The Eggshell Conundrum
It’s hard to believe how much I have gotten used to the sound of crunching eggshell shards under foot. “It’s the new norm,” people have been saying. I live in a state 90% vaccinated against Covid-19. Yes, there are those who refuse scientific data, and in all honesty, it took me awhile to trust the different forms of disinformation parading along political agendas. Could I wait this out? Take a lot of herbs? Vitamins? Become even more of a hermit than I usually am?
My Capricornian stubbornness can really dig in—almost, at times, to the detriment of self-care. I sat with all of it, read what I could, then went to the best source I could: my best friend’s pathologist husband. He has the way in to actual and real research, this is his job. “You had the vaccine choice at your hospital, did you get it, did you hesitate at all?” I asked him. NO hesitation, 100% of the hospital’s doctors got vaxxed. I’ve survived childhood vaccines just fine, and I have lived a healthy life based on a lot of self-care routines. Would this one be any different?
But….data keeps changing, variants keep coming. New norm? Who knows! The volume of the eggshells crunching has become detrimental to my emotional and mental health. When do I roll the dice in a calculated risk? No, I do not want to get sick at all….so I have not been dancing, have not been held in an embrace, by friends or lovers. My balance tips off center more and more as time goes on and life doesn’t seem to change at all. If I can’t travel, dance, hike, play music, laugh, love…..what is the point of life? If I get sick, not too badly, by moving back towards those acts of joy and self-love, am I any worse off? Hence, the conundrum!
I hunkered in for almost two years, I walked the eggshell path, masked, caught up on what I wanted to do that did not involve other people. I retired from my business, invested in making my house a passive income resource, finished hiking my New England Hundred Highest peak list. I sat outside with friends, six feet apart and gestured air hugs. When will this ease up? At some point, I knew, I would need to step off the eggshells, take a deep breath, and take a navigated and calculated leap. But in the meantime, I was able to start teaching again, everyone vaxxed, everyone masked, but me. I teach intro woodworking classes to women, and I need to keep them safe. They need to see me talking to them. We all kept walking on those damn eggshells.
My straw bale home in Vermont. The two story house portion is now rented out for passive income, and behind the glass windows of the entry room, my new studio apartment winters over, water drained, antifreeze in plumbing traps, electricity turned off. We all need some winter hibernation at times, and while I play, it rests in waiting until my return in early April.
But.... so it is, I decided to leap. I planned my return to travel, to dance, to seeing and hugging far away friends. My dice allowed for plans B, C, and D. Maybe even E. I wanted to take a step, don my dance boots and feel my way through the muck. I prepared to drive south to Texas, Louisiana, and points in between. I bought my tickets to fly to Merida, Mexico from Austin. I felt ready to roll the dice! And with something to say now, I return to this blog, to see what it wants from me, if anything. Welcome to my winter 2022 on the road!
Austin Touch
We have learned to smile with our eyes, our masks covering the toothy gestures of social connection. Tentatively, we have taken off the masks when outside, standing apart. But here in Texas, I have learned from dance friends who live around Austin, most folks have gotten vaxxed. I have one dance pal who defiantly did not. He has his story, his ready anecdotes, his decisions for Ivermectin over vaccine. He swears he has had Covid twice, took the odd cocktail drugs, and survived just fine. Another friend has had it out with those standing in line at grocery stores, “I wear my mask to protect you, buddy, but you don’t seem to care about me! Step back, you are too close to me!” People want to move on, and we do so as we feel ready. We put aside the weight of what we have been carrying.
I was in Austin for less than a week before I flew to Mexico. I chose my dance partners as carefully as I could, starting with friends who have been vaxxed, going to dance halls with live music but few dancers. We had to answer. There was no time for a philosophical discussion about vaccines, science, and political agenda. Should I dig out my mask? Will it ultimately save me, all on it’s own? I rolled the dice sooner than I was ready. I got up and danced and hoped I did not catch any viral germs before my flight to Mexico. It was post holiday, when we all expected Covid spikes to happen. I sure didn't want to get sick and spend my Mexico time in bed recovering.
But, to be held in an embrace on the dance floor, to have my hand in someone else’s hand, to feel another’s energy entwining with my own. Tears come out from everywhere in me. Everywhere! My body, my heart, my soul, all wept Had I forgotten what it felt like? Had the eggshell crunching drowned out all my memories? Can this euphoria protect me…as another kind of vaccine?
I am a sponge, a bottomless pit, a black hole. The joy pushes out the tears, and the muscles in my legs sigh a relief I have not felt in close to two years. It was March of 2020 when I fled Louisiana post-Mardi Gras: news of a serious coronavirus was entering the US. “This is going to be really bad,” one of my Louisiana dance friends commented one day. I left early, I had to buy sanitizing wipes since hand sanitizer flew off the shelves. As did toilet paper. I bought some when I stopped for gas in Alabama. I was prepared to hunker in for a few months, let it all pass by. But we all know a few months wasn't our reality.
Back in Austin, spiking down, I dance without the eggshells. I am a sponge. I keep rolling the dice. I text dance friends to find out where they are dancing each night. I go. I dance. And I dance. And I dance more. I remember now how my feet feel in my silver tipped boots. I feel them glide along the floor, pivot for turns. I feel the torque of shifting energy in the patterned steps. I feel the energy of the live music come alive in every cell of my body. I weep. There is nothing more…or less…than that. I dance and I weep.
I let my body find it's unabashed rhythm, return to the divinity, return to why I wrote this poem! I dance every night to live bands celebrating their own return to the dance halls. I am exhausted and happy!
And in the midst of all that dancing, Austin friends, old and new, celebrate my return visit with Hill Country hikes. And I didn't even care that I had to chip ice off my truck one day, and wear down and fleece once in awhile. The weather would turn warmer, and I would put on my dancin' boots again and again. And then there is Mexico...stay tuned!