Breathing Into Balance

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I have a meeting scheduled today at 4:30. Do I go or "meet" online? Am I being overly cautious, giving into fear? Is it foolish to expose myself (and by connection, my family) to further contact? The answers to all of these questions are that I just don't know.

It's an important meeting, but is anything important enough to get into a room with people and increase the exposure of my family by four or five times? We're in the early stages of understanding this pandemic. Testing isn't widely available. My family, including my elderly mother, are healthy, and I'll do most anything to keep it that way. So, despite the meeting's importance, I'm unsure what to do.

This reminds me that balance is the most important thing on which I'll work over the next few weeks. It has been crucial all along, but is especially so now. I'm balancing the welfare of my family with the importance of the meeting, balancing the feeling of risk with the available science, balancing fear with courage and risk with safety.

I can't hold balance. I'm constantly falling out of it. That sounds bad, but I'm also always in the process of returning to balance. Two nights ago I couldn't sleep thinking all was lost. The next morning I saw the sunlight. Last night I slept well. This morning it's grey outside and in.

As for the meeting, everyone there is smart, thoughtful, and careful. All of us will wash hands before, stay six feet apart, and not shake hands. Maybe we will begin by acknowledging our concerns and the ways in which we feel out of balance. From there we can proceed.

Yesterday, worrying over all this, I stopped to watch my daughters outside, playing with the dog, doing a photo shoot. I saw people jogging and walking past the house. I sat next to my wife on the couch. I knew that my mother was only a phone call away. I took a deep breath and felt just that much more calm, cleansed, and dare I say balanced in that moment. Before I could worry that the moment would end, I took another breath, this time closing my eyes and trusting that I won't fall down.

Love Thy Neighbor?

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I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that someone important suggested (maybe commanded) I love my neighbor as I love myself. Something to that effect. I believe in that. It's sensible, thoughtful, and healthy.

However.

My next door neighbor's dog is barking outside. This is not unusual. It's almost noon, so that's better than when he barks from six to six-thirty in the morning or eleven-thirty to midnight. Still, it has been ten minutes of the dog barking at passing people, dogs, and sometimes cars and leaves. The bark is deep and strong. Were I a good person, I'd think of him as Walt Whitman sounding his barbaric yawp across the rooftops of the world.

I just think he's a pain in the ass.

I suppose I sound mean and petty. (I can play that role.) For several years I've not loved or even liked my neighbor. I don't hate her, so there's that at least. And just so I come off a little better, I blame the dog's faults on the neighbor. A dog doesn't know any better.

I like dogs. We have one, but she hardly barks. The two exceptions are the single bark to let us know she's ready to come in from the yard and a few seconds of bat-shit crazy barking when the little dog in the house above ours goes off. Our dog sprints up the hill to the fence, they bark like mad, then they settle in for wagging and smelling.

I don't mind that little dog, but I don't. He used to bark a lot, but I knocked on their door and asked "do you think you could bring him in when he barks?" They did. Since then, no problems. I love my neighbor as my dog loves theirs.

The next door neighbor won't change. I've asked. A couple times. Politely. But it doesn't occur to her that the barking is a problem. Some neighbors aren't on the same wave length of thoughtfulness.

None of this is the end of the world or cause for hatred, but I don't much love my neighbor. Not that one at least.

Still, today when she walks her dog, I'll say hello from a safe distance and ask how she's doing. It's the neighborly thing to do and right now we need as much of that as we can muster.

Woof-woof.