I love to read, but since The Great 2020 Adventure began, I have been reading a lot less than I usually do. Partly, my brain was struggling to focus long enough to digest an entire paragraph, let alone a proper page or chapter. But also, the books I was reading when this adventure started were not good choices for the current circumstances. They were just too serious and dark. I wanted to finish them, though, so I inched my way to their endings before starting anything new.

Lesson learned: I need light, happy fare when living through such serious times.

I regained my bookworm status with Book Seven of the Chronicles of St. Mary’s. I cannot recommend that series highly enough! It’s about a group of time traveling historians and impossible to classify. The back of the book says it’s Sci-Fi but it’s also romance, adventure, and historical fiction plus the writing is hilarious in a “laugh so hard you might pee your pants especially if you’ve ever been pregnant and your children ruined your bladder” sort of way.

Now I am reading The UnHoneymooners by Christina Lauren, a romance that is so entertaining and funny, that I read waaaay past my bedtime last night for the first time since I began sheltering at home. Seriously, I have not been able to read for more than ten minutes before I nod off and wake hours later, the book still clenched in my hands. But last night, I read for an entire hour! I will have to abandon the t.v. by 9 p.m. tonight if I want any chance of honoring my 10 pm bedtime.

When I finish The UnHoneymooners, I am going to pick another novel that is light hearted and hopefully hilarious. And I know exactly what it is! I read inhaled Class Mom earlier this year when I had a sick day, and I picked up the sequel You’ve Been Volunteered at the library the day before Pasadena closed its libraries.

I’ve also been able to enjoy a couple of books in the graphic memoir/novel genre because hello, my brain enjoys the pictures. First up, I had already pre-ordered Lucy Knisley’s new comic memoir last July because I will read anything she writes. It’s a sweet but honest collection of cartoons about new parenthood.

And lastly, I really enjoyed The Queen of the Sea, which is a fantasy story loosely based on the story of young Queen Elizabeth I. I tried to savor this one as slowly as possible.

I also downloaded the audio version of The Diary of Anne Frank AND CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT THE HELL I WAS THINKING? For fuck’s sake! What I need is to be diverted and entertained. At the time of the download, I thought I might find her story inspiring but holy shit, I am seriously questioning my judgment. Did I accidentally get high on glue sticks while doing a craft project with the kids?! I think I just need to download another audiobook and leave Anne Frank for happier times.

I have been reading Tosha Silver’s Change Me Prayers, and that book has transformed the way I pray. Tomorrow, after a week of spring break, my kids return to distance learning. The first two weeks of distance learning were challenging. I was feeling tense about the end of spring break and then thought, I should write myself a prayer. Without further adieu, here is my prayer:

Divine Beloved,

Please change me so I can trust the journey of distance learning.

Please change me so I can figure out what the heck I am doing!

Please change me so that I can trust my intuition. I already know what works for my family. I just need to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks and listen to my heart.

Please change me so that I remember my children’s well-being is more important than anything we might accomplish with distance learning.

Please change me so that I stop comparing the way “distance learning” looks for my kids with the way it looks for others. Please help me remember that we are all radiantly and gloriously different and that is wonderful. This is not a competition. We are all doing what we need to do to thrive during these challenging times. Please change me so that I can lovingly follow my children’s lead.

Please help me keep my heart open.

Please change me so that when I get frustrated, I remember to take a break, breathe deeply, and do something to ground myself.

Please change me so I can be more loving and compassionate with myself and my kids. Let me be kind and gentle.

Please change me so I can be more flexible. Sometimes my expectations with what we can accomplish are a bit too, shall we say, grandiose. Other times I plan a schedule and freak out when we stray off course. Please change me so I can embrace the uncertainty of this adventure.

Please change me so that I remember my kids are always learning, especially when they are playing.

Please change me so that I remember this: before math, or reading, or writing, or anything else, I am right now teaching my kids how to live during difficult times. Please change me so I can do this with grace, love and laughter.

Please change me so I can fully surrender to this experience and all the opportunities for personal growth.

I am yours.

You are mine.

Hallelujah!

Amen.

Note to self: let’s print this and read it every morning before I embark upon the adventure of distance learning.

Many moons ago, I read Eat, Pray Love (you’ve probably heard of it), in which author Elizabeth Gilbert travels the world to discover her best self. For years after reading about Gilbert’s experiences in an ashram in India, I thought that I would someday have to go India and meditate in an ashram in order to have a meaningful spiritual experience. I did not see how I could have a spiritual experience anywhere else.

