Before driving into work last Friday morning, I’d cued up the 2008 Tony Awards performance of The Lion King’s “Circle of Life” to listen to as the hills and farms slipped past the car windows and beneath the tires. It’s a grand theatrical achievement, with actors becoming gazelles and giraffes right before your eyes while the audience, enchanted, roars to its feet with approving delight. As the performers’ voices reached the song’s arcing crescendo, I had to pull over, blinking back tears. Such an anthem of celebration for all living things, but playing now against a backdrop of my perpetual ache from the last twenty months of disunity, wholly preventable pandemic deaths, violence and vitriol between members of my species and a planet drowning, gasping for air. It all mashed together in a slurry of sadness and despair for the murky path ahead. In that moment by the side of the road, I recognized my grief for what it was—the loss of connection, the absence of regard for others, of civility and kindness. All of it touched tenderly by the wellspring of hope that a simple Broadway company of actors conjured up with stilts on their legs and zebra masks on their faces. I’ve watched this performance several times, but it sliced through something different that morning and I’m still unpacking it.

When I arrived at the office, the last thing I wanted to do was check emails.

But check them I did, and returned a couple of phone calls, all the while registering a lingering sense of unfinished business for which I could not find the words. Thankfully, for the past twelve years, I’ve worked in a setting where silence is an acceptable and healthy response for what the mind can’t grab onto (I also have an office with a door that shuts, a “do not disturb” button on the desk phone and colleagues whose demands that day were on the light side).

Earlier last week I told Patrick it would be fun if we danced more. It’s not like anyone would see us, in case either of us felt self-conscious (which we don’t) and movement of any kind is good for the cardiovascular system, so hey, just a suggestion, honey. Patrick’s primary way of “cutting loose” is his art, his wood-turning happy place just steps from the back door to the mud room. His studio is a long pre-fab wooden barn-style shed perched on the ridge with front doors that he can fling open to pull in the breezes. He works always with a soundtrack of the most eclectic mix of music threading its way across the grass and down into the meadow. It’s gotta be that loud because the lathe, the bandsaw, the air compressor all compete for his attention while he’s wearing his noise-muffling headphones and dual-filter anti-dust mask. One evening he stepped out for a break just as I was crossing the yard to check on him and the music playing was a Caribbean-style island beat. Without a word to each other, we picked up the drums’ rhythm and let loose right there beneath the towering silver maple with moves neither of us knew we had in us. Smiling, hopping from one foot to another, arms reaching and hands pushing against the air between us, we danced like no one could see us until the song and our moves resolved into one final unified note. The sweet laughing smile on his face is an image I plan to hold onto for some time to come.

I don’t mind the hills and valleys of an emotionally-rich existence. As the song goes, “from the day we arrive on the planet and, blinking, step into the sun”, we’re continuously plumbing the depths of our feelings’ vast well, pulling them to the surface for all sorts of occasions and testing the elasticity of our relationships’ tolerance of such expression. Those who can receive what we offer them or who can handle being drenched with our episodic outbursts are keepers; we move on from those who can’t and wish them no ill. We are born into a world that does not promise a smooth flat ride. If we’re lucky we find teachers who show us how to navigate the bumps, the twists, the hairpin curves and bring snacks to eat between gas stations. The last year and a half’s relentless slog through one heartache after another was heavier than I’d allowed. Watching a theater filled with people applauding, singing, looking for all the world as if they were indeed connected to one another, if only for just the duration of that grand performance, was such a stark contrast to the past 20 months….and not a surgical or cloth mask in sight, that telltale reminder that this current movie we’re in ain’t over yet, not by a mile. Who we will be on the other side of it all remains to be seen. I pray fiercely for the dormant seeds of resilient love to push through the compost of our collective grief.

I don’t know what the next year will bring, but if that sun keeps coming up for the next 365 days, I plan to laugh and cry and dance my way through as best I can.

After all, today’s my birthday. What better gift can I give myself than a promise to keep trying?

(Author’s note: the beautiful artwork in the photo accompanying this reflection is a collaborative effort between artist Becki at Old Mr. Bailiwick’s and my husband Patrick. Becki crafted the leather dancing skeleton and Patrick wood-burned and painted the frame. The latter is on its way to bring finished; just couldn’t wait to show you.)