Becoming Modern Day Thoreau -- By Force

by Gabby Levet (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown Ireland

I was required to wait out in the freezing Irish cold until people with full blown hazmat suits could escort me to the back of the hospital where I’d wait by myself over 8 hours for the process of outbreak intervention and prevention to unfold. In a matter of minutes, I transformed from being an average citizen walking into a building to a foreign object wreaking havoc, unintentionally, to those around me. During arduous hours of waiting in a quarantined room with no bathroom and overwhelmingly fluorescent lights, the doctors and nurses communicated between walls, slipping thermometers and important documents between the crevices of the door. In some weird way I felt like a hostage or an inmate paying my time with little support and care. On the eighth hour, I began singing to the moon and was given a blanket before being escorted by compulsory ambulance to my quarantined cottage in which my kind support system of Belfast awaited me. I had been informed that I must self-isolate, in this foreign country, for 9 more days to prevent potential spread of the coronavirus to other populations. As my home bound responsibilities screeched to an unwarranted halt, I braced myself for entry into my new home for the entirely indefinite future. I walked up the winding and slippery steps to this isolated fortress where people were scurrying around securing food, blankets, heaters and more. Eventually I was left alone to my own devices, awaiting the next day’s news on my case. Around noon the WiFi, my lifeline to the world, went out along with the heat and power for cooking. It seemed as though the electricity in the whole place had broken down and there was nobody to call because there was no way to call. The time for hearing results, 2:30, came and went, along with all the passing cars and the rise and fall of the sun. The silence, the cold, the darkness, the emptiness crept in through the poorly insulated windows of my cottage and soul. The day was eerie, too, with looming clouds overhead blocking the bits of sunlight trying to break free. “Okay universe, I surrender completely to your reign. You’ve got me this time - quarantined, completely vulnerable, open and disarmed,” I thought. I had to face myself and this world head on with no walls to hide behind, no internet to distract me with, absolutely nothing to do. I had to just sit there and truly be with myself, listen to all the thoughts that came up and notice how I felt. I watched the birds off in the distance fluttering above the pond behind the trees. Their freedom reminded me of what I started my journey for – the precious sensation of liberation. And there I was - with the cleanest plate, the freshest start, the biggest break, the most extreme get away. I could choose to feel stuck, caged, in bondage or I could choose to feel provided a new canvas to paint on. I could choose to be grateful for being given the one thing I never give to myself - alone time - untainted, pure, raw, deep, intimate aloneness. I could choose to get through it with some humor, some singing, some self-love, some warmth. Or I could feel paralyzed, self-pity, anger. The last four months of intense yoga training prepared me well for the moments of complete silence. Those days were by choice and this situation wasn’t but the world called and I must answer. The reality is such that chaos can strike at any time and it is our choice to prepare wisely. “Am I going to sit through the pain of silence, cold, uncertainty with more stress? Or with joy?” I pondered. I chose to answer with inner stillness and joy, ruminating on the wise words of Henry David Thoreau for the rest of the day: “If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal- that is your success.”