The day is Blursday, the time is the anthropause of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having never been a homebody for so many continuous months, I enjoy settling into a restorative grounding routine. I flip through Gardening Youtube as a way of seeing others work in the dirt- dirt that I wish would fill the empty planters in my yard. Gardening sweeps away each day’s anxiety cobwebs from the Trump timeline doomscrolling.
Fast forward a few months, to another blursday. This time everything is different, the moonshot realization of complete Trump silence. Outside in my backyard there is now a barrel garden sprouting kale and broccoli, my home life having filled up while working remote. One day in spring I buy strawberry plants from the local Sloat Garden Center with cute white flowers, putting one in a hanging pot- a Pinterest dream fulfilled.
“Pluck off the flowers of the small, newly planted strawberry plant so that it grows deeper roots and more leaves” instructs Gardening Youtube.
I pause the TV. When my roommates moved out I lost my pod. It was painful to be alone as I continued to self-isolate, it was like losing my blooming parts. What if the pain I felt now was the deeper parts of myself extending, working through the soil? The workation away from the office had allowed me to be raw without having to mask as I normally did in the office- I only had to worry about accidentally being unmuted and zoombombing. In this way I grew deeper roots to my home and my self.
For the strawberry plants cultivated to produce the most fruit, losing flowers means more energy goes into growing the root system. One Blursday when the roots are deep and the plant is bushy- there will be even more flowers and eventually sweet, red fruit.
Written as an exercise for Crafting Your Nonfiction Book writing group, which had the following prompt:
Spend ~ 15 mins writing a piece that uses the following words:
- Anthropause
- Blursday
- Doomscrolling
- Moonshot
- Pod
- Remote
- Unmute
- Self-isolate
- Workation
- Zoombombing