Then I became a mom, and after years of working to become my authentic self, I had an epiphany: motherhood is my ashram.

I don’t need to throw away my life and move to a cave in India to connect with my higher self. I get to work toward being my best self and develop a connection with the divine right here from the chaos of motherhood.

Motherhood does not look anything like an ashram in India. It’s noisy as fuck. Instead of a crowd of devotees silently chanting mantras with eyes closed, there are toddlers throwing tantrums. Sometimes you get to sit and meditate — and then three seconds after you take a deep breath, the seven-year-old who was happily playing Barbies interrupts your meditation with a glitter crisis that must be solved immediately if not sooner.

For me, an ashram in India would be an escape from mom life. There are a lot of amazing things about being a mother, but holy shit, there is a lot of drudgery. Those little butts don’t wipe themselves for many years. And then they refuse to eat, get hangry, and scream because their brother got to smell the new soap first. (Literally how my day started.)

But if given a choice between spending the next ten years in an ashram in India and getting to be my kids’ mom, I would choose my kids. Every. Single. Time. Damnit, I’m obsessed with those little nut balls!

So instead of India, I choose motherhood, and the past few years, I have embraced the insanity of motherhood as my ashram. Sure, it would be great to achieve some spiritual nirvana in a dimly lit cave, but being able to experience mindfulness during the mayhem of motherhood? That is some serious spirituality.

And now? Now I am on The Great 2020 Adventure, and holy crap, sheltering at home with my kids is making regular motherhood look like a picnic at the park. (A picnic with ants and itchy grass, but still a picnic at a park in a public place with interesting people who do not have to practice social distancing while walking past my picnic.)

I used to think of motherhood as my ashram, but lately, I have realized my ashram is even bigger than that one role I play. Life, with all its ups and downs, is my ashram. Every moment of every day is drenched with divinity. Every moment is an opportunity to release my need for control and let God show the way. Every moment is a chance to look around and see all the blessings in my life.

With sheltering-at-home, the ashram has gotten a little more intense. It feels like I am always in Mom Mode, with children who might erupt at any time. Everyone is home all the time, so there are more messes to clean, more dishes to wash, more floors to sweep. (It seriously seems like the floors have multiplied.) Then we have to go back to distance learning on Monday (sigh) and my first grader does not just go on automatic pilot for that. She needs my help.

When I do get away, I can’t go far. Last weekend, I sat outside and wrote by the pool. Julian spent at least fifteen of those minutes standing at the window, shouting to get my attention. Then he started licking the window dramatically. It’s hard to leave Mom Mode and enjoy the Writing Flow when there’s a kid licking the window to get my attention.

I’m not going to lie: I’m trying to keep an upbeat attitude and have fun during The Great 2020 Adventure but it’s tough. I feel drained. When I’m writing, I can feel upbeat and calm; but back in regular life, my brain protests. This is hard! What the fuck! I don’t want this adventure! I am working to override those thoughts. I know from past experience that it can be done. (I basically had to rewire my brain in 2013 after I had postpartum depression.) But it takes patience and a lot of attention. Every time my brain turns to the darkness, I have to consciously introduce a more positive thought pattern. The obstacle is the way! Nothing is automatically bad or good! But holy shit, my brain is often in revolt and it would be so much easier to wave a wand and be done with this experience.

In the meantime, the Great 2020 Adventure is my ashram. I did not choose this ashram, but I can still use it to become a better person. If I can soften my resistance to this adventure; if I can see the beauty of life even as my illusion of control is ripped to shreds; if I can trust in the divine for even a minute every day; then wow, think how easy it will be to surrender to regular life when this is over.

My ashram is right here. I just have to be willing to open my eyes and see that every moment is an opportunity to connect with the divine.

Words are powerful. They are even (dare I say it?) magical. Yes, damnit, I dare say it:

During conversations and on social media, I have been referring to recent events as “the shit storm,” “the freaking pandemic,” and “the social distancing shit show.” Sometimes I added even more colorful language to those descriptions. I needed to swear and complain in order to wrap my brain around this experience.

But as of yesterday, I have a new name for sheltering-at-home during the Covid-19 pandemic: The Great 2020 Adventure. (Or, if I’m lazy or pithy, “the adventure.”) (And if you are wondering, when has Courtney ever felt ‘pithy‘, I can assure you it has happened at least once or twice.) (It always makes me so happy when I have an excuse to use the word “pithy.)

“Adventure” is one of my magic words. I did not just call my memoir Adventures with Postpartum Depression because that sounded cute. I consciously chose that title because the word “adventure” makes me feel like an empowered bad ass.

