Be a Scribe to Your Time

Early on in the pandemic (how’s that for a fairytale starting sentence) a spectacular emerging artist from the U.K. who I follow, wrote that artists who didn’t acknowledge this earth shattering shift would be denying or ignoring the completeness and truth of their artistic legacy. Which had me stuck. The worse the world felt the more idiotic and ashamed I felt: I have not been suffering. My home was nearly completed, in the greenest capital of the most peaceful country. My partner in crime rose to the occasion and stayed positive and engaged, understanding and cozy. My kids stayed healthy and active, were forward thinking and malleable to the uncertain future. My job not only did not stop, it got a shot of adrenaline: home is where we will be for the foreseeable future and most want to look at four more calming and collected walls than the walls that had been ignored in our previous rush of life. This sense of guilt that I carry also grew in the literal sense: I carry a growing knot in my stomach. This is not weight. This is, and looks, like an inflated balloon of gloom. At the height of the pandemic in L.A. I flew in to say goodbye to my U.S. Marine son who was getting deployed for the first time. That is what mothers do. His skin, his eyes, his countenance were soft, sharp and straight. Here was a man who had taken no extra weight or guilt on. Here was a man I could look to for inspiration. I wanted to link myself to him by doing something he was doing, to go through something physical that he was going through. The one thing I found, the only thing I found I could possibly do, was not drink. For the length of his seven-month deployment. It started as soon as I came back to become a “cellar dweller” for fourteen days. One month in I feel I am on my way. I mean to make physical activity a part of my life again too. I am writing this to equally honor the artist who said “be a scribe to your time”, to make my son proud, but also to be accountable to you. I hope to do him and you proud.