It was week 112 when I caught the virus.
The vaccines, hand washing, distancing and masks protected me until a random encounter with a stranger on a bus, or a DART, or in a small café in Dun Laoghaire produced the opportunity for the virus to traverse from one human being, into me. I had forgotten all about the highly contagious, deadly disease until one sunny Sunday afternoon in May, I tested positive.
Then I went to bed.
112 weeks of waiting to catch it, and waiting for it to catch me, and then quiet.
In bed, I watched my sunflowers grow on the windowsill, and I looked longingly out onto, what now seemed like, never ending light evenings.
“Oh no,” I thought, “I’m missing all the bright summer evenings”.
All I could do was rest, but luckily, we live in an era of 24-hour entertainment.
I watched this year’s live summit attempts on Everest by people like Kami Rita Sherpa and Kenton Cool. I watched very rich people squabble in court. I watched comedies on Netflix, and I sent a million messages on WhatsApp.
For the most part, I watched the dance of the May sunflowers, on the windowsill, and I wished for the disease to go away.
How do we rest our minds?
Even in bed, convalescing, my brain maggots were still active.
My friend Jane, called them “brain maggots” one night over dinner, and I love this description of the thoughts, feelings and emotions that borrow into your brain and cause ill-ease. The brain maggots make trouble, eat away at contentment, and leave a mess behind them.
I used to be great at resting, I was always world class. Now I’m just average at it.
I’m not great at anything.
I’m average at, and not a great success at anything. I don’t have a marvellous career, my hobbies don’t bring fame or fortune, I don’t excel at anything you would find interesting, and I’m not going to be selected for the next Olympics.
Maybe that’s OK.
At 50, it seems that being average or being normal, is where I want to be.
I can’t be bothered to obsess over anything. I long for balance and harmony and something like peace and stillness. It’s easier to enjoy the days when things are just, well, fine.
Not fantastic, or fabulous, but simply, just fine.
I try and remember the story of the Greek Fisherman and the Harvard MBA graduate, and I try and be grateful for all the fine things. I try and remember the priorities when life goes astray, which are friends, family, love, and kindness. Everything else is just window dressing.
Watch water and sunlight grow sunflowers from seed, and watch the dance of the May sunflowers from the bed.
Smell the coffee, listen to the bird song, eat more cake if you want to eat more cake, notice when you feel excited and enthusiastic about something and try and do more of that thing. Laugh at your own absurdity and mortality and enjoy the place you call home. Marvel at the animal world and enjoy sweet photos of kittens.
Rewatch your favourite films and listen to music. Turn off the news after you’ve caught the headlines and try and sleep well every night.
Under glass, the sky is different.
Every breath here is a magical result of all time together, and everything that has ever happened has led to this moment.
The incredible incomprehensible nature of infinite space and time, takes us to this: the dinosaurs couldn’t have imagined it, and the Ancient Greeks couldn’t have contemplated it, and the Indus Valley people couldn’t have thought about it; but here we all are.
In the end, a list is fine as a guideline or a map; but sometimes it’s good to let the sun evaporate it, and it’s just the same with the wind. Being 50 is something extraordinary. Equally, it’s terrifying. The trick or goal, if there is one, is to be grateful for what has passed and excited by the segment yet to come.
The spotlight is on us now, and it’s our turn to dance.
So, dance.
Under this new moon, dance.
Like the new sunflowers in May, just dance.
21 Recover from Covid
22 Rest
23 Appreciate being average
24 Be grateful for the days
25 Slow it down
Shorter than me 
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