Silver Linings of the Coronavirus: Finding Health in a Pandemic, Head to Toe

As we arrive to Week Eleven of Sheltering in Place I’ve learned a few things from truly spending time with myself. My mind-body connection has never been stronger, and it is teaching me a few things I’ve learned but until now didn’t know.

Two years ago in my Yoga Teaching Certification Program, I studied the body and its miraculous systems. At the Dallas Yoga Center Shelagh McElroy taught me about my feet and Carla Weaver taught me about the benefits of the Rest and Digest neural response to situations (the opposite of Fight or Flight). Through this pandemic as time took over, Fight or Flight became less of an option for me: no one to fight, no were to fly to. And so, what does happen to the body when we have an affluence of time and an opportunity for more resting, more digesting? Let’s take a journey through the body to see just what the silver linings are of a sheltered life.

Feet

After ten weeks out of heels, I wonder if I will ever go back. This sabbatical from dress shoes has been bliss for my 26-bones and 30 ligaments (x 2). The three arches of the foot (transverse/ medial/ lateral) have been at ease in a natural way in house shoes, tennis shoes and even plein air. My toe nails, un-polished are almost grown out from the stress of pedicures and the natural nail is knowing for the first time in a long time what contact with oxygen is like. My daily walks at White Rock Lake have been good for my feet in contact with the earth. I am in every sense of the word, grounded.

Legs

My walking practice has been good for my legs, too. And my yoga practice. I am stretching daily and have noticed a toning of my calves and thighs. We were meant to walk. To be in nature. Our paleo roots teach us this, and in this pandemic I’ve spent more time outside reminding me of my summers at Brush Ranch Camps. Daily contact with the planet has been good for me and my legs.

Heart

Brush Ranch was in the mountains northeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The altitude and the hiking offered me an unexpected benefit: the heart murmur I have would disappear after my months at Camp. I like to think this is happening here, too, with more cardio offered to my heart: more oxygenated blood in a daily practice from my walks and on-line yoga classes. The physical heart thrives in a space of having time for exercise. And my spiritual heart is stronger, too: being with this suffering is teaching me how widely I can love and care. I follow the heart and the heart gets stronger.

Lungs

I’ve been breathing more than usual, too. Deep, intentional breathing every day helps me know I am here. Breathing can also trigger worry of Covid-19, but I sit with this and the thoughts pass. A practice for breath is good for me. I have a daily practice of mindfulness that offers me moments with the breath. Thich Nhat Hanh offers the beautifully simple practice of Breathing in, Breathing out. I have spent more time with my breath than ever in my life and each breath is an invitation to fall in love with this moment, this miracle of each breath.

Sight

I am working on a future blog post of the benefits of watching something grow slowly over time. This pandemic has helped me see things: the edges of growth in my thirteen-year-old son as by micro-millimeters he became taller than I am. I watched the bold greening of spring in the trees arounds us, the unfurling of Queen Anne’s Lace, the mint, the potato vine, the Cosmos and now the baby sunflowers I am growing from seed. Each moment is a miracle. Seeing things happen slowly gives me the presence of my moment-to-moment experience. Mary Oliver in her poem “Wild Geese” writes

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination

Now, ten weeks into this pandemic, I know it is true. I’ve seen it.

Hearing

For the first two weeks of the pandemic it startled me that the birds left the neighborhood. Our birdfeeder, a place of frenzy and hype stood untouched. Perhaps the birds were startled by the shifts in our patterns, air pollution or how our stillness rippled into their waves. Perhaps it was a season for mating, appetite for birdseed fell. But it was quieter, too. Maybe it was colder. Nevertheless, they returned two weeks later, emptied the feeder and began daily pre-dawn concerts for wakeful, willing listeners. My ears were tuned and ready and now I throw open the windows, listening for names I don’t know. This soundscape is the backdrop to my sound meditations. Never before have I known how it is possible to finely tune one’s ear and one’s heart to the conversations of nature. The frogs at the lake are singing in the moonlight. And I am not missing it.

