped through the old fingers, or the old brain, not sure which.

I don’t care who you are or what you do in life, these strange and upsetting times are hard. They are hard for all of us. And it occurs to me that something else one of my friends said to me should be said to everyone.

You have to be kind to yourself.

 You have to give yourself permission to take a day off, to blow off steam, to do whatever it is you do that gives you a bit of a sense of relief and comfort. Listen to music (maybe even at full blast), play a game, read a book, binge watch a television series. Sleep late. Take a nap.

Do something that makes you feel good, even if that “feelgood” only lasts for the moment. Sometimes it’s those moments we remember, and that we bring back to mind to help us through the next one that feels grim and laborious.

I’m writing this on July 14th. It’s our 48th wedding anniversary. We said the words to each other, first thing. It is now an hour past first thing. And right now, my husband is outside, finding one of his happiest of happy places.

Out our back yard and on the small street that runs there, a county crew is cutting down and mulching brush in preparation of redoing that road. They’re going to rip it up, install water and sewage lines, and repave it. From David’s earliest memories, whenever there was local construction or especially road work, that’s where he’d be. His mother once told me that even when he was six or seven and otherwise never still, he could sit still for hours watching them.

I can think of no better way for him to start this day, especially, than to stand out and watch the men as they work with their big machines and making lots of noise.

Find your happy, people! We all need that now more than ever.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury