Silver Linings

The other day I sat on the side of our bed and faced the window that looks out over our downtown street, lined with 100-year-old semi-detached brick houses, just like ours. I watched our neighbor’s white and grey cat across the road, winding her way around some recycling bins, tail high and twitching.

When was the last time I just sat on my bed and stared out the window? When is the last time I watched a cat do cat things? Before a global pandemic with its subsequent lockdown, that is? I honestly cannot remember. As difficult as this time has been, and might continue to be for a while yet, the slightest of silver linings is emerging.

Like our mother’s old worn silver spoons and teapots we find on a dusty basement shelf, tarnished and dull, this time might feel at first impossible to redeem. And yet, with the effort of a soft cloth and some careful attention, the miracle of brightness can emerge.

Those of us who have lost loved ones, or jobs, or been very ill ourselves, will, of course, take a longer and more difficult route to a place of eventual peace. That particular journey must never be rushed, or taken lightly, or forgotten.

But for many of us, the silver lining is actually not that difficult to see after all. It might already be here. We have learned it is possible to live more slowly. Like everyone I know, I went from a schedule packed with meetings, appointments, deadlines, and outings to a blank calendar, practically overnight.

I used to have to breathe deeply to calm myself before I began a packed week. Suddenly, I was breathing deeply to calm my panic that it had all gone away. What will we do with ourselves when we have so little to do? We might have asked, a little nervously. And yet, we filled those slow, empty hours.

We baked bread and played with our dog. We cleaned out closets and read books and flipped through photos with our daughters and marveled at how long our sons could sleep. Some of us worked even harder at our day jobs, but then we were able to sit on the couch at night, or look out a window for minutes on end, just because the window was there.

This slowing down is a gift we can carry forward when all the rushing and dashing picks up again very soon. We have learned we do not need to run every minute. We have learned a little about our neighbors, and now we can invite them to dinner. There is a fellowship of discomfort that has emerged on my street, and I bet on yours as well. Even if it’s just a knowing glance of consolation to the woman across the road or a quick chat with the guys who live next door when we find ourselves in our driveways at the same time, we have all been in this together.

This is a rare companionship between strangers. We usually live such insulated and separated lives, but we did this enormous thing together, even if we had to do it at least six feet apart. We have a bond that will not be easily broken. This neighborliness is a gift we carry now, at least on some of our streets. We can bring that forward with us if we can remember. I will have my neighbors over for dinner in the days ahead, because of that bond.

We know now what it means to have everything change, almost in an instant. Everyone had the rug pulled out from under their feet. I went from eye-roller to hand-wringer very quickly, chuckling at my husband wanting to buy extra granola bars one day, and then watching as all the toilet paper disappeared the next.

Maybe we can understand better now, what a very hard time means if we didn’t know for sure before. In our churches, we have brought refugee families from war-torn Syria into our towns and cities. I know we did not live one inch of their miles of suffering, but I think I have more insight now into how the world can change on a dime. I hope I have more empathy for people who lose so much, and who feel beat up by a planet you learn you can no longer trust in quite the same way as before.

Maybe we can be kinder to each other, and especially to those in so much pain, in the days and years ahead. We can continue to say exactly what we need. Around the 13th hour of the third day of the Big Slow Down, I realized I might need to say sentences that can be difficult for me, a pleaser of people, especially my family. Things like, “I need a few minutes alone in the bedroom.” And, “No, not right now.” And “I need to read my book, and then I’m going to go for a walk all alone.” I still said, “Please and thank you, and you’re welcome, and I love you” and all those other more pleasing things, but I had to speak my needs out loud, and protect myself from getting lost in the crowd in our house.

This matters. If I hadn’t done that, I might have gone berserk, and that would have been much worse than saying what I needed when I needed it. I believe I will choose to carry a little bit of that forward as well. Yes.

Karen Stiller is a writer with more than 20 years of experience. She serves as a senior editor of the Canadian magazine Faith Today and as a journalist who has shared stories from refugee camps in South Sudan and Uganda, the slums of Senegal, and the countryside of Cambodia. Her work has appeared in Reader’s Digest and The Walrus, among other publications. She moderates the Religion and Society Series at the University of Toronto, a debate between leading atheists and theologians. Karen holds a master of fine arts in creative non-fiction from the University of King’s College, Halifax. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.

Karen Stiller’s memoir in essays, The Minister’s Wife, is available where books are sold.