Reframe | Quarantine Chronicle Ep 2

Megan joins Jacob and Parker for another lively discussion of life during quarantine!

Transcript

PARKER: Welcome to the second edition of what we're still calling the Quarantine Chronicles, because we haven't bothered to think of anything different.

But this is the second installment of our podcast during this time of quarantine, so as you can see we're all coming from different places. Per usual, I got my partner Jacob Jones here.

But joining us today, we have a special guest. One of our team members, coaches, designers extraordinaire Megan McClendon. Megan, thanks for hanging out with us today. 

MEGAN: Thanks for having me, I'm excited to be here.

PARKER: It's what, April 24th right? We're like seven-ish weeks into this thing? Is that accurate?

MEGAN: That feels right.

JACOB: Yeah I think he's seven-ish weeks into the realization of what was going on and maybe more like, maybe more like five weeks into the intensity for our-- for at least for I think our states. 

PARKER: For today, it's Friday morning. How about we do like a little short check-in? It's kind of one sentence, one word, whatever you're feeling. How about a little check-in from you guys?

MEGAN: I'm feeling great! I am happy it's Friday. It's sunny and beautiful here in Cincinnati, so. Got some time outside this morning with the dog, and did a little writing this morning.

I've been doing three pages of writing a day, so it's been helping me work through some of the emotions and thoughts that are coming up while being stuck at home.

PARKER: Is that Artist's Way? Morning Pages?

MEGAN: Yes. I haven't read it, but I'm inspired by others who have.

PARKER: Yeah. Yeah, fabulous. It's a game-changer for me. Reading that book. And doing Morning Pages, which I still do.

JACOB: I have a copy of it somewhere, from 1998 or something, but I have no idea where it is.

PARKER: Not gotten around to it yet?

JACOB: No I did it, I did it back in the day. I feel like I'm gonna have to paint a little-- I don't know if I have a word, but I feel like I have-- I'm standing on top of a canoe, and I have one foot on one side and one on the other, and the left foot is like, you know, feel good, exercise, like, I'm owning this thing. And the right foot is like, I just wanna lay in bed and I'm done. I'm finally giving up.

And I'm just going like this. And I can't really tell which way my body or mind wants to fall towards. I don't know why. I was-- it feels like in this thing, no matter what, if I'm having a good stretch of a couple of days,

I can expect-- if not a bad stretch, some kind of doldrums or depressed mood or something that happened pretty fast after that, and then I come out of that. So right now I'm sorta in the in-between.

PARKER: I had like, a social moment that like, my wife wanted muffins so I ran down to the coffee shop and grabbed a couple of muffins this morning.

It was just nice and cool out and then like I ran to a cycling buddy up at the coffee shop and we chatted for a second. Anyway just it-- that almost felt like a normal piece of my life you know, to go to a coffee shop and to like, run into a friend.

And so I don't know there was something about that that like, lended some normalcy to my day and didn't feel as quarantine-ish. You know what I'm saying?

And it's Friday, I don't know what that means anymore, but like I'm still somehow psyched that it's here.

JACOB: Yeah the weekends are weird. I still like, notice like a week and a weekend, but they're so vastly different.

PARKER: Yeah.

JACOB: I'm supposed to run my second marathon tomorrow. Obviously it's canceled, but part of me is considering going for it, but I won't know how I feel until I wake up in the morning.

MEGAN: Wow that's huge.

JACOB: It would-- it could be, but thank you. I don't know if I'm game, but somewhere in the back of my mind I'm still like, alright, I'm gonna eat a lot of carbs tonight, go to bed earlier. See how I feel when I wake up in the morning.

PARKER: I would definitely still eat all the carbs and go to bed early. That just sounds good no matter what you do tomorrow.

JACOB: Yeah.

MEGAN: Same.

PARKER: Yeah.

JACOB: Eat some spaghetti and get some sleep.

PARKER: Yeah. Yeah, so Megan, we've got a couple of questions that we've been tossing around here, Jacob and I, and some things that we'd love to dig into.

My first question for you is, I'm curious to know like, what positive stuff has come about as a result of this? Like in the midst of all this like scarcity and constraint and insecurity, where are you finding like, gratitude or are you finding gratitude?

Or have you learned something new? You know, I heard you talk about Morning Pages, I don't know if that's the new thing for you or not, but creative practice.

