The Huge Grace of Accomplishing Really Small Things
I finally put the damn stickers on the cars
Everything is a shambles and nothing is all right and we’ve been dealing with a pandemic for six months or maybe a hundred thousand years now and how am I so busy and so behind on everything when we haven’t gone anywhere or had any guests in six months or a hundred thousand years?
Also, U.S. politics is a terrifying garbage fire.
I’ve read all the articles, I know I’m not alone here; in fact my despair and overwhelm is actually right on schedule. (First few weeks: we can do this! We have plenty of toilet paper and we already work at home! Next: bread! Then: Zoom cocktail dates! But not long after that: fear and angst and endless doomscrolling on social media. And then a little activism, a little donating; then grief, more despair, trying to stay away from social media; yoga; nightly dreams about being in a crowded place and nobody’s wearing a mask, I forgot my mask too, oh crap oh crap…)
It’s been really hard to find balance and focus.
Three years ago, we moved from a city to an island. Our island has: state-run ferry service from the mainland several times a day; a wonderful little town with a great grocery store and marvelous restaurants; natural beauty and amazing people; art and theatre and culture and a great sense of community.
Our island does not have: a hospital. Or even an urgent care clinic, or actually even any health providers available after hours (or sometimes even during hours, if one nurse practitioner has the flu and the other one missed her ferry, as happened one day last winter when I really needed to see someone that day).
So when we moved here, three years ago, my husband and I paid the very reasonable annual fee for supplemental “airlift” insurance. If we have an emergency and need to get to an ER faster than the nine hours it took me on that day when our clinic couldn’t see me, a small plane or a helicopter will take us to the mainland.
The supplemental insurance companies (there are two of them) sent us stickers to put on our cars. I put the stickers on my desk, intending to put them on our cars.
