“Go outside. Touch grass.” This is what we tell people who annoy us on the internet. It’s a flippant saying, but we’re honestly correct to do so.
Being extremely online during a pandemic and an ongoing political crisis can be catastrophic to the human psyche. I am honestly proof of that. In spite of my best efforts to keep my mind on an even keel throughout the disaster of the modern day, my father’s death largely made all that irrelevant.
Grief has the annoying habit of accentuating your existing problems. It’s like turbulence to an airplane that’s already malfunctioning. In my case, symptoms of chronic post-traumatic stress, which are usually well-managed, have come back with a vengeance. I have become socially awkward and feel unmoored in time. A minute can seem like an eternity. An hour can fly by unexpectedly quickly. I am late everywhere and with everything. I go to places, and see people, but it doesn’t always register. A fog whispers around me. I grow painfully anxious, seemingly for no reason at all.
I am floating in the pools of darkness between the stars, looking for the person I lost.
In analyzing my own condition and talking to people who are in a similar state of mind, I’ve found that it’s usually exercise, being outside, and seeing animals that can balance me out right now. When I was in Ukraine, before and after my father’s funeral, I kept instinctively looking for my cat in moments of crisis, even though she had been left with our neighbors. It seems comical, but just the touch of her fur and a boop from a mean little feline face can be enough to bring my blood pressure down.
Now I walk the leafy streets of DC and put a blanket on the dirt in the park so I can read a book and hear the wind hiss overhead. I’ll abandon my entire schedule in order to take my son on an impromptu camping trip just because I know there will be trees and quiet, and he’ll be busy complaining about things like bugs, as opposed to crying about his beloved grandfather.
Go to a place where you can hear an owl hoot.
When you’re as lost in time as I am, it’s important to be reminded that nature keeps its own time and has its own rhythms. It’s not true that nature doesn’t ask anything of us — it does, and it can be very punishing, as evidenced by all the cicadas that have tried to fly into my mouth as of late — it’s just that it does so differently. It puts you in touch with another part of yourself, the part that is usually dormant when you are in a city, stuck behind a computer. That part is the strong part. It makes you feel like you are not entirely lost after all. It makes you remember yourself.
So when I am trying to connect to people whose lives have also been permanently changed by Covid, I tell them to go outside and touch some grass whenever they can. Do that, and maybe stare at some stars. Go to a place where you can hear an owl hoot.
Stepping sideways out of your own life is important in the best of times, but it becomes vital when you are sad and grieving. I have made some impulsive decisions since my father’s death. Some have been for ill, and maybe others will be for good, I am not sure yet. The ones that feel universally good are ones that involve getting out of the city and away from my computer, in places where I can get my hands dirty or break a sweat, or both.
It’s in the dirty, exhausting moments that I feel like I have agency again. Like death doesn’t entirely rule my existence, but instead is stepping beside me, a constant companion. Maybe even a friend. A reminder that everything and everyone ends — and we should therefore be grateful for it.
This is when I feel the presence of my father the strongest. Grateful acceptance snaps eternity into focus. An owl hoots. A star falls. And we are back together again.
Image credit: Meg Jerrard