Noticing the Wells
KARYN PHILLIPS
As a single mom of fourteen years, I am no stranger to the concept of waiting. Waiting for naptime so I could work on homework and get my degree, waiting for that next paycheck in order to pay the bills, waiting for child-free weekends so I could have a little break, waiting for Sunday night to finally get there because I missed her like crazy, waiting for that ever-present dread/anxiety/slight terror of parenting to go away that’s brought on by the realization that you’re responsible for the well-being of this whole other human that you love so painfully. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. And, yes, as much as I hate to admit it, even waiting for a partner to do life with and lean on when things get shitty. Speaking of shitty, enter March 2020, which added a fresh layer of social distancing and isolation and job insecurity and loss of loved ones and heightened levels of stress and division and fear-induced hate.
This is the part where we pause for a deep breath. Or several. I certainly need it.
I was recently rereading The Little Prince because I had found and gifted myself a watch necklace from the book for Mother’s Day, and the Enneagram 5 wing in me wanted the book fresh in my mind so as to be able to adequately discuss with any fellow lover of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s brilliant piece of literature. This is getting tangential, I know, but I promise I have a point. As often happens in life, I came across a passage that I really needed to be reminded of at this particular point in my life. Towards the end of the book, the little prince comments that “what makes the desert beautiful…is that somewhere it hides a well.” This nearly brought me to tears as the weight of this year came rushing back at me. It feels as if we’ve been in the desert for far too long. Certainly longer than I ever imagined. And for a lot of us, it feels like we can’t handle much more of it. If that’s where you’re at, know that you are not alone. I am there with you. Other members of this community are there with you. People around the world are there with you. God is there with you.
We’ve been waiting for things to get back to normal for quite some time now. Many of us have postponed trips or weddings or graduation parties, hoping that it would all be over soon. There are certainly seasons of life in which waiting is appropriate. Maybe even times when that’s all we can do. But I wonder if the challenge now is to start moving out of a season of waiting and into one of being exactly where we are at and maybe even, dare I say, enjoying where we’re at. Whether we can imagine it now or not, there are wells throughout this desert that have yet to be discovered or realized, whether that be in the form of a kind word from a friend, a hand-drawn picture from a child (that’s one that I’m blessed with almost daily), early Christmas decorations, or even just the smiling eyes of a stranger above their mask as you pass them on the street. I would encourage all of us, myself included, to start to notice the wells of joy within this season of uncertainty. Because once we find them, like the little prince, we’ll recognize that “This water was indeed a different thing from ordinary nourishment. Its sweetness was born of the walk under the stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms.”
Karyn is doing her best to enjoy every moment with her ever-growing teenager in the midst of all the other delightful aspects of raising said teenager. To balance the stresses of 2020, she is finding joy in the many beauties of fall, the relaxation of yoga, the soothing notes of Chopin, and the nourishing words of Thoreau.