Warning: Isolation Realizations Coming in Hot

Quarantine Day 3947498579845 – or realistically like 30.  I know EVERYONE is in the same boat, whether you are a homebody or a total extrovert, social distancing and isolation is really cramping our style – not complaining, happy to do it, just saying….

Which first of all, I am starting a petition when this is over to stop using the following phrases:

• Ramp Up
• Social Distancing
• Reduced FTE (shout out employers!)
• Quarantine

And the worst of all….

• Unprecedented

Unprecedented is the new blanket statement for anything you don’t really know what to say – it’s like the “Yeah things are crazy” of stalled conversations.  Ok I will get off my vernacular high horse and move on to the good stuff, the positive stuff. 

This is going to get cheesy, so consider it a fair warning but it was something that hit me yesterday that I had never realized and it is a good metaphor for what I think myself, and others, are experiencing during these unprecedented times…. Ugh it’s just too easy not to use.

March and April in Arizona are kind of the best months anywhere. It is gorgeous weather but not TOO hot yet. The sun is shining; people are normally out and about – golfing, biking, hiking, enjoying! My spring times are usually packed with long days working for event season, lots of travel and cramming in as much free time as I can to take advantage of what Arizona has to offer.  But this last week, I have taken to noticing something that after 12 years of living here, I have never paid attention to, NOT ONCE.  

The beautiful blooms on the cactus everywhere you look. 

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I know they existed, I know they are beautiful but in the midst of my rush into work in the early mornings before the sun comes up or scurrying to get to my next commitment when I leave, I never have taken the time to enjoy them or really even give them a second thought.  Getting a chance to ride my bike several times a week through the desert behind my house (it sounds more rustic than it is, I promise) or walking through my neighborhood, driving slowly from place to place, I have been taking in the gorgeousness that is the Sonoran landscape.  And I am blown away!  Like blown away enough to write about them…. Nerd alert.  

But I think it is a perfect illustration for the way I am experiencing this time away from the norm.  I am noticing the blooms in my life more than I ever have – I told you cheesy to the max!  But it is true, the friends I have spent hours on Facetime with, the family chat sessions which crack me up, the random check-ins, the acts of kindness.  We take for granted those moments in the rush of day to day life but when we are governmentally mandated to take time to pause and minimize our hustle and bustle, it’s a fresh look at the great in the midst of everything else.  So take some time to look at your blooms blossoming and remember it is all temporary, the summer heat is coming…. Wait what?? That took a dark turn. YOUR Blooms will stay – the cactus blooms will not.  So basically this metaphor expires end of April/COVID virus 🙂  This is why illustrations in kids church never worked for me, too much of an analytical thinker! 

Stay safe, stay well and keep bloomin’.