We Shadows

Some of you (the five of you who actually read my posts) may be wondering why I’m not writing about COVID-19 right now, like everyone else. I think part of the reason is that I’m actually doing pretty well. I spend my days working, always with music playing in the background or on my headphones. I have several text threads going on with various friends, everyone in my house is healthy, and I haven’t lost my mind (yet) after being isolated from the world for two weeks now. I think this time of social distancing is appealing to my quiet, introverted side. I like being home.

Most of the things I think about and want to write about are not related to this ongoing pandemic. Last night I attended a virtual reading put on by Politics & Prose with writers Emily St. Mandel and Amber Sparks. It was lovely. Culture and the arts are not on everyone’s minds right now, but the things that people turn to the most right now seem to be the arts: music, books, film. Or maybe that’s just me. I’ll admit that it’s been hard to sit down and dive into a good book since being confined to my house. It’s difficult to settle in and focus on writing.

Instead, I find myself being immersed in the online Twitter communities that I follow: Writing Community and Moms Writers Club. I enjoy hearing about what people are doing during this time, what they’re reading, listening to, writing about, and worried about, too. I feel connected to others virtually, since we’re all in this together. In a few weeks, I’m going to be participating in a weekend Flash Memoir Workshop but on virtually by renowned flash fiction writer, Kathy Fish. I look forward to engaging with her and other writers, and being inspired to produce new work. Who knows what words will come out of that experience?

In the meantime, I’m aware of things like my shadow, the shadows of thin branches, power lines, as I walk along the uneven sidewalk along Columbia Pike near my house. I see spring blooming. I think about lyrics to songs, and lines from my favorite works of literature. Thoughts blossom and branch out. I think about what I want to write next.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the ways I’ve said goodbye to certain people. I remember, in what seems like a past life, of sending the following lines from the end of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to end relationships. (Yes, I’ve recycled them.)

(stage directions). [Exeunt OBERON, TITANIA, and train]

Puck. If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

Maybe this collective nightmare has all been a dream. Maybe the people we’ve lost both permanently and temporarily are not gone. Maybe we don’t have to say goodbye or goodnight. Maybe we can “restore amends.” We can find each other again.

I listen to a lot of music. It’s therapeutic. One of my favorites right now is Sharon Van Etten. Here is her Tiny Desk concert, where she sings a song called “You Shadow.” (Followed by “Seventeen,” which is so raw with emotion toward the end that it jolted me and nearly brought me to tears.) Maybe some memories are nothing but a shadow, a dream. I took a picture of my shadow on one of my walks, and now it’s gone. Maybe some things we think or do or remember are really nothing. They never were.

Listening t'ill you know what to say
Listening t'ill you know what to say
Use loving words and be gentle and kind
Open your mind and it's easy to find where I am

You ain't nothing, you never won
You ain't nothing, you've never done nothing, no
You don't do nothing I don't do
You shadow

You ain't nothing, you never won
You ain't nothing, you've never done nothing, no
You don't do nothing I don't do
You shadow

You say you changed your mind
Yeah I let you
You say, come and see
Why keep me settled

You ain't nothing, you never won
You ain't nothing, you've never done nothing, no
You don't do nothing I don't do
You shadow