The Brain

If you venture out, be careful. Our brains have been called to other tasks for these past ten weeks and they are out of practice for the quick-response thinking needed for driving. Our daily decisions have become fewer and more slowly summoned. I spend about an hour and a half driving daily, countless decisions made to accelerate, yield, see, respond. At home, it’s different: certainly the work to be on a video conference call offers a new kind of strain, but for most people, this affluence of time (what we spent commuting) is offered to other tasks: and with intention it can be extremely beneficial.

Also, the brain likes to have patterns and predictability: there is peace in the rhythms we’ve created at home, if even a relaxing to the blurred lines of home and office. The mental energy to dress for events, presentations, travel has all evaporated and in this space the distance between preparing for here and there has diminished. I moved all of my work clothes to a different closet. My choices are fewer and even the dog has come to love it when she sees me pull out the walking shoes. My brain likes it, too.

And sleep: I’ve had my moments of wakeful worry, but I am now in a space of knowing we may be at this a while yet. I’ve stopped waking up at 3:45 am and now, with two long walks a day at the lake, can fall into my pillow easily. For sleep, I am creating an allowing: an allowing to rest for a few minutes in the afternoon, to go to sleep earlier if I feel like it. If I can sleep, I try to. The daily walks have been very helpful to this practice of sleep.

Skin

And finally, our exosphere: the magical human organ of skin: alive, permeable, responsive. I am noticing the little things: the appearance of more hydration (I am drinking more water). The daily connection in my mindfulness practice to skin, noticing the connection points of skin to air, breathing out to the outer edges of my skin and back into the body. I am eating less fried food (more home cooking) and I can see it in my skin. I've stopped wearing makeup. More Vitamin D has to be helping, too. More oxygen from my walks. More joy, too. In this common humanity, it feels a little better to be in our skin, not in the tension of where we were pre-Covid-19. At home, in this waiting place, we’re in the practice of being with what is, in the skin that we have. I can only imagine this to be really and truly good for us.

So take it all in – yes, we have new worries and strains on the mind, body and spirit, but from this lens on week eleven, my body feels more like mine today than it did in February. And as we lean into this future, this one we don’t quite imagine yet, I plan to bring this body along with me. Stay well, friends.

Zooming Out: 100 Things to Do Between Online Video-Conference Meetings

Several weeks ago, fresh “in” to this New Normal, in the middle of the day I left a Zoom call and took a hard Einstein-style cat nap on the bed conveniently located just inches from my office desk. I felt guilty, self-conscious and unsure why a deep sleep was so quickly available to me. For a few moments I did the thing I didn’t think I could do: I was unavailable. 

And why is that? This generous act of self-compassion, to care for oneself first is taboo and un-spokenly so: we are the last ones we take care of. Couple that with the effort to meet our teams where they are (Virtual): and I believe we have too many humans on Zoom or TEAMS for too long, without taking breaks, offering ourselves equal time alone in the creative space of debriefing meetings, writing and designing. Remote work does not equal being available in the Virtual Space all the time. That’s a story I told myself. 

We are missing our natural transition times: driving to meetings, walking down the hall to the restroom or kitchen, saying hello to a colleague nearby. The brain is not shifting activity: these respites were not only purposeful but also extremely beneficial to our cognitive health. Asking the brain to down-shift momentarily can increase our productivity and joy in the Home Office. 

Last week I took back my schedule and wrote in swaths of time for desk work. I spent a few minutes each day checking on my independent teen and pre-teenager. I stopped taking 8 am meetings and ended the day at 6. I sourced the collective wisdom of my social media communities and here is an offering of one-hundred ways to counter-balance the side effects of Zooming in.

1.     Go to the restroom without apology or haste.
2.     Take five-minutes for a mindful walk outside.
3.     Create your own flow of three yoga poses.
4.     Drink a tall glass of water.
5.     Divide your house into five zones. Clean one zone daily M-F.
6.     Sit in silence for five-minutes, ring a bell or set a timer on your phone.
7.     Sit in the car and listen to loud music as if you would to drive to a meeting.
8.     Set up 2-3 areas of your house for remote work and offer yourself a new view during the day.
9.     Take a power nap, yes this is allowed.
10.  Wash a window.
11.  Fold laundry.
12.  Tidy your desk.
13.  Powder your nose.
14.  Apply lip gloss.
15.  Calm the dog.
16.  Voice check.
17.  Set an intention for your next virtual meeting.
18.  Give your dog a massage.
19.  Call a friend or family member you’ve been meaning to check on: make a list at the start of the week.
20.  Write a postcard to a young person you know.
21.  Flip and rotate your matress.
22.  Spend time just sitting with Jesus. Be silent. Let his peace be your peace. 
23.  Change the laundry from the washer to the dryer.
24.  Take the dogs for a walk.
25.  Water your plants.
26.  Unload, load the dishwasher.
27.  Create a prayer candle in your common area and light it for those in need. Place a name on a small card near the candle each day.
28.  Plant a vegetable garden and take time to water it every day.
29.  Sit outside with a frosty glass of tea listening to the birds.
30.  Divide a landscaped bed into sections and take a section at a time to pull weeds or trip hedges.
31.  Spend a few moments to reflect on friends and family, whomever God lays on your heart, write them a real letter. It can be one of thanks, something they did that you are grateful for, memory you treasure from long ago or just that you are thinking of them.
32.  Take five deep breaths; with each, breathing in something you want to fill your heart and exhaling what you want to expunge. Example: breathing in courage, breathing out fear; breathing in trust, breathing out angst. (Source: Thich Nhat Hanh)
33.  Make masala chai and serve in fancy cups.
34.  I take the time to refill my coffee with a fresh pour-over, and stand on my patio steps with the sun on my face
35.  Go sit at the piano and play or write a new song.
36.  Take a moment to stretch and take some deep breaths.
37.  Turn on a personal fan.
38.  Tell your children that you love them and that you are proud of how well they are handling the pandemic.
39.  Gather eggs.
40.  Check the garden.
41.  Encourage the plants.
42.  Throw sticks for the dog.
43.  Watch the birds.
44.  Sweep a porch or a back deck.
45.  Make a healthy snack. 
46. Brew some herbal tea. 
47.  Happily bother a sleeping cat.
48.  Go for a run.
49.  Write your partner a note of love and appreciation.
50.  Dust a fan.
51.  Read a poem.
52.  Read the Hobbit over time with your children.
53.  Write a family schedule for the week.
54.  Plan a family meeting.
55.  Make placecards for your family dinner.
56.  Set up an art station in your house with supplies (example: coloring pages, collage)
57.  Clean your laptop and your phone.
58.  Sweep the garage.
59.  Open the windows in the house.
60.  Clean out a drawer.
61.  Write a journal entry.
62.  Free-write, pen and paper for five minutes without stopping.
63.  Empty the refrigerator or pantry (or both!) of expired items.
64.  Make popsicles.
65.  Slice an apple and offer your kids a healthy snack.
66.  Check on a neighbor.
67.  Fill the birdfeeder.
68.  Fluff the pillows.
69.  Play music.
70.  Check on your friends at home with small children.
71.  Organize your jewelry or ties.
72.  Cancel your digital subscriptions.
73.  Make care kits for the homeless.
74.  Bake cookies.
75.  Write a haikiu (a short, three-lined poem from Japan with syllabic structure of 5/7/5)
76.  Sing at the top of your lungs.
77.  Rest in shavasana (corpse pose) for ten minutes.
78.  Research restorative yoga poses and try a new one each week.
79.  Create a home meditation or prayer space.
80.  Read a verse of scripture.
81.  Learn a new word and teach it to someone else.
82.  Adopt a grandparent from a retirement home and check-in with them often.
83.  Adopt a friend’s young child and check-in with them often; sending notes in the mail.
84.  Drink a cup of tea mindfully (research mindful eating and drinking).
85.  Take a shower (if you haven’t).
86.  De-brief your last meeting.
87.  Write and agenda and outcomes for your next meeting.
88.  Pull the scrabble board out and play a round or two.
89.  Doodle.
90.  Sit with both arms extended up in a wide “V”: hold for one minute breathing deeply.
91.  Call a beloved teacher and tell them why they were great.
92.  Organize your jewelry and take photos for your files.
93.  Write a blog post.
94.  Watch a TED talk.
95.  Download the Marco Polo app and start communicating with friends and family.
96.  Work on your Family Ancestry.
97.  Sit and do nothing.
98.  Listen to the birds.
99.  Put your feet up.
100. Create existence in your calendars a few of your favorite ideas above. Have new ideas? Please share them with me!

