solitude within a pandemic

When I began these notes to you, Dear Human Heart, it was my intent to write something everyday. I’m finding, though, that anxiety has crept in, and I’ve found myself circling this space, holding my breath.

Anxiety feels as if it’s everywhere, because it is. So many are concerned for their health – for the health of their loved ones. So many more are concerned about their next week’s bills, for the security of their shelter, for the certainty of their food. Hearts, everywhere, are beating faster. I hear the collective beat as a hum on every empty street, and feel it echoing within my own chest, as Maurice and I take our daily walks.

I speak out loud to it, sometimes, under my breath, acknowledging it, before I turn away from it. I say, “I feel you, anxiety,” and then I laugh out loud – at my own ridiculousness. It is a gentle rebuff, because there’s nothing ridiculous about greeting your own thoughts. And this collective anxiety is real.

I am learning about solitude within a pandemic.

Etty Hillesum is one of my teachers. She has helped to sustain me for half my life. Now, more than ever, she offers communion —

All I wanted to say is this: The misery here is quite terrible; and yet, late at night when the day has slunk away into the depths behind me, I often walk with a spring in my step along the barbed wire. And then time and again, it soars straight from my heart – I can’t help it, that’s just the way it is, like some elementary force – the feeling that life is glorious and magnificent, and that one day we shall be building a whole new world. Against every new outrage and every fresh horror, we shall put up one more piece of love and goodness, drawing strength from within ourselves. – Etty Hillesum, from An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork