Sunday, August 08, 2021
Sunday Reflection: The Pandemic Twisties
If nothing else, the Tokyo Olympics has led many of us to see these top-flight athletes as human rather than as somehow super-human. Simone Biles came into (and out of) the games hailed as the "Greatest Gymnast of All Time," but was unable to compete in most events because of what she (and other gymnasts) call "the twisties." Apparently, this is the sense of not knowing where your body is as you fly through the air-- of being disassociated with it, in a way. It sounds terrifying, and real.
Last week, I had the odd feeling of being disassociated from time. I was walking along and suddenly was unable to track when in the year it was-- had Easter happened? When was school? It was a bizarre and unsettling moment.
I know where it came from.
As I have said here before, I have always thought of the week or two at Osler Island in the summer as start of the year, of my anchor in time. And for 49 consecutive years, it was just that. Then, for the last two, I have been unable to go because of the pandemic, and now I feel unmoored in time.
I do realize that of the tragedies of the pandemic, this is not a major one-- not anything like that suffered by those who lost a parent or suffered with the sickness themselves, or lost a job or a home.
But it is one of the little unseen hurts this disease has inflicted on us, one of millions-- mental and spiritual harms that largely are unseen. The quantum of sadness, in tiny drops the size of tears, is hard to measure, after all.
So it needs to be a time of kindness, for us all.