Be generous with yourself: we are all getting through this together as the perfectly imperfect human beings that we are. We’ve accomplished a remarkable transition to working from home in short amount of time. Now it’s time to make working for home work for us. Enjoy new joys. 

Thank to special contributors: Jennifer Stanton Hargrave, Rowena Raroque-Watters, Debby Fosdick, Lollie Tompkins, James F. Fosdick, Stephanie Cole, Allison Perkins, Diana Marquis, Dyana Pari Nafissi Holzworth, Claire Sexton, Mary Beth Whitman Goodrich, Leslie Barker Garcia, Nana Boardman, MK Benton Sharp, Mickey Parson, Jenny Apperti, Melody Hamilton, Lisa Reed, Caren Lock, Laura Neff, Nancy Dorrier and Kelly Irwin Heatly. 

Resources: 

Zoom Fatigue is Taxing the Brain: Here's Why That Happens, National Geographic 

Zoom Exhaustion is Real: Here are SIx Ways to Find Balance and Stay Connected, Mindful Magazine  

What I Was Doing While You Were Dying

I got the call today, a few minutes before I was to teach my first Introduction to Mindfulness Course for UT Dallas Faculty. I, this person about to teach tools for grounding, felt the earth shift. Molecules around me rearranged. I had to gather for the 40 humans arriving to my TEAMS Teleconference, greeting each other with “Good Afternoon” and “I miss you” messages to each other. 

“Donald is gone.” I hear in my thoughts. Followed by: “Keep going, teach the class.” I breathe: facing new challenges of an un-sharing screen, yet held by two colleagues who quickly found a way for my presentation to be seen. I, in turn, held a space for these humans in the only way I knew how: mindfully with lovingkindness and compassion. Dis-believing the outer weather, the news, the facts, I held a calm inside: “Donald is gone.” 

Last night through two more on-line sessions, I made mistakes. I held up my Family for the Family Walk in the driveway and mis-fired an email to the wrong person. I wasn’t holding it together at all. 

Sunday. That’s the day you died. I don’t really know yet what time: late afternoon? It was hot to be running. You drove to a beautiful part of Dallas, Oak Cliff, parked your car, and went for a run. Perhaps you were meditating or writing the next song of your play. You’d probably been doing that all day. Sometimes when I was with you, I knew you were deep inside the channel of mindfulness: I would slow when we walked. I would slow inside. This was your being. 

Sunday was a slow day for me: I taught Sunday School, wrote, worked on my Crow Museum planning, took walks with the boys: all of my molecules were stable, everything in its place. 

In this last year, you appeared to me as a new friend: easy, natural conversations and deep ones, too. On spirituality, pursuits, dreams, loss. We talked about it all, as if it was the last year of your life. 

I know how you liked your omelette. Your coffee. I know how you took care of ALL of the people we encountered. I know how you liked to drop into lyrical, musical theater dialogue at any moment. That was us together. 

We met over a Lazy Susan. At Nest. You sold me (at a very high price) a re-purposed French wine barrel lid-Lazy Susan. You swept through the store when we met encouraging me to see and enjoy. You were a Master of Retail. It was easy to love you. I left with a wine-barrel lid Lazy Susan. 

And then it warped. France to Texas humidity I suppose. Just as I expected, you replaced it fully and encouraged me to come back if there were any problems. You walked it to my car for the second time. You were a Prince of a Person. 

And yes, we both have our prince and princess-ly imperfections: we talked about them: our mountains we’ve crossed, the dark shadows we found. Yet, from that darkness you gathered so much seeing. And you told me so. You came to me at a time when I couldn’t see myself: you chose to light the world around me so I could. You are leaving us with so much: the poetry of your musical scores, so many treasures from the Nasher Store, the conversations that will never leave me, a friend, a brother. 

You went for a run and never came home. A tragic accident with a DART Streetcar. I can’t imagine and don’t want to. But it wasn’t so many things: it wasn’t cancer, or chronic illness, it wasn’t COVID-19. There is an edge of comfort in this. A tiny edge. 

