During the pandemic, I launched a very low-tech (because, ahem, it’s me) video series called One Small Thing. I was wandering around my neighborhood on streets where I’d never been, looking for evidence and practices that might allow me to be more present, more whole-hearted in my life. It was a luminous time, sheltering in place, and some days, I, like many, was searching for answers to what was happening, trying not to be afraid, even when family members sent me YouTube videos about how to wash my groceries on the front porch before bringing them in the house. On one walk, I realized that only four blocks from me, in a direction I never went, there was a pot-belly pig named Wally. Who knew?
At the time, with such widespread uncertainty, how could I, I wondered, stop the swirling chaos of my mind, with the ‘what if’ of the world by getting grounded in some things that helped me realize what’s true: I have only this moment. Now, here, at my desk on a Wednesday. What would happen would happen. What had already happened was gone. What was next was just that: next. And if that was all true, how could I be more alive, more present with what was true for me?
Seattle is known for not being that friendly. Not mean, per se, but just not warm. We keep our distance, we don’t ask a lot of personal questions, we don’t do the old-school Welcome Wagon when you move onto a new street. I was at a public gathering recently, talking to a 30-something new resident who’d moved here to work for Amazon. “What do you think,” I asked, “is it true what they say about the Seattle Freeze? Has it been hard to meet people or make friends?” He sort of stuck with me all night after that, despite our occupation of very different demographics, allowing that yes, indeed, it had been hard for him since he’d moved to the PNW.
But during the pandemic, neighbors I’d never had a conversation with, or with whom I’d only exchanged a distant “good morning,” or a cursory wave, were stopping on the sidewalk at a safe distance to ask about my garden, my house, my camper van. Once, I walked past a woman who was weeding, neither of us wearing masks, and she said, “it’s so nice to see someone’s face.” My next-door neighbors and I began our Front Porch Happy Hours and cooking for each other. We made curry, they’d text. It’s on your porch. We had special canvas bags in which we put food we’d cooked for each other and in which we’d return the clean dishes afterwards.
I began my One Small Thing videos with an episode on handwriting thank you notes, thinking that an act of gratitude, although an homage to the past, certainly was a good way to begin—to be present, to be thankful instead of afraid or frustrated with things I couldn’t influence or control. What was true for me was that there was always something for which to be grateful, and I also knew that it was one proven way to lift a cloud of depression: notice what’s good and record it. I wrote thank you cards to clients, service people, retailers, friends. I practiced what I preach by using lots of details and specificity so that my recipients really knew what I noticed and how they impacted me. That I was blessed and grateful was true. I could prove it.
After ten episodes, I abandoned the video series. There are, in fact, infinite ways to increase my presence and my wholeheartedness, but I felt like ten was a good number, and that was that. Two years later, a client told me that the videos helped him get through a hard time in those early pandemic months. At a high school reunion, one of my childhood friends shared, “I loved those videos. Why did you stop?” I had no idea he was even on my mailing list!
Right now, it feels hard to be in the world and confirm what’s true. I have friends whose daily ritual involves scanning multiple news sources, comparing data and verifiable facts, and reaching some sort of conclusion about what’s really happening in the world. They make decisions about their activism, their spending, the topics of their conversations. Many of them have grown tired of trying to talk to me about these things. I know they are carefully shaping and censoring their conversations with me.
And yet, I’m eagerly anticipating the way the backyard cherry tree is turning an extraordinary shade of red-gold and the leaves will soon cover the top of the gazebo and the abandoned summer table. I still can’t believe I mixed up delicata squash with stripetti squash (both green and striped) and the broad leaves and spiky stems took over one-third of the garden, creeping into the dahlias, roses, apple tree, smoke bush. What’s true is there’s nothing better than sweater weather, and I’m always okay with summer’s slink into autumn and impending rain. What’s true is that seasons change. What’s true is that winter is coming. What’s true is that the thing that will save me is noticing.
There’s a popular trope that says, “feelings aren’t facts,” but I worked a really long time to figure out what my feelings are, having spent a lot of years focused on everyone else’s feelings. I didn’t actually know my own, so if I’m feeling confused, lost, happy, joyful, sad, I believe it’s important for me to notice. Not wallow or get stuck, but just revel in the fact that I am a full human with nuanced responses to my day, my people, my thinking, my heart.
Once, a therapist asked me if I might consider expanding my relationship with my feelings? Huh? I responded. She suggested that she observed that mostly, once I identified a feeling, I’d begin judging myself for having it. What a revelation! What’s true is that I have a feeling, like the Irish language says, “upon me.” Sadness is upon me, rather than I am sad. Joy has visited me, rather than I am joyful. It’s passing—transient—but true at that moment in time.
I don’t live on an island, literally or figuratively. I live in a world with others, and most days, I want to. I want to be present, alive, and create a positive impact. I want to take thoughtful action. I want to notice what’s going on in my neighborhood, the clouds above the mountains in the distance, a feeling cross over a beloved’s face. I want to notice, right down the street, there’s a pot-belly pig I never knew about before. Right now, that’s what’s true for me.
Thank you, Libby.
Attention brings us home — to ourselves, and to the breath of life.
It was the numbing blur of grief’s shadow that led me to the joy of noticing the wonder in the everyday. I remember sitting on a stone wall in a local park, the same spot where I had sat with my father so many times during his long illness.
In that numb stillness, all I could do was look — at the green around me. The green of the trees. The green of the grass. The green of the moss on the wall beneath me. I began to count the shades until I couldn’t stop.
Then a question came, one that slipped out loud into the quiet:
“Who knew there were so many shades of green?”
That was the beginning of me collecting moss.
Now I am an avid collector, gathering moss wherever I go. It’s a reminder to be present with the joy of life in the everyday — to stand in wonder at the many shades of green that make up a life.
To wonder is to notice.
To notice is to be present.
Gorgeous reflection, Libby. Out here, my horses, cats and random Spanish chickens are constantly reminding me to stay present — they’ve absolutely mastered the art of being here now (usually in the kitchen).