Seeing Home: March 2020
By Cari Griffith
FEATURED IN VOL 6, ISSUE 2: home and garden
Grey skies, constant drizzling rain, drooping trees, and whipping cold wind welcomed us into Covid-19 quarantine with a sky that matched our spirits. My husband Rob and I had just moved into a new house a month before the pandemic and were finally feeling settled. Life pre-March was fairly routine. I usually work from home in the quiet house all day while Rob’s at the office, we eat dinner with our friends every night, and then our space is booming with guitars and piano music, or songs from the record player, while Rob creates and listens. We had found ourselves a cozy weekly routine of fellowship, work, music, and regular travel, with loads of plans for the Spring. Suddenly, that second week of March, the cosmic pause button was punched, and we were at home.
Almost immediately the once spacious rooms in our home felt crowded and competitive. We felt stuffy and unsure of how to inhabit this place we had previously rested so comfortably in. This feeling was foreign to us, because it’s well-known that we love inhabiting the same square inch of space when we’re together, so issues of needing time away from each other had never been a thought in our minds. We were all at once fighting for air in our wearied and worried hearts, and taking out that frustration in how we shared our spaces. We no longer had those shared dinners where dreams and conversations spilled out over delicious meals. Trips were canceled, work was postponed. It was just us, at home, with the last of the Trader Joe’s potstickers we had stored away in the freezer. Yet at the same time, our social and news feeds exploded with stories of heartache, loss, sickness, and death. How were we to let ourselves feel sad when there were others with so much less, so much more heartache?
The weather didn’t let up for weeks, trapping everyone inside and inside only. Every now and then a welcomed break in the rain would arrive and we’d sprint out through the puddles to walk around our midtown neighborhood in search of signs of life. Snapping photos of rain soaked flowers up close with my tiny gold magnifying glass became a solace. A glimpse into a world teeming with life, completely unaware that an illness was sweeping the globe. The rain continued. Feeling the lack of sunshine deep in my bones made every ray of light or peek of sky feel like the first emerging breath after a dive.
As dramatic as that may seem, the world was in chaos, and we only had the most immediate and simplistic familiarities as a balm. Homemade cookies were a celebration. A quick drive down a rural road was a vacation. Anyone else make banana bread every week? Learn how to make stock from vegetable scraps? Resort to homemade tortillas because the store was out? Use a little bit less toilet paper out of fear of the future? Finding potatoes and disinfectant at Kroger was like striking gold in a hillside. We were all adapting, using every bit of what we had to create something healing.
In the beginning it was all to-do lists, things to organize, books to read, puzzles to finish, long forgotten tasks to finally tackle. That fizzled fast. The isolation quickly turned into never-ending scrolling just to feel connected. Zoom calls, and FaceTimes, new apps to facilitate gatherings filled our days. We as humans need each other to feel alive, to feel purposeful. And I think the immediate tearing away from each other proved so much about our connective existence. Our purpose and connectivity as one whole world full of humans was revealing itself as the entire globe stayed home. We sat on our couches, plugging in to the only thing that reminded us that there were others. And for better or worse, we all found each other there on our screens.
By week three we had found a new rhythm, apologized for our internal sadness that was boiling over into our feelings about physical spaces, and made a few changes to our routines that brought more peace and processing. The backyard garden began to sprout and bloom, the sun started giving us a little bit more attention, and we sat outside with anticipation of warmth. Would we miss this forced rest? This space of letting go and waiting? Were we making the best use of this precious time together, this time where it is just Rob and Cari, together in a home? This season provided far more questions than answers. But any moment that forces you to be still, to ask, to wait, to watch, to listen, has to be profitable for something. We had canceled Canada trips and concerts, endless phone calls with airline companies, emails to Air BnBs, less work, and worried wedding clients. We had some loss, yes. But what did it matter? We gained a deeper sense of togetherness and an empathetic yearning for the health of our fellow humans. An appreciation of light, of warmth, of touch, and of what’s left in the fridge.
A deep joy in the wrinkled eyes of mask wearers in the store signaling a smile, of meeting and knowing the kind soul who delivers our mail most days. Of knowing which neighbors have the best flowers and who might be outside on their porch when you walk by. Of foraged wisteria flowers left on the porch by a friend as a sign of the resurrection during Easter week. Of sweet little girls catching fireflies in your yard on their walks down the road. Of the light that pours into our guest bedroom at 6 pm. Of the much-anticipated welcoming of our college furloughed sister towards the end of the lockdown. Using what we have, caring for our neighbor, and fostering a sense of purpose and place in our home all took on a new breath of life. I hope the rays of sunshine that pass over our hardwood hallway at 6 pm still cause me to pause, to give thanks, and to pray for more peace.
CARI GRIFFITH is a photographer by trade who loves storytelling of all kinds. After a couple of years away in Nashville, she and her husband Rob decided Jackson was calling them home, and they moved back to their beloved Lambuth area neighborhood. Cari's other loves include gardening, cooking, sharing meals with her friends, and trying to talk Rob into getting a dog.