I will look for you, in the bright face of Venus I saw last night at sunset, in the play of birds in the tree, the swelling of wind. I like to imagine you are close to me, shoulder to shoulder, as Kabir writes. I will hold the words of encouragement you’ve given me this past year as my treasure of this life. Thank you for taking the time to care in this magical, deep way that you did. 

Right before I found out you had died, I was in a different mindfulness class: my International Mentor Group for my Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. I was gathered with Jake from Nottingham, Holly from Sidney, Monica from Basel, Helene from Tallinn (Estonia) and Andrew from Baltimore. After an hour together in practice and connecting, the instructor let us know he was going to shift topics to the next item on the agenda. I had to leave early to prepare for my class at UT Dallas.

The topic was to be impermanence and loss. 

I would miss the lesson, but found it again, poignantly a minute later when the phone rang. I will miss you, Donald Fowler. Thank you for your extraordinary life. 

“Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas,
not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues,
nor in cathedrals:
not in masses,
nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.
When you really look for me,
you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.”

― Kabir

Dear Easter, 2021

Dear Easter, 2021:

Ring the bells, Alleluia, He is Risen. Buy the suits for the boys, the fresh socks and stiff shoes. New ties and a crisp shirt. You will search imploringly at four or five stores at the Mall on the day before Easter with distant salespeople who are tired, eyes glazed over: To them, Easter is just another holiday where there are more clothes to put back on racks, more stuffed animals to stack. It will run together for you, too. You will stress over the meal: the guests, the house: it will come and go, and you will have forgotten what happened last year: how the being in being together was the real Alleluia. And how precious it was.

Don’t forget what it feels like: this blessed permission of 2020: permission to “make do” with what we have, to “be with” what is. To leave the shopping list shorter because so much is non-essential.

This year, I bought the meal in one, safe swirl through Kuby’s in Snider Plaza: the shopping strip of my Middle School years. We stood in line, 6 feet apart, my friend and me. We were quiet in line, no one chatted on phones or texted: there was silence in our togetherness: common humanity calls for a humble solidarity. No one complained that the line moved at tortoise speed. We were grateful the store was open.

I moved through the small, lovely German market as old as I am. Pimento cheese, asparagus, twice-baked potatoes, ribs, smoked pork chops for my parents, cheese grits (Grandmother reference), pickled okra (Grandfather reference) and Cherry Strudel for breakfast (Dad reference). I stood on one side of a recently constructed plexiglass screen: to protect me and the woman at the register. In 2020, we are together in our division: together in staying distant, mutually committed to staying well, and understanding how deeply serious the reasons really are.

In the car, we decided to drive on out to the farm: storm clouds dropped lightning and we watched runners darting for home. I paid attention to it all. The outings are special now. It rained most of the way.

At Campbell Road I wished I was still exiting there for work: for the office I can’t sit in at the University of Texas at Dallas. Soon, I say to myself, soon. We press on. The rain lets up. Once on Parker Road, I tell Emilia I could make that drive with my eyes closed: So. Many. Drives. On East Parker Road. The curves are in me. And especially today. I notice.  

In my Parents’ driveway, the gravel crackles under the car. I sort out their provisions and walk up to the front door: everything is different in 2020: even how I enter our family home. I ring the large white plastic doorbell that replaced a bell I brought back from San Gimignano, Italy in 1992. The new bell is louder.

Slowly my father peers out of the window of this ca. 1910 Farmhouse: one that has most certainly seen Pandemic before. He opens the door: “I need to go get my mask”. He takes the groceries without gloves on, with one long forefinger. I walked in, gloved and masked. My mother unnaturally retreats when she sees me: part surprise at my arrival, part not knowing exactly who and what to fear. I witness reason over wanting, sensibility over the human habit of embracing your parents at exactly the moment you really need to the most. We stood uncomfortably: it is all unnatural. Front door, not taking a seat in the warm kitchen I love so much. Lunch spread on the table. But I had to go. Air molecules were wafting off of me and from whom or where no one knows. Gently I took my elbow and touched her elbow. His, too. Blue eyes piercing me with love. I felt it.

I scurried to the car. Don’t forget next year, this little moment. How you wanted to hug them, take them home with you. To the messy house with food you’re not going to cook. To the four home offices you all set up in three rooms: feeling the house shrink around you. In 2021, make it the "us" you wanted it to be: in the clothes we felt like wearing, knowing that being together is the one thing we couldn't have.

Next year, God-willing: may "we" and "it" all come together. Plan an Easter day that is unplanned: unscripted and new: shift the unbalanced time of planning versus being in the opposite direction: because, when you don’t have either, it is the being you want the most. You will want to sit in your parents’ kitchen for hours. To run in the back door like you always did, unannounced, un-masked. Did I actually ring the doorbell to my parents’ home?

Wake up to all of this and know that in a Pandemic, with fear and uncertainty all around us, it is the waking up that is the real Alleluia. And for this, Thanks be to God.

Love, Me 

Dreading Monday? Shine your Little Light

Anyone dreading Monday? Read on and breathe 

Weekends are now the hallowed space: 5 pm Friday comes and I breathe a sigh of relief. Weekends are a little different than they were before, but for those of us managing the remote office and home schooling, Monday-Friday 9-5 are a LOT different. And, for those of us not home schooling they are a lot different, too. 

Today is Sunday and I see the crest of time in the horizon before I am back in “gear”: to be “on” for our museum team, prepared for my new online classes for UTD Employees and a wee bit ahead of my children’s plans to turn on Fortnight between online instruction. I could say it’s frantic and a mess, and I am choosing not to. Because how it is in our house, office, school is a choice. 

So, here are a few words from the home front that I hope will be helpful to you as we peer into Week Four of shelter-in-place. 

Declare how it will be: take five minutes and write about this week. Set your timer and keep the hand moving (this is a free write, pen and paper). Create a vision for what will be. You will surprise yourself how, once you’ve written it, the future can be what you see, not what happens to you. 

Cut your screen time in half. I’m doing this today: as much as I love the nearer-connection of Zoom, Teams and Webex (and promoted it last week), I am also noticing eye strain. Are you? By Friday of last week I was putting on my awful readers and leaning too far into my laptop. Our boys’ eyes were reddening too. I’m sure it’s part pollen, part Fortnight, part social media (for me) but we all know, this is new, and there is a limit. Listen to the side effects. Your body is telling you something. 

Be the boss. The calendar doesn’t run you. You run the calendar. Look out this week and take off what isn’t directly advancing your work. I know I need “think space” in next week and I found from last week I accepted all meeting requests and moved meetings to make it all “work”. We’re missing drive time, prep time, de-brief meeting time, desk time and breathe time. We, as the authors of this new world of Remote Work, get to say what the day looks like. 

Lift up the laptop. For that ½ of the week you are designing on zoom, the center of the screen should be at eye-level. Your neck might be telling you this, too. (See “listen to the side effects above). Chair yoga is a great anti-dote to your new neckaches. 

Love yourself. Take a nap when you’re tired (children permitting). Take a mindful self-compassion moment: 

1. Sit in a position that is comfortable for you: no straining, holding. Relaxed, yet alert. 
2. Lower or close the eyes. 
3. Place the palm of your hand gently over your heart space. 
4. Create a prayer/ phrase or mantra (a word or phrase to aid concentration) to say to yourself. Examples: “breathing in, breathing out” (Thich Nhat Hanh), “this, too” (Tara Brach) or I am here, Everything will be alright, Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). 

I believe we’re leading two lives right now: 

•    There is the Self managing all of the suffering we are seeing and may already be experiencing directly. We are grieving the loss of our innocence and the old normal. 
•    There is the Self managing our Shelters: creating a new normal, keeping the work and school work flowing. Holding it all together, or as it goes for me: trying to. 

And guess what? Both lives show up in one perfectly imperfect human. Give yourself permission to be with both: talk to a friend or family member about how you are in this fourth week. Write about it. Hold yourself in a space of allowing yourself to try things, fail and forgive. Two things I know: we’re all in this together, and we may be at this for a while. Shine on, Dear Friends. 

Post script: 

For the past six years, I have worked with Dorrier Underwood on how to lead in my work and in my being. I source their expertise here both in designing meeting and fulfilling goals. Additionally, my training in yoga and mindfulness have helped prepare me for this moment…and the moments to come.