COVID Courtship

COVID-19 has remade the world.

The luckiest among us are given the opportunity get quiet and clarify our values. Many of us are back at the drawing board of how we will make a living, and many companions, myself included, have begun to offer virtual connection options.

I’ve gotten to spend some time on the phone and pen palling, and I cannot describe my love! My chest feels warm and fizzy, my limbs feel energized, I feel my spirit leaping. We’re bonding on an emotional and intellectual level, and the growing excitement as we anticipate meeting in person gives me a heady swoon. There’s something sweet and scintillating, in this slow burn kind of way. It’s refreshing. We’ve become accustomed to a fast, almost immediate pace in many areas of life. I’m enjoying slipping into the slow down, it feels a bit anachronistic, almost Victorian. Some kind of demure blushing and profundity. There’s a growing conviction within me that we can take this opportunity to be re-sensitized. It reminds me of learning to appreciate and develop the palate for wine or coffee, or of savoring every bite, every visual detail, every presentational flourish of a tasting menu. With some presence, we can find all sorts of new flavors and textures we didn’t realize were lurking right under our nose.

Some thoughts:

HEALTH CARE WORKERS
The service of healthcare and front line workers right now is immense, and I'm not sure we will ever be able to thank or repay them enough. What they are enduring without adequate support and pay is devastating, and I know I am deeply fortunate that my loved ones are mostly out of harm's way. I want to commit to holding the sacrifice of healthcare and other front line workers in mind, and going forward, I want to commit to doing whatever I can to seek economic and health justice through activism, advocacy, and some kind of volunteering. One of my favorite quotes, from Dr. Cornel West, reads “Justice is what love looks like in public.” I’m feeling into the heavy weight of my gratitude, and as I do, I’m feeling into the call for right action.

INTROSPECTION 
Through the forced slow down and stillness, I find myself introspecting quite a bit these days. I'm getting in touch with a childlike flow, a way of just simply being in a way that feels cozy and replenishing. I’ve lived a life where I was forced to grow up fast and take care of myself in dire circumstances, and I say with honesty that while there has been pain, there has been the gift of being cracked open to transformation. I have been working at myself for years, at turns bridling and unbridling the wild horses within, but this moment brings a new layer of self-inquiry to the fold. I feel this to be a markedly healing time. I have no longer been able to over-function and busy myself with distractions. Instead, I am called to be in touch with the part of me that has longings and vulnerability and seeks nurturance above all else. My intuition tells me that this vulnerable part is also the part that contains my playfulness, my creativity, and my wonder. 

BALANCE AND EASE
Cultivating healthy inwardness has been a beautiful domestic flowering, like the humble phenomenon of a house plant, seeking the sunlight and warmth from the windows, rooting into a sense of place, finding symbiosis with its environment. It has been a time of finding balance between disciplined, enriching activity and self-soothing non-productivity. I'm learning that life balance is an active stance. It is about making a commitment to our values and priorities and with that, a willingness to adapt and adjust with self-compassion. Rigidity and force no longer feel cogent. Internalized, almost Taylorist industrial concepts of efficiency have lost their seduction. I’m more interested in feeding my soul and unfurling my gifts back into the world. My to-do list feels more painterly these days — more Cézanne than Mondrian — more suggestive and inspirational than admonishing. When I am tuned into authentic self-care, tasks that need to get done, get done, because they are for my current or my future self’s highest good. 

PARENTS AND CARETAKERS
There’s always a trade off, isn’t there? While I’m isolated and sometimes lonely at home, I am privileged to be able to make use this time for myself. As I imagine having a family of my own one day, I don’t take the sacrifice parents make lightly. Parenthood is the most demanding and selfless role we can choose, and I respect the parents right now doing their best with a severely disrupted support system. If you are a parent, I send you my gratitude and encouragement, and hope you can extend yourself some generosity at this time.

NEURODIVERGENCE
This has been a fortunate opportunity for me to slow down and take the time adjust to the recent revelation of my neuro-divergence. I found out a few months ago I've been unknowingly living and struggling with ADHD for my entire life. It was a watershed moment to finally have the language to describe why so much felt impossible. I’ve accepted and mourned the fact that the world wasn’t made for my brain, but with that acceptance comes the ability to find support. I'm currently in a process of rebuilding my self-esteem around executive functioning, sensory over-stimulation, impulse control, dyscalculia, organization, and time management. The pain of living with self-blame for a difference in capacity has eased up and been replaced by an openness to my difference. For the first time, I don't hate myself for an inability to reach a great "potential" that had every adult in my life scratching and shaking their head and my little child heart divided in confusion and self-recriminations of laziness. I'm not bad, just different, and I am learning to harness my difference as a gift.

PHYSICAL DISTANCE, SOCIAL CLOSENESS
I have been honored to witness and participate in this cultural re-evaluation of what it means to be social, what qualities of connection feel nourishing, what sustains us as social animals. It feels like a moment of collective awakening. Amongst my friends and family, I'm observing a massive revision of priorities. In the quiet, I'm learning how to listen carefully and hear that murmured longing inside that begs for connection and support. I'm learning how to heed to this desire. I'm learning to invest my presence ever deeper into phone calls and letters, to savor these moments and milk them for their fullness. And on my best days, when I'm grounded, I feel the reverberations of all this amplifying like a gong bath. I'm vibrating with the feeling of how truly supported and loved I am. I'm being subtly re-socialized, inside and out.


BUILDING STRENGTH
I look forward to carrying these new qualities into the sunlight. I see this as a time to build inward strength for the coming months and years, when we will all be called upon to contribute to a better world, advocate for one another, and share our gifts for the highest good. I truly believe we have the choice to transform this into an empowering experience. This is not without pain and grief, and some of us are taking unimaginable losses. I do not discount that, but I want to offer a perspective of hope - that we can survive, that pain is often our greatest teacher, and that if we can welcome the floods of attendant feelings and let them move through us, they will carry us ashore to truths we might not have found otherwise. 

TECHNO SOVEREIGNTY
I'm being given the opportunity to build more sovereign habits with my technology. I am continuing to cultivate a pattern of observance to how the news and social media effects my mood and adjust my behavior according. It’s a process, to be sure, and rigid rules don’t quite hold. But this guiding principle does: if it doesn’t empower me, its not worth my attention. I hope to emerge from this experience with a more rooted, aware, and flexible presence.

VIRTUAL OFFERINGS
I have been adoring my new virtual offerings of phone calls and letter writing. I have always known that connecting is my absolutely favorite aspect of being a companion. Connecting is the privilege and joy of my life. I feel brought back to the reasons why I was drawn to becoming a companion in the first place. I’ve had nothing but soul-enriching conversations. I’m nurturing friendships that may last for years to come, or at the very least will be supportive bridges toward the next phases of social organization. I'm in the process of discovering what kind of work balance I can sustain in this time - what ways of supporting myself that provide enough income to survive and yet also feel manageable and meaningful. It’s been thrilling to hatch ideas and try new things, and I’m immeasurably grateful for the friends bold enough to come along!

WHAT I’VE BEEN UP TO
I've been resting and processing, doing home workouts, yoga, practicing tarot, and reading, but most excitingly for me, I have begun a large drawing for my apartment! I have needed art for my walls since I moved in a few months ago, and as I get more in touch with my inner child in this phase of domesticity, I felt compelled to unroll a large sheet of drawing paper and get out my colored pencils. It's been therapeutic to draw while I listen to music, and I am elated to have a large splash of color in my home. I know it will feel deeply satisfying to complete it, and I hope this roll of creativity gains velocity. For years, YEARS I tell you, I have felt disconnected from my creative side. I can't express how amazing it feels to make something. In addition, I launched this blog and wrote a post about the life experiences that drew me to companionship. I willing continue writing. I have missed this form of exploration and feel delighted at building new creative habits and sharing writing with others. Another beautiful experience these days has been working with my friend, who is launching a business as an intuition coach. We have weekly calls, and the conversations have been a beautiful unfolding and stabilizing force. I'm learning I'm the kind of brain that encounters self-knowledge through conversing with a thoughtful listener — so in many ways I am reminded that the quality of my conversations determines the quality of my life.

In closing…

It felt necessary to launch a blog and and give you a deeper sense of myself during this remarkable time. I send you love, and virtual hugs, and a word of deep gratitude. To those that have booked virtual offerings, it helps me so much to have your support and willingness to try new things with me. I'm flattered, honored, and enjoying every minute of it.

Humanity adapts. We are resilient, creative creatures. We will make our way forward with new strengths and awarenesses to carry into the sunlight.

xx,

D