Author Archives: Daphne Stevens

Art Work: Saying Yes to a Larger Love

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No Clue, but Lots of Curiosity….

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My 65th birthday was a day of discovery.  For one thing, I realized that 65 wasn’t nearly as old as I’d thought.

Well, yeah, there were the wrinkles.  And the gray hair.   And the realization that, after a lifetime of yoga and fitness training, stair rails were suddenly important.  When had I even begun to notice stair rails?

But the day offered new questions.  I’d been a wife.  A mother.  A friend.  A writer.  But mostly I’d been a therapist.
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Quarantine

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“It’s so hot!” “It’s so cold!” “Are you ready for Christmas?” “What are you doing this summer?”

Small talk. Dumb talk. Ordinary talk. (Of course it is hot!  It’s summer.  Of course it is cold! It’s winter.  No one is ever ready for Christmas–and if they are, we don’t want to hear about it.  And what am I doing this summer? Being hot and complaining about it!)

Yet I long for such small talk. The current conversational trends–“Are you staying safe?”
“Is your family okay” “Wearing a mask is a pain.” are well-meaning. But too often the question behind the question is “How are you staying sane?”

Insanity is the new normal. “If it bleeds, it leads,” goes the old saying about news reporting– and there is plenty of bleeding to lead. We’re bombarded with images ranging from the horrific to the utterly banal: Cruelty, hatred, stupidity, absurdity, exploitation, lies and distortions are everywhere. It’s overwhelming. It’s outrageous.

It’s predictable.

Many of us are still quarantined. We face endless days devoid of the structure that are sources of personal identity, or endless days and nights of care giving, housekeeping, worrying, and feeling inadequate.  Living with family 24/7 makes for tension and cabin fever.  And living alone gets–well, lonely.

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