What do bright teal snowshoes have to do with resilience and pandemics?

Bright teal snowshoes arrived for me via UPS yesterday. Bright teal snowshoes, emblazoned with the words “Winter Walker.”

Snowshoes? Who the heck ordered snowshoes?

Apparently, I did. 

I hadn’t even remembered ordering these.

The funny thing is, I don’t even know how to snowshoe. 

They arrived on my doorstep, just after I found out that a friend’s brother (young, healthy) succumbed to complications of COVID.
I opened up these ridiculously colorful things right after receiving this news. Comedy after grief.

How do we keep from drowning in despair when we hear of another preventable loss?
How do we keep from sinking into a sense of isolation and hopelessness behind our masks and closed doors?

And what do bright teal snow shoes have to do with any of it?

I hadn’t remembered ordering them, until I looked back in time. In early October, facing a long and bleak winter, I’d thought about how I would stay in shape this winter. I needed new ideas of how to prepare my home and self for a long isolation. I visioned ways to stay healthy and fit, providing myself tools to survive the isolation and cold, and seeking to do more than survive; perhaps to learn a new skill, to grow, to expand my routines to include new pockets of joy, new sources of movement and flow and happiness. To bolster my sense of resilience through those pockets and skills.

Thus, the snowshoes. I was seeking novel ways to embrace and love winter, even if the snow becomes deep and the chill becomes pervasive. Perhaps, I envisioned, I can put on a warm jacket, strap on my bright teal snowshoes, and find new paths for feeling engaged and vibrant. Perhaps I can find an open field or a frozen lake and enjoy the beauty of the expansive sky.

I unwrapped the snowshoes. I unwrapped the poles. They have markings…for what?  A girlfriend explained to me that you use those markings to figure out just how deep the snow beneath you truly is, and warned me to avoid the deepest areas and the steepest hills.  Good to know. Good to have the information - just how deep is that unsteady ground beneath your feet? It’s useful to have a way to measure those depths, to face data objectively, and adjust my path accordingly.

So what do bright teal snowshoes have to do with resilience during a pandemic?

This winter of 2020 will be indelibly marked by a virus that will (not might) cause an unprecedented level of loss and suffering. The news, and my experiences as a physician, provide painful daily reminders that the outcome around us will be grim at best.  That is the reality.  No sense ignoring the markings on the ski poles. The forecast is for a pretty deep snow of human loss. Yes, we dread this seasonal prediction for heavy emotional snowfalls, slippery conditions, blizzards and storms. None of us can predict how closely losses will touch our own lives.  We will walk together across unnavigated paths, in which we can’t fathom or control just how deep our individual griefs could be, how treacherous the depths of our own emotional states. We will traverse the surface of potentially deep grief, seeing hope on the other side of the season, and striving to walk towards that hope.

A pandemic serves to end our sense of denial of our own mortality. It forces us to confront the truth; that we don’t control who will live and die. It is scary. It is so scary.
How do we keep from sinking into the deep snows of isolation and anxiety, avoiding the avalanches of hopelessness? 

If, like me, you’ve ever actually sunk waist or shoulder deep in snow, you know how much energy it can take to flounder out. If you’re alone, that can be a pretty scary experience, and a helping hand can be invaluable in getting out of the depths. My skiing friends know the very real danger of an avalanche, and the importance of being aware of data indicating dangerous conditions. This year, the emotional snow beneath our feet could be very deep; we could sink up to our knees, up to our hips, up to our waist, and need a friend to help us out of the depths.  We need to avoid the grief becoming an avalanche. We will need to hone our resilience in the meantime, and do our best to glide across the surface of the depths whenever possible. And we all need tools to stay upright, safe and resilient..

Thus, the snowshoes.

These brightly colored  snowshoes will serve as my personal metaphor, helping me to prepare and learn to walk safely. I’ll learn to use them to stay aloft instead of sinking, to gauge the depths beneath me and yet stay afloat and upright on top, and perhaps even to enjoy what I can of this challenging season. To become healthier and breathe deeply instead of becoming moribund in sequestration.

What tools do you need to get through a winter? To walk or drive safely on treacherous surfaces, and then to shelter safely? What do you need to survive winter?
Warm clothing…snow tires…boots,crampons/skis/snowshoes, walking poles. Salt for the sidewalks. Shelter, firewood, good books (or Netflix) for long evenings.  

Feather your own nest with the tools you will need. Most of us know the ritual of winter preparations. Feather your nest.

And then, think; what tools do you need to survive times of stress and loss, to walk across the surface of anxiety and grief without sinking to your waist?

Friendship?  Love? Music? Art? Good books? Comedy? Hope?

Feather your nest with these. Feather your nest.

So I now own bright teal snowshoes. You can anticipate the comic photos of my inevitable pratfalls! Because I’m likely to have lots of silly fails along the way, and because sharing laughter is one of the tools that keeps me walking with my friends across the surface, swimming in deep lakes and oceans while keeping my head above water, gliding across a frozen lake, shaking the snow out of my collar after a fall and getting up to walk on again.

Love to all.  

Wash your hands.

Mask up.

And call me if you want to go snowshoeing with me! Or if you are floundering in the snow, and need a helping hand.

Stay well.