And I'm curious if there's anything kind of bubbling up that it feels like something you'd want to hold on to?

MEGAN: There are so many good things that I'm seeing coming out of this. It's been incredible. I think it's been an amazing life check for me.

It's been fascinating to me how quickly the lens on my life camera has changed, and you know, that first sort of week when we were all being told that we were gonna be in quarantine for unknown amount of time, and just to understand how that fear around getting basic supplies, and the reality that there were no basic supplies, like toilet paper, and flour, and some of the things that you really take for granted were just gone.

You know, one of the first things that struck me was that I was listening to the sounds of nature, and with less traffic out on the road, you could hear more of nature. It was incredible.

It really brought a lot of clarity to what's important in life. And just thinking a lot about friends, family, and community, and just the neighborhood that I live in having all those people supporting each other, it's been amazing. 

PARKER: Mmhmm.

MEGAN: I think, you know, there's part of me that as I think about all the amazing things that have kind of bubbled up for me over the last few weeks, I've been doing a ton of thinking, and have actually been able to do some really deep work.

Because of the solitude, and the constraints, and the force to really quiet down, and it's been really refreshing and a really good reset.

There's also been some interesting dynamics in terms of cultural shifts and really bringing to light like, the value of those who are still working today, out in the field, from health care workers, to grocery store workers.

It's been amazing and I'm just so grateful for all of them doing the work that they are right now. What I'm curious about is how sticky all of this is going to be after it's over.

PARKER: Yeah, you know. We all talk about this like, you take a vacation, right, and then somewhere and on the eighth day of the vacation, you're like, "Wait a minute, I should be slowing down in life."

It's like, "I'm not supposed to work this hard, or be this busy, or like, pack my life with all this stuff." And then you know, you hope that you come back with it.

This is really random and it's gonna sound super arty and I'm not normally this cool, but I was reading Mary Oliver poetry this morning. It's not normally how I start my day but, it was this morning.

And she was talking about going and visiting India and being-- traveling and seeing this woman in the Ganges River like, doing this like, morning ritual, you know, cleansing herself with the water.

And then she said, "I'm getting back on a plane to go to America, pray God I don't forget this. Pray God." And I was like, damn, like it struck me that even Mary Oliver, the poet, right?

The person who seems to spend all of her time wandering around ponds and noticing birds and flowers still feels like she gets busy and wants to hold on to that thing you know. And so yeah, how sticky is it? I think it's a great question.

JACOB: Megan, it brings me back to like the original thing you said, that super curious is, you know, I think it was one of our first team calls or something we were all kind of talking about this when we broke out into those one-on-one rooms, and you and I were talking, and you said, "There's going to be a recalibration of values across the board here." And I don't know if you meant it personally or you meant like broadly as America, or as the country, or as the world, but like, that stuck with me still like, I was telling Parker last week like, I keep a collection of quotes of things people have been saying, and that's like, up there with like, yeah. What kind of recalibration of values will we see? How sticky will it be?

Will there be like-- when I think about it I think like, will there be more homesteaders, will there be more guard-- like, I noticed like, most of the CSA is in Nashville, the Community Support Agricultures, are sold out.

I noticed that dog shelters are out of dogs, like there's, like, I know people are at home, so they're like, "I'm getting a puppy." But like, I wonder like, yeah, as we move gradually-- because it's not an on/off switch, right, to the back to normal, so we're gonna be in this in some way for like a year or two.

And so as we are, it would be super-- I'm super curious to see how people's lives change, and I also wonder like, is that what you meant by that? Or what were you saying?

MEGAN: Yeah, you know, it's interesting-- so as I think back about the last few years, I graduated right into-- graduated from college right into 2008 in recession, and my fear around having a job and being able to stay alive in that time, it felt kind of similar to what's happening now, with just different circumstances. And over the time between the last downturn, and this downturn, I've seen myself have this total lifestyle creep.

And you know, things get good, and you lose sight of all of these really basic values and needs, and now that I've gone through this full cycle, I'm hoping that I can hold on to that, but I'm-- you know, there's some-- there's a weird dichotomy, because do the things that you value become more clear because you lost sight of them? Like you don't appreciate the sunny days if you don't have the rainy days.

And I wonder if that plays into it. For me, I'm having this crazy pull back towards where I grew up, and going back to Wisconsin. I've been in Cincinnati for almost three years now, and it's been great.

