How many of you are feeling a little bit of cabin fever right about now? Feeling a bit like you're trapped at home? Or, perhaps you're relishing in the safety and solitude of home, afraid to venture into the great wide world? Either way, we are all spending copious amounts of time at home doing things that we typically never have the time to do.
But the reality is that some of us feel comfortable at home and some of us feel trapped.
These hours on end at home are all because of the fact that we are all so deeply connected in our day to day lives. We've had to put a full stop on our regular daily habits, social outings, and person to person interactions. As you already know, it only takes one person infected with Covid-19 to start a chain reaction of infection in a community. This pandemic has illuminated how interconnected we all are. It doesn't matter what part of the city, province, country, or world we're from - we're all feeling it and we're all in it together.
As a result, we are aiming to protect ourselves using social distancing. Not only has this been adopted by so many as a way to flatten the cure of this virus, but it has placed us all in a rather interesting position. How many of us are spending time alone? How about those of us who are in the company of others for more hours than we can handle? For some of us cabin fever might have set in long ago, or perhaps one soggy day of rain is what finally set us off.
All I know is that in the quiet life of staying home everyday, all day, how I spend my time has most definitely shifted.
Many people are finally finding time to read that book that's been sitting on the back burner. For me, as I read a great deal on a regular basis, that has not been the case. In actuality, I've taken a bit of a breather from reading. Part of this is because my mind has been overwhelmed with worry for my family and friends that rather than pick up a book to read, I find myself scanning the latest Covid-19 news instead. I admit that my mind has been racing.
That being said it's not like I haven't read anything at all. My latest novel, There There by Tommy Orange, kept me company over the last week. It's an interconnected story of 12 characters from Native communities who are all making their way to the Big Oakland Powwow. Truthfully, I have to admit that it was a sad story. Like so many stories of Indigenous people around the world, the great injustices that they have endured and continue to endure, cast a great shadow in this novel.
But there was something that definitely stood out to me in this book besides how sad I am about what has happened to the Indigenous people. It was the symbolism of the spider webs that caught my eye and the idea of interconnections.
The quote by Walter Scott, "O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!" couldn't be more accurate in this book. The novel illustrates the destruction that was caused by the lies of colonizers while also reminding us of the lies we tell to comfort and distance ourselves from the truth.
Jackie Red Feather, one of the main characters in There There, points out that "the spider's web is a home and a trap." I couldn't agree more during this time of social distancing. On one hand our homes are keeping us safe during a difficult time and yet, many of us are feeling the pressure of being captive. Like we are prisoners during this pandemic.
It also got me thinking about how many of our habits become comfortable prisons that we return to time and time again.
How are you occupying yourself now that life has slowed down to a grinding halt? Are you turning to productive activities that give back to your family, friends and your community, or are you finding ways to comfort yourself each night so that you don't have to feel the anxiety that naturally comes during a pandemic?
Surely drinking multiple shots each night just to get through this is a spider's web, is it not?
What is beckoning you during these difficult times? Are you finding solace in things that are liberating you from boredom, or are they ensnaring you into a pattern from which you cannot escape?
I ask to you consider what type of tangled web you are weaving for yourself.
To me books are simply amazing tools. I never would have started thinking about spiders webs if it weren't for this book. I never would have considered how I am both at home and trapped during this pandemic. I would have never considered the symbolism of spider webs to make meaning of what's happening right now and how I might shift my perspective as we are all at home keeping to ourselves.
I'd like to leave you with a few quotes about spider webs that you might want to use to reconsider your position in this interconnected web that we are all currently in. I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments section of this blog.
Each of us is a unique strand in the intricate web of life and here to make a difference.
~ Deepak Chopra
Wherever there is faith as slender as one strand of the spider's web, there the fullness of redeeming grace is active.
~ John Murray
Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
~ Mahatma Gandhi
When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.
~ African Proverb
Fiction is like a spider's web, attached...ever so slightly...perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.
~ Virginia Wolf
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we to do the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
~ Chief Seattle
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