I wrote this the day before my birthday—another birthday spent in ECQ lockdown. No outdoor meal in a restaurant. No planned beach trip. No socially-distanced visits with family and friends.
I could wallow in self-pity. But that would be indulgent considering the number of people experiencing a more difficult day.
I could be consumed by guilt. But how will that help anyone, especially those who are living with me?
I could lash out in anger. (And I have in the last month, as I knew I had to let it flow though me so that it didn’t spill into unrelated parts of my life.)
Or I could focus on my life’s tiny joys and simple pleasures.
- The pink and purple flowers blooming on my balcony
- The purring sound my dog (yup, dog!) makes when I pet him under his chin
- Bookshelves I have spring-cleaned and organized
- The colors of ink spilling underneath my fountain pen when I write in my journal
- The stories shared during coaching sessions and workshops
- Long embraces from my husband and daughter
I could remember that while birthdays, especially during these pandemic times, bring up my mortality, I am blessed enough to still be among the living. And If I have to do my living indoors for another year, I can still make this life count and make it a thing of beauty, creativity and love.
It’s not an easy time for us and it will not be for a long time yet. In the meantime, may you open your heart to the tiny joys in your life.
I would like to leave you with this:
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.
Louise Erdrich
