Keep Breathing: This is Sacred Space

Three weeks ago, when Jan and I were in Minneapolis for the Addiction and Faith Conference, at the end of a long day of presentations and technology challenges, we took an Uber to the George Floyd Memorial.  I confess that I didn't realize there was a memorial.  I thought we were simply going to see the place where George Floyd was killed.  Since it was after 9 p.m., we asked the person working the hotel desk if it would be safe for us to go after dark, and she said yes, so off we went with our friend, Michelle. 

Our Uber driver dropped us a block away from the intersection, and we slowly walked toward the corner where Cup Foods is located.  When I saw the first sign that said, "Here you enter sacred space," I felt a deep reverence come over me.  For a long time I just walked around the edges slowly, taking everything in.  It seemed disrespectful to talk or to take pictures or even to move inside the barriers protecting the memorial from cars passing by.  I couldn't speak.  

It was a warm night with a light breeze.  The area was well lit with a succession of vehicles passing through the intersection.  Cars aren't permitted to stop there but have to go around the piece of the memorial that now fills the center of the intersection.  There were SO MANY PLANTS and FLOWERS.  Some were artificial, but many were live and others had once been living.  A green house sits to the side of the main part of the memorial.  In an ever widening sprawl sat plants in pots, bottles, and planters.  A garden of offerings:  flowers, candles, stuffed animals, lanterns, signs, photos, coins, graffiti, chalk drawings, paper cranes,  bottles, shells, pieces of wood, rocks, toys, letters, and more.  It was hard to know where to look. Messages of anger, despair, hope.  Quotes from famous people, names of others who died without justice.  

It was both peaceful like a cemetery and overwhelming with stimulus.  I was not afraid, but I didn't know what to think or feel.  I could not process what I was seeing, and so I simply gazed around me. At one point, as I stood on the sidewalk behind the memorial and close to the entrance of Cup Foods, a door in the wall opened, and a woman came out, scowling. I wondered if we were trespassing and if she was coming out to tell us to move along.  She didn't speak for about five minutes, at which point she shouted down the street to a man who eventually strolled up and went inside with her.  Jan told us to stay close, and we made sure to keep an eye on one another.  Later she told me that had been a drug deal.  I can be very naïve.  

Writer that I aspire to be, I have not had words to describe this event.  Jan asked me the next day why I hadn't posted my photos, pictures that I had finally started taking in order to remember what I had seen.  I didn't want to trivialize the experience.  I didn't want to read potentially negative comments or arguments.  It was a sacred space, and I've been afraid to disturb it.  Here are some photos.  I will let them speak for themselves.

I haven't known what to say, and so I haven't said anything. 

Lately I have been reading about trauma.  I highly recommend My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, by Resmaa Menakem, for anyone who wants to start the process of healing from ancient radicalized trauma.  "We cannot think our way out of racism."  We all have to learn how to settle our own bodies so our lizard brains don't overcome us, leading us to fight, flight, freeze, or annihilate.  We have to learn to breathe and settle our own bodies so that we can be our best selves, even in the midst of conflict.

I've also just finished reading What Happened to You: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry.  It is an exceedingly helpful book that details the neuroscience of trauma and explains what happens to the brain and how we can work toward healing.  I learned from this book that one of my usual methods of handling trauma is dissociation.  I suspect that's what happened the night we visited George Floyd's memorial.  When there's too much to take in, I dissociate.  I cannot tolerate the pain, anger, despair, hurt, grief, and so I go away somewhere.  It's not intentional; it's simply what happens.  It's taken me this long to find any words to share.

Renakem says we need to metabolize our trauma so that we don't blow it through other people.  We have to learn to stay present in our bodies.  Perry and Winfrey say we need to ask "What happened to you?" rather than "What's wrong with you?"
 

My thoughts on all of this are still incomplete.  I don't have a lot of wisdom to share, just impressions of what I saw and felt.  A memorial to the pain and death of people of color who have died unjustly and too soon.  A memorial to the ways in which breath has been taken from fellow human beings.  A memorial created both to remember and to inspire.