It's been an adventure. We didn't know anybody when we moved here, and it's been a great experience. And I'm having this total pull towards where most of my family lives in Wisconsin, and there's also this bit of nostalgia that's happening.

I feel myself making like, hot dishes for meals at home, and like, ordering some of the grossest snacks from the grocery store that I haven't had since I was a little girl. Circus animal cookies, and just this total pull towards these nostalgic, basic things.

PARKER: Hmm. Love that. I totally love that. So, I guess I think I'm experiencing similar things where I'm a person that has spent basically the last 10 years primarily on the road.

Traveling at least 50% of the time for the client work that we do, and my life has settled down quite a bit since October, and so I think I'm noticing some of the same things in different ways.

But like, the connection to family and to community, which is not something ever like, placed a high value on, but now that I'm in it again, it feels really good.

And then yeah, just some of the stuff that I used to do before I got to be so busy. And I love the way that you framed that, or that Jacob framed it, I don't know who said it originally, but the recalibration of values, you know, like what are the-- because I think it's easy to value something, and to prioritize that thing, and then over time you kind of get lost and it's not really something that you care about anymore, but you're still doing it, and then until you have a moment, maybe like this, you don't know to restack your priorities, right?

It's like it's just, it's not top of mind, and I love that what you just called like your "life camera" right. Like you're just, you know, like, seeing things through your life camera and I think about the lens being dirty, or just having to refocus, and I even drew a little pictures. It's a little life camera.

MEGAN: Nice.

PARKER: But it-- yeah that's a really great way to think about it. That opportunity to like, pause, refocus, or clean the gear, or whatever it is, and this one, you know, nobody wanted it, nobody would have ever said, "Hey I'd love a global pandemic so I can kind of like rethink some shit."

JACOB: I wonder, too, about the resilience aspect of this, and what this will do for all of us moving forward. So yesterday, I was watching the Netflix series Waco, which is obviously about Waco, David Koresh.

It's really good, by the way. But there's a moment where the FBI is trying to get all of the Branch Davidians to come out, it's been like weeks they've been trapped in there, and so they cut their power, and they do a bunch of other psychological warfare, and the head FBI negotiator is talking to someone else in the FBI he's like,

"You don't understand. These people have already trained themselves to live without any comforts, without anything. They don't even care. So by cutting their power, you're not doing anything, like, they don't even notice."

And it occurred to me, I was like, "Yeah, ah, it's like they've-- as we learn to live without these like, things we were taking for granted, it's like, do you even need those things again?"

And then when they're stripped away, you have like a thick callous of, you're like, I don't care. Like, now I don't know if I'm referring to things being in stock at the grocery store, or the convenience of being able to go have a cup of coffee with a friend without a mask on.

But as we build up these callouses, and we go through this bit of suffering, which is not fun, I think but I think a silver lining can be that you just start to appreciate the little things that are really dear to you, and the rest of it feels like a bonus.

PARKER: So, alright, so that brings me to kind of my next-- I don't know, area that I'm curious about from you guys, it's like this idea of powerlessness.

Like, you know, to a large degree, we're all powerless, I mean certainly like, we can do things not to spread this illness, I there's a lot that we can do but like, for the most part, we're powerless over the fact that this thing is happening, and businesses are shut down, and that you have to be in quarantine.

I'm curious what that experience is like for you, to not have-- to be out of control. Is it terrifying? Or is it comforting? Or is it like-- what is it?

MEGAN: This is an interesting question that-- my first reaction to the question was powerless, but at the same time we're so much in power.

One of the things that struck me when this all hit was I don't remember who said it, but she mentioned that-- I believe it was one of the doctors that were part of the team working on COVID questions and, you know, she talked about that, by everyone staying home, that you know, it wasn't gonna feel rewarding, or like, we were doing anything.

And that the act of staying home, you weren't gonna know that you directly saved so-and-so's life, or supported this community because you weren't out in it, but there's a lot of power in just staying home right now. Really, and that really struck me.

That, you know, you're not gonna get a cookie because you stayed at home, and you're not gonna see these direct results, but know that you are saving lives by doing this. So there's actually a lot of power in that, and I feel that. So I think if we can rally around some of that.

On the flip side, like, Jacob was describing how his emotions are running every day, like being on this two-sided canoe and feeling like, tips back and forth.

I've been having some days where, yeah, that lack of power, that lack of control, the ambiguity of not knowing how long this