When I was first diagnosed with postpartum depression, I thought of it purely as a mental illness – because hey-o, it is a mental illness! That’s why I took Zoloft! And still have a psychiatrist! But when I thought about PPD as a mental illness, and nothing more, I felt like a victim and patient – passive roles that made me feel weak and pathetic.

I started writing my memoir as part of my healing journey; and that made me think about my illness as an adventure; which meant I was not just a pathetic patient… I was a bad ass on an adventure! A warrior! I do not remember the exact day that I came up with the title for my memoir, but I do know that decision was a major turning point in my recovery. I went from “passive recipient of medical care” to “heroine of my adventure” and being a heroine feels about 10,000 times better than being a passive recipient.

So that is what I am consciously doing now. When I referred to the current crisis as a “shit storm,” I felt like a victim of circumstances beyond my control. And yeah, there are certainly an abundance of circumstances currently beyond my control.

But isn’t that always the case?

I don’t control the weather or seasons. I don’t control my kids’ moods. I don’t control the way the stranger in the car behind me drives on the freeway. Every day, I encounter hundreds of little details that are beyond my control.

Except my mindset. Every moment of every day, I get to be the master of my mindset. From here on out, I am done with feeling like a victim lost in a shit storm. I am activating Adventure Mode and abandoning all the swear-y phrases that I have been using to describe the past three weeks of my life.

Welcome to The Great 2020 Adventure.

Last night while I was watching Tiger King with Nathan, we received a text message from our superintendent: Pippa’s school (and all Pasadena public schools) will is closed until the end of the school year. There will be distance learning, but the kids will not be returning to their physical classrooms.

My immediate reaction was complicated. There was disbelief, shock, and quite a few thoughts along the lines of  $%#& and *^@)(. It’s early April! Why can’t we wait a couple of weeks before we hit the doomsday button?

But then, after a few minutes of shock! horror! WTF! I felt something new and light and sweet.

Relief.

We have been living with a lot of uncertainty, and the weeks ahead are still filled with an ass shit ton of uncertainty: how many people will get infected? How many will die? Are any of my loved ones going to get sick? But at least the uncertainty about Pippa’s school year has been eliminated.

After about a half hour of relief (which was still mixed with tiny bits of shock, horror, and WTF), I thought to myself, Fuck it, let’s do this.

Let’s do this with humor.

Let’s do this with joy.

And holy shit, let’s have fun!

So that’s my current attitude about The Great 2020 Adventure. My attitude will probably evolve and mutate a thousand more times, but going forward, I’m going to try to have some fun.

Today, for example, I dressed up to go to the grocery store. I wore my new favorite green cardigan, my new favorite necklace, and lip gloss. (I belatedly remembered that makeup can be germy, so I’ll skip the lip gloss next time.) It might sound trivial, but making a three minute effort with my wardrobe really did lift my spirits.

I don’t have much agency in this adventure. I did not decide to close Pasadena schools and “home school” my kids while my husband carries on with his lawyer shenanigans in the master bedroom. I did not decide to restrict our lives to neighborhood walks and the grocery store, and I sure as hell did not decide to limit our contact with loved ones to Facetime and Google Hangouts. No, I did not choose this adventure.

But I do get to choose my attitude about The Great 2020 Adventure, and as of today, I am choosing to let myself have fun. There will be grief, sorrow, frustration, and a whole other slew of messy feelings, but by god, I am going to have fun.

Spoiler alert: I might finally have an excuse to buy the confetti cannon I have always secretly coveted.

Every day is weird and so far beyond my comfort zone, I’m not even certain I have a comfort zone anymore. Remember that place? I have gotten so used to Corona Land, it will be weird when I get to pack school lunches again and can get all the things on my shopping list easily (instead of writing “meat” and sacrificing a roll of toilet paper to the grocery gods).

But I’m in good company. Pretty much everyone I know is living with this constant uncertainty. We are all making up this shit as we go.

Here in Pasadena, we are the middle of Week 3 without school. It’s actually spring break for my kids, and I am loving the break from distance learning.

So far, we have managed to maintain bedtime. (Excuse me while I go knock on every piece of wood in the house!) The kids go to bed at 7:30. Nathan sings the usual lullabies; I tell a version of the Cloud Story that I started telling the kids last summer. I give them kisses and close their door. Then the kids make a lot of strange noises — I’m convinced someone has somehow managed to hide a wrecking ball under their bed — and after about ten minutes of the usual resistance, they succumb to the land of nod.