Keep breathing everyone.  This is sacred space.  

 

The Gift of Recovery

  

A little over nine years ago I began attending mutual support meetings for what turned out to be a pretty severe case of codependence.  People pleasing, denying my feelings, trying to control outcomes, obsessive worry, "saving the day," conflict avoidance, and I could go on and on about the patterns of behavior that made my gut wrench and my life unmanageable. Then I discovered recovery.  Life in recovery is good.  I'm more authentic, I sleep better, and though I still have plenty of codependent slips, I'm much more in touch with my own values and live them as fully as I can, even if other people are angry or upset.  Unlike being in recovery from substance use, it can be difficult to tell when I've "relapsed," but all in all, my life is amazing now, and I'm so grateful for the gifts I've received throughout my journey.  Now more than ever I'm glad to be in recovery.  Not only do I apply it to my codependent behaviors, but I also apply it to all aspects of my life.  Including this damnable coronavirus.  

It's been over 17 weeks since I started experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.  17 weeks.  Instead of writing a post about being recovered or cured or well, I am writing about being in recovery.  I am a person in recovery from COIVD-19.  A couple of weeks ago I learned that I have antibodies.  So technically, I should be over the virus, and I should be immune, at least for a time.  But we don't really know about immunity with a novel virus, so it's possible I could get it again.  So much is still unknown.  I've joined a Facebook support group for those of us with #LongCovid.  There are SO MANY PEOPLE experiencing this extended play version, many of them with far worse symptoms than I have.

What I'm experiencing now seems to be post-viral symptoms.  I continue to have fatigue and some shortness of breath, which is, unfortunately, exacerbated by wearing a mask (I am completely committed to wearing one even so.)  I still can't concentrate or remember as well as before (though it's hard to tell where C19 and aging diverge!)  I've had as many as two full weeks when I felt almost normal, but then the setback comes.  Fortunately it's never as bad as before, and the general trend is toward improvement.  But I still haven't been able to increase my walking beyond a 16 minute slow walk.  Fatigue means that I can be in the middle of a meeting and need to lie down.  Or get out of the shower and be exhausted and breathing hard.  It means it's hard for me to sit upright at a computer for very long or to cope with much stress.  I make mistakes in my work and can even get a little off balance moving around.  

Sometimes I push to get through things that I really want/need to do.  Sometimes I feel good enough to do them without pushing.  Sometimes I use my vitamin energy drinks or caffeine to help.  I still don't know if pushing causes relapses or if I need to make the most of my "good" time when I have energy, so I fall somewhere in the middle, trying to get things done if I'm up to it and resting when I'm not.  The advice I hear most about post-viral fatigue is rest, rest, rest, and you will get better.  So, I do.  It's amazing how much I can do lying down with my computer in my lap.

In some ways it's comforting to be in recovery - it's familiar.  I don't expect that I'll ever be cured of codependence, but living in recovery makes life quite good.  I don't yet know whether I will be permanently changed in some way by the virus, but even if I am, I know how to live in recovery.  One day at a time.

This is what recovery looks like for me:

Learning to live WITH something.

Doing my best each day to make healthy choices.  Forgiving myself when I don't.

Some days/weeks there may be relapses.

Celebrating the good days while not getting seduced into thinking that all days will be good days.

Setting boundaries - and this one is very hard for me, especially when it comes to work.

Attending mutual support groups, educating myself about the disease, and working with a support team.

Listening to my body.

Being gentle with myself and others.

Turning everything over to God.

Living in recovery does not mean that I get it right all the time.  When I don't, I say I'm sorry.  I look at my part, and I make needed amends, and I work to do things differently.  

Life is changed, I am changed, and I have choices about how I continue my journey.  

I continue to choose recovery.

12 Weeks In: SurvivING

I can't tell you how much I want to write the post titled, Survived!  Or Survivor!  Instead I'm writing today about what it's like to continue survivING.  I am.  Surviving.  And so very grateful.

