JOURNAL PROMPTS :: ever since
The recycling trucks are making their rounds through my dreams, rustling me awake and interrupting this placid lake until all memory of it is gone and I can’t get back in. So I slip out while he is still snoring, pass a lady walking a tiny dog and a jogger who’s out of breath but still says “morning” as she passes. I can’t imagine running for sport, much less this early. I drive past my good friend in the rehab center next to my office—twice a day, I drive past this place and have only stopped once, when I first got back to town. She told me she hadn’t been outside in a month after I’d said something about the lovely weather in passing, and the next minute I was convincing her to get outside, figuring out the process to do so, trying to attach legs to her wheelchair and wheeling her out to freedom—which I imagine felt something like an inmate’s first car ride after release. Her husband walked behind us as I wheeled her to the community garden. We stopped for photos along the way, posing and smiling in the sunlight, as if everything were perfectly normal, as if nothing had changed since he shot photos of us at the beach every year as part of our annual tradition there. She is my soul mom, after all. Soul family, the ones we choose. And here I am too busy to stop because, why? I have to get to work and run errands and hit deadlines? I introduced her to David, who runs the gardens, and we took more photos—including David in some (I’m surprised we didn’t include the fireman who had walked over to talk to us, too). But again today, I drive past and she is only thought, and my mind quickly shifts to the van and its upkeep and cleaning and prepping it for the next adventure—which means confronting not only the new hornet nest but my love/hate relationship with the van, how it’s an artifact of a past life but also my bridge back to it. I have chosen to stay, to build something in a place and of a place, but my time on the road held a certain stillness I’ve never found while standing still. Later I’m walking through town (our usual after-dinner stroll) and pass by a hip-hop show, wave to friends across the way, then run into an old friend who is about to perform on another stage. He tells us about his double pneumonia from the Delta variant of Covid, how “ever since, I’ve just been living like an old man.” He can’t even be 40 yet. We walk away thinking we have been moving slower since Covid too.
★ What object in your life is both an artifact of a past life and a bridge back to it?
★ Who or what have you driven past without stopping, all the while wanting to?
★ Who is your soul mother, or soul father, or soul sibling—the family you chose? How did you know?
★ Recall a moment you helped someone taste freedom after confinement—or someone did this for you. What did it feel like?
★ What annual tradition have you kept even after everything around it changed?
★ Have you ever found stillness in motion? Where does your mind go quiet: moving or staying?
★ What have you chosen to stay for—and what did the choosing cost?
★ Finish this sentence and keep going: “Ever since, I’ve been living like ...”
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