For us, bedtime must be maintained, but other aspects of parenting are not so clear. The kids know there is a Corona virus (Pippa heard about it at school from teachers and classmates). They know school is cancelled and that they are also not going back for at least another month (probably longer…) They know they can’t see their friends and that we don’t know when the hell we can have Pippa’s birthday party. That’s a lot of reality for a seven year old and four and a half year old.

As much as I am struggling with the uncertainty, they are struggling even more. I have to lower my expectations for my kids because holy shit, there’s a pandemic. They miss their grandparents, their schools, their friends and their teachers. So many comforts and routines have been yanked away with zero warning. Of course they are going to have Crazy Scary Feelings and find new ways to misbehave.

They are fighting a little more than usual, crying more easily, and testing the rules. So here’s my dilemma: I know I have to lower my expectations, but does that mean I let the kids misbehave without consequence?

Part of me thinks I should let misdeeds slide — hello! pandemic! — but then I think: if all the boundaries evaporate, and the kids can draw on the furniture (Julian!) and run with scissors (Pippa! WTF?!), and we descend into ANARCHY, isn’t that even scarier for the kids? If we let the kids destroy the house and eat dessert for every meal, then we are sending the message, Everything is fucked so why bother?

That’s why, even though my kids need extra love, I am still enforcing the rules. Both kids have been sent to time out since we started sheltering at home, and I’m sure they’ll be going back sometime soon. But yesterday, we promised them ice cream sandwiches for a snack if they behaved nicely. Their behavior all day was … suboptimal. But Nathan and I had a whispered conference and decided they both did their best. They both got the ice cream sandwiches, and then we snuggled and watched Frozen II. Sometimes they need time outs to feel safe; but sometimes, the kids need ice cream sandwiches and Olaf.

Mainly, I am trusting my intuition during this parenting adventure. When I sense that Pippa is testing boundaries to see if the boundaries still exist, I send her to time out. But other times, when I sense my kids are misbehaving because HOLY FUCK WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS HAPPENING, I take a deep breath and offer hugs and snuggles.

Parenting is going to seem so easy when this insanity is over.

I keep staring at my laptop screen thinking, I should write something! C’mon! Blogging is good for my mental health and God knows my mental health desperately needs all the help it can get.

And my brain goes: ______________________

Or: a very quiet thrum of white noise.

Or: Gnurple Blug fantatally fuck.

Yep. Yeah. Wow.

I feel bad for my therapist.

I had therapy today. We tried to do it online but the website that we were using for a “secure confidential therapy session” did not allow for sound. I could hear my therapist’s voice, but she could not hear mine; and then she played with the settings and she could hear my voice, but I could not hear her voice anymore. And since sound is critical for therapy (unless both parties are fluent in American Sign Language) we switched to Facetime.

Quick tangent: holy shit, I should try learning a little sign language while we are sheltering at home! There must be something on Youtube, right? I bet my kids would like to do that with me…

Back to this really articulate blog post: we switched to Facetime, I vented about this strange new reality, and by the end of my session, I felt much better. (The bar is low, folks, but still, I’ll take anything!) But as we were finishing my session, my therapist mentioned that she thinks this Strangeness is traumatic for everyone.

That’s when I realized, Holy shit, ALL of my therapist’s clients (patients?) are in crisis. ALL OF US.

Usually, in a given week or month, some of us are in crisis, some of us are “great! spiffy! making tremendous progress!” and then a bunch of us are somewhere in between. But right now, we are all – including my therapist – living through an unprecedented shit storm.

When I am dealing with some Big Issue, my therapist can usually recommend a few great resources. Over the past few years, she has hooked me up with the Calm App, Fr. Richard Rohr, Pema Chodron, and Miribai Starr – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. She always knows a book or podcast that can help me process whatever life throws my way.

But this? Sheltering at home during a pandemic for weeks on end with no guaranteed end date? No one has written a memoir about this yet! There will certainly be dozens if not hundreds of Covid-19 memoirs written in the years to come, but right now, we are living the memoir. We are figuring this shit out minute by minute.

No wonder my brain has gone into “Gnurple Blug” mode! Every single minute of every single day is bursting with a sense of “well what the fuck now and are we really sure this is not some elaborate prank? Because it’s easier to think that Ashton Kutcher has punked us all than to digest the concept of a pandemic that has effectively hit the PAUSE button on life as we know it.”

Whew. Once again, having written a blog post, I actually feel a little better.

My poor brain, however is still very much in Gnurple Blug Fantatally Fuck land. Oh well!