Familiar Choreography
I sat on the subway and he stood in front of me in a comforting enclosure, one hand leaning on the bar overhead and the other on the pole beside, our own world between us.
It was such familiar choreography, exchanging looks and gauging the other's reaction to everything, falling back into familiar postures though we hadn't done this subway dance in two years.
I looked around and saw the fabric of every other seat permanently damaged from the gluey residue of stickers that had been placed there to enforce social distancing. (Swipe to see, image from @blogto).
As I navigate a world with almost no restrictions, I keep greeting these sticky remnants of life as it's been. They stand ground like the last stubborn leaves that refuse to fall. Dissonant.
Part of me wonders if it's because we were so unceremoniously thrust back into "how it was".
Suddenly life was no more masks, no more tests, reintegration, mandates lifting, return to xyz. I've been going through some of these new/old motions, but my spirit hasn't quite caught up. I am still in processing mode.
Typically in life when we come to a rite of passage - as our slow emergence from the last two years must surely be - we mark it with ritual.
We bear witness to our transitions and give them the reverence that they are due.
If you're finding it exciting, overwhelming, challenging, dissonant, exhausting, and scary to jump back into the world - you are not alone.
In the spirit of not starting before we're quite ready, stay tuned for an upcoming Glass Full offering. A ritual and ceremony to help us move through what was and into what is, because if one thing remains true it's that we are meant to hold hands and jump together.