Regina is Russian

I run, sometimes.

I walk, hardly ever.

Until now.

When my plans have changed and my schedule has shifted, 

All by force.

Humans have fallen into the hands of Nature.

Here’s to the Coronavirus 2020.

I used to write songs in my early 20’s.

I had a lyric that sang,

“I walk all day to finally say, 

The old has gone away

And I have returned with a new name.”

The sound of it was decent.

I even tried to imitate Regina Spektor in how I emphasized “return”.

She was one of my favorites at the time.

I mean, who wouldn’t say that in 2010?

When a friend of mine first listened to this song, he kindly asked,

“Wait, how do you say ‘return’?”

I get it: I was trying too hard, and the way I sang it with a “th” sound for the t is not anywhere close to how I actually say the word.

I mean, let’s be honest, Regina is Russian. 

I am most definitely not Russian.

The meaning behind that song fell to the tune of a bad breakup and finding my voice again.

I think I was writing about my high school boyfriend who I dated for a year and a half but had some leftover stains and stubbles to deal with in college.

He kept dating my friends… kept showing up at bars and parties…you know, that kind of ex.

The type that’s hard to never see again, which is usually my style of a breakup.

The thing is, I often do this thing in relationships where I get scared to use my voice.

In fact, I shrink.

My voice gets tiny.

With age I am getting better, I promise.

My vocal chords are gaining strength and my impulse to run has weakened.

You know what?

Sometimes life calls us to walk.

Whether it be all day or for a 20 minute rush out the door when we are cooped up in our houses, quarantined for what seems like decades.

What does it look like for you, for me, for all of us, to walk right now?

To casually but mindfully take one step after another at a slower pace than normal, perhaps with an announcement or statement or yes, a “new name”… or perhaps not. 

Sometimes it’s nothing more than just that: 

A walk.

Rain Check.

Stops you in your tracks, that rain.
Slows ya down,
Shuts ya up,
Calms ya down,
... if you let it.

My rain is your rain,
We share it.
And it smells good today
As I sit on the back porch and watch the puddles form against the pavement.

Some days, not every day,
We curse at the rain.
Changing our plans every which-away.
How dare you, rain!

But Today?

It slows me down,
It shuts me up,
It calms me down,
...I'm lettin it.

The Things That Get Us Out of Bed.

Last spring, packed right between a visit back home to Alabama- the playful, sing-song voices of my niece and nephew still echoing in my ear- and what was supposed to be a visit in the other direction to White Bluff, Tennessee for a visit with my boyfriend’s family…

I got food poisoning.

Yes.

Food. 

Poisoning.

Kept me up all night.

And all night, I swapped between the bathroom and the bed constantly, like a full moon-shaped ping pong ball, tossed between a more-than tipsy Vanderbilt freshman guy and a curly-haired, mascara-heavy girl down at Clyde’s on Church Street. 

Sometimes just racing and praying I make it in time.

If you have ever had this curse of the stomach, this curse of humanity, rather… 

I’m sorry. 

And… you know. 

In a similar way to extreme weather changing your plans and cancelling the concert, postponing the dance or the baseball game or the soccer game... getting sick, (like… food poisoning sick…) literally stops you in your tracks. 

There is no moving around it.

At ALL. 

It has all authority and you have no choice but to play by the rules:

Sleep when you can.

Medicate.

Eventually eat saltines and pray you can hold it down. 

Finally, though...

I make it to my garden.

My plants need water like I need calories.

For the first time in a long time,

I can actually stand up again.

So I know it’s Time.

Here I was, coming out of a stomach bug, dazed and confused like a cast member of the Walking Dead, endlessly roaming.

I wore a blank, grossly pale face.
My limbs were nearly broken, but doing their job...just barely.

And all my movements were sticky, like I was first learning how to walk again.

The things that get us out of bed-

Sometimes they’ll surprise you. 

And there he was.

Mowing my lawn.

I sat down on my front steps, knees drawn in, just watching him.

When he sees me, he stops the lawnmower to come over.

You know... to give me a hug and check in.

I forget about the plants for a moment. 

As soon as he hugs me, I cry.

Like a little girl.

But I was okay with it.

I wanted to be near him.

As Dark as Midnight

What is happening? 

Golfball-sized eyeballs and sticky handprints, glued to the glass.

Waiting.

Waiting for truth to unfold, facts to emerge, and solid, concrete answers to lingering, ever-growing questions, like tiny beads of a mile-long necklace.

I am reminded of an aquarium.

Just standing, in awe of nature, in all of its forms.

Some of us shocked, some of us at a complete standstill.

Just watching from the other side of the glass.

I remember visiting the Chattanooga aquarium with a busload of high school students from Stratford out of East Nashville, back when bumpy roads and old, forgotten houses were still its neighbor.

Terrified I was going to lose one of the eight girls in my group,
I could hardly enjoy it.

I was constantly counting heads and looking over my shoulder like I was checking my blind spot, about to change lanes.

The hallways and handrails were as dark as midnight.

I remember a few weeks ago when Brandon and I drove to North Carolina overnight in the snow.

Terrified I was going to wreck the car and slip and slide all the way down the mountain, I could hardly enjoy it.

Threatening roads, hard-to-see cars, my lack of experience… and this time, the backdrop to our “fairytale snow” was as dark as midnight.

And this?

Well, this is completely new territory for me.

Staying home, not teaching yoga, not visiting schools and the Detention Center…

Some times, more than other times, robotically scrolling through Facebook and Instagram in search of… 

Something.

I can hardly enjoy it.