 

Sunday I was able to go to church for our livestream for the first time since Easter.  What a joy it was to be able to return for Pentecost and to be in that sacred space.  What a privilege it was to read the Pentecost reading from Acts and to pray the Prayers of the People.  What a gift it was to worship with a few other people and listen to our bishop's sermon live in person and not on a screen.  It renewed my compassion for all the people who are not yet able to return to church and renewed my grief that even when we return, it will not be the same as before, not for a long time.  

 

Last week I had a number of good days.  Memorial Day especially was great.  I was even able to record a video to tell my congregation about my slow return to work:  watch here.  Sometimes on a good day, I go ahead and get some things done because I don't know how long the energy will last.  Jan thinks that my achey back may be eased by drinking more water, and so I have upped my (already large) amount of water intake, and that does seem to be diminishing the back pain most of the time.  Boy do I notice now if I'm not staying hydrated!  

 

After a week of mostly good days, on Friday of last week, I had to rest a lot more.  The post-viral symptoms ebb and flow, and most days I'm able to practice acceptance.  Perhaps this is something I'm going to have to live with for a long, long time.  Earlier this week, some shortness of breath returned off and on for a couple of days.  It's one of the strangest symptoms - it's like I have to think about breathing.  It's not scary, mostly just annoying.  Forces me to really slow down and concentrate on taking deep breaths.  This week energy has come and gone each day, no purely good or purely fatigued days.  I'm able to work easily by computer lying on my couch.  But staying upright all day is still a challenge on many days.  I continue my walks when I'm up to it and have been able to get up to about 18 minutes comfortably.

 

Last week I read some sobering articles about post-viral fatigue and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  A friend shared a post that a friend of his with CFS had written advising COVID-19 survivors to REST.  In her post she referenced this article about C19 and Post-Viral Syndrome.  Reading all of this has helped me take the need for rest even more seriously.  Although I have returned to my Bruton Parish work in limited capacity, when my body tells me to rest, I rest.  Tonight a friend posted an article from the Atlantic that calls those of us with this extended play version, Long Haulers.  That's me, a long hauler.

 

Even as I lament my ongoing struggles with this beast of a virus, I recognize that it is only because of my privilege that I'm able to do as well as I am.  What privilege means for me is that I have had the support of my bishop and workplaces to take the time I need to rest.  I have had the privilege of holding on to my jobs and income.  I have had the privilege of resting in a comfortable home with no worry about food or shelter or support.  I have had the privilege of being able to afford health insurance that has covered my medical expenses related to the virus.  I have had the privilege of an enormous amount of support from people who care for me.  This virus disproportionately affects and kills People of Color, and has been especially devastating to the people of the Navajo Nation among others.

 

Breathing has been a bit harder for me in this time because of a virus I could not control.  Black people cannot breathe because the knee of racism is on their necks.  This is something that white people can control, if only we have the will to do the work.  Four hundred years of oppression and trauma.  Four hundred years of injustice.  "No one is free until we all are free," said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I am not free until all Black People, Indigenous People, and People of Color are free.  

Over the years, I have participated in Anti-racism training, read books, hosted and watched movie screenings, studied liberation theology, and worked to treat all people I encounter equally.  But it's not enough.  Clearly it's not enough, while the injustice rages on.  So I've joined a book group and am reading Ibram X. Kendi's How to be an Antiracist.  His assertion is you can't be non-racist.  You're either racist or antiracist.  I would like to be antiracist, but I have more work to do.  Jan and I are discerning putting together a dialogue circle as part of the Episcopal Church's Sacred Ground curriculum as well as planning a Juneteenth Commemoration.  

My energy may be limited right now, but that doesn't mean I don't have a role to play.

 

This morning I read a prayer from "A Service of Prayer for Justice and Peace" from the Iona Abbey Worship Book:

God, lead us, that we may stand firm in faith for justice.

Teach us love.  Teach us compassion.

Above all, out of love and compassion,

                        teach us to act. 

 

White friends, many of our sisters and brothers of color are not surviving racism, and even those who are surviving still can't say "survived" because of the ongoing injustice and inequities.     

Black Friends, Indigenous Friends, Friends of Color, I am sorry for my part and will work to do better.  

I hope you will forgive me.