The Now

 

Living in the now. So wise. So hard to do. Seriously, though, what choice do we have at this point? We have never controlled the future, but that’s more true now than ever. We can’t change the past. That’s for sure. All we have is right now. Maybe that’s the big lesson in all of this.

My son recently said he was grateful, not for the pandemic, but for the opportunity he has had to be with his one-year-old daughter in a way that would have never happened otherwise. He would have missed so much. So much you can’t get it back.

Prior to the pandemic, our lives had morphed into being constantly on the go. With few exceptions, we were rarely still. I read something recently that talked about “urgent” tasks. That being, I have to go to the grocery, I have to make dinner, I have to do laundry, I have to get the kids to bed, I have to do this report, I have to get to work on time, I have to, have to, have to. The reality is, real living takes place in between these “have tos.”

This month my sister was seriously ill. She could have died. Because of a random circumstance she got help just in time. It wasn’t her time. I was able to be with her constantly for two weeks before her daughter took over. My sister and I had not seen each other in person since last Christmas. We talked frequently on the phone but how could that happen? The pandemic of course. Because I had been quarantining this whole time, I knew it was safe to stay with her. Still. I had lots of things I “had to do.” I figured it out. I chose to be with her. To be in the now. Because at the end of the day, you just don’t ever know.

I choose to be grateful for now. Now is good. I'm going with it.

WRITERS & LOVERS- PLUS TWO- OCTOBER 2020 BOOK SELECTIONS

 

The pandemic has offered time for extensive reading. This month in addition to seven short stories, I’ve read Writers & Lovers by Lily King, Witches, Midwives & Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich & Deirdre English and City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert.

The short stories were in a series offered for free on Amazon Prime. I enjoyed the change of pace but none stood out. Witches, Midwives & Nurses traces women healers back to the thirteenth century. It would be of interest to those interested in the suppression of women in the medical profession. Eye-opening, as the suppression appears to persist to this day.

City of Girls follows a nineteen-year-old girl through her life up until her nineties in New York City. Set beginning in 1940, the main character mainly describes her sexual exploits and her life as a seamstress starting in the theatre. A self-described sensualist, we find the character, interestingly, most intriguing at the end of the novel when she meets her platonic, one true love.

Writers & Lovers is the first novel I’ve read by Lily King. Casey is a thirty-one-year-old aspiring novelist stuck in a job as a waitress and deeply grieving over the unexpected, premature death of her mother. Over the course of the story, she grapples not only with that death, but three lovers, the completion of her novel, overwhelming debt, a precarious living situation and Cancer. It’s little wonder she begins to have panic attacks. King is a lovely writer and makes you care and root for the character while wanting to shake her at the same time.