Joy in the Time of COVID-19

When my son told me that he wanted to be the Flex Tape guy for career day at school this Friday, I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. Phil Swift has taken the internet by storm with his over-the-top commercial ads for Flex Tape which can put a boat back together after it has been sawed in half. Yes, literally. “Now THAT’S a lotta DAMAGE!” he screams when purposefully wrecking stuff with chainsaws just to seal it back up with a slap or spray of adhesive. The guy has to be a millionaire so I can certainly think of far worse careers to aspire to. 

The prep for this getup was rather simple. Short-sleeved polo shirt, jeans, and a homemade Flex Tape logo to put on the front. This kid never ceases to amaze and amuse me. Last year he was DJ X for career day, complete with a light up X on his t-shirt. As the changing themes of Dr. Seuss school spirit week prevailed, the usual buffet of work, homework, sibling squabbles, dinners, and drama continued. “Smell the flowers, blow out the candles” I told myself over and over again with jaw clenched in all-consuming stress. This breathing technique works, it really does. But, when the week is extra full and you work with the public as the outside world devolves into pandemic pandemonium, all techniques for breathing go out the window and survival mode sets in. You lean in to the drama and wash your hands a little too much. Before you know it, your epidermis is begging you to be dirty and blissfully ignorant again.

It took a minute, I’ll admit, for me to recognize the prowl of OCD at my door in the midst of a busy week. As much as I find keeping up on death tolls and exact locations of this contagion to be “helpful”, I have learned that it is a warped attempt to self-soothe. Will knowing as much as possible about the coronavirus protect me? No, it will not. Sorry, COVID-19, I will not allow my mind’s precious real estate to be sold to you. I’m leaning out of the panic surrounding the what-ifs and leaning in to the simple joys of my senses—the enveloping warmth of a long-overdue hug; the soul-penetrating brine of cold ocean air; the bright tang of vinegar sprinkled on fish and chips; the spider web of bare trees against a caliginous sky. These are the things that I will actively choose to nourish my neurons.  Leaning out, it seems, is actually easier than leaning in. Smelling flowers, blowing out candles, eating chocolate....what could possibly be simpler than that?

School spirit week is over and a new Monday looms. No more career days to plan or book character costumes to design, this moment of normalcy is welcome. A Flex Tape cake is now being planned for a birthday in July and the kids are looking forward to better weather to come. As we forge on in this time of intercontinental illness and dread, swarms of buyers will compete for the real estate of your mind via constant news updates and scrolling through Facebook. Acknowledge the buyers’ presence, maybe even engage them for a bit. Let them think they’re important, let them believe you’re for sale. Then lean out, my friend, lean out. Quarantine the multimillion-dollar property that is your brain and as those greedy buyers turn their backs, whisper just loudly enough for them to overhear —“Not today, motherfuckers. Not for sale, not today.”