Deconfinement.
Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…
I’m not sure when it started. The constant counting in my head seems to have been there for weeks already. Sometimes it’s active: the number of short and fast demi-pliés I’ve done while holding a fussy baby in my arms at 2am while trying to calm him enough to place him in his cot. Sometimes more passive: a sort of always-on station playing in my head that the receiver of my consciousness picks up as I float between tasks during the day.
I know the endless numbers are a possible symptom of postpartum anxiety creeping in. (And I’ve tied a string around my finger to ask my doctor about them at my appointment this week.) But maybe they’re just a sign that rest has been elusive lately.
Rest.
I wish I could get some. But even those nighttime hours between feeding and burping and diapering and rocking and shhhhhushing are filled with fitfulness inside my own dreamland.
The nightmares showed up as it became more and more apparent that—like the vast majority of children born healthy—the child was actually going to be OK. Some of the dreams are more violent than others. All life and death in some shape or form. I wake up shivering under piles of blankets to the sounds of him stirring and wonder if I have been calling out in my sleep again. How much of my worry is because of the little human next to me and how much of it because of the world outside?
Unrest.
We’re meant to start coming out of confinement here in Belgium today.
The transition has come quietly. Not like at home where one has to wonder if it should still be considered “peaceful” protest when guns, even just for show, are involved.
Here, where things started a few weeks earlier than there, we start Phase 1. The restrictions are easing ever so slowly. At least until/unless things get worse again. I’m ready/not ready. Is it even possible to return to a new normal that we haven’t been to before?
I am no stranger to counting days.
If we are counting, yesterday was day 47 of the public confinement and today is day 1 of deconfinement.
If I am counting, today is day 36 of my own postpartum confinement. And while I didn’t set out to spend 40 days in it as some cultures do, I’m not entirely sure that I’m ready to come out either.
36. Two times eighteen. Double chai. Double life.
If things had gone differently, or perhaps if I had gone differently, I’d be counting the days right now. But it has been years (and what feels like a lifetime ago) since I have. I am no longer in the practice of making blessings. At least not like I did before. But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten everything I have learned.
It is taught that the Torah commands no less than 36 times to care for the stranger.
As we enter this strange new limbo between then and now, we will be required to wear masks more often than not. Even though I know logically that I’m getting enough oxygen, my chest tightens as I put one on. Perhaps it will in time, but my face hasn’t yet become accustomed to being covered and I have to consciously restrain myself from lifting hands up to make soothing but unnecessary and unsanitary micro-adjustments. Along with the anxiety, I feel a deep sense of sadness for what was, what is, and what will likely still be to come as I see other half faces looking back at mine.
Mr. Rogers taught that when one is confronted by something scary, one should look for the helpers.
Today, a friend (who happens to be a rabbi) posted a bracha for putting on a mask. And, in that moment that I saw his post, Rabbi Meir was not only one of my teachers but also a helper. Because one of the things that I’ve been taught is to reach outside of myself and figure out how I can be of service when I am feeling distressed. It takes the mental energy away from my own uncomfortable feelings and gives them a healthy place to discharge. Reading the bracha somehow made me realize that I will survive the discomfort of wearing a mask if I can elevate it from a physical act to a spiritual one. And while I’m no longer in the practice of making blessings, it doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten everything thing I have learned.
Blessing For The Mitzvah of Putting On A Mask
as taught by Rabbi Michael Knopf (transmitted via Rabbi Meir Bargeron via Rabbi Ilana Baden via Rabbi Valerie Cohen)
Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu,
Blessed are you, O Lord
Melech, ha-olam
Ruler of space and time*
asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav
who has sanctified us with commandments
v’tzivanu al shmirat hanefesh
and commanded us to protect life.
Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six…
*The original version of the bracha translates “Melech, ha-olam” as “Sovereign of the world” but I prefer this translation from a prayer book I’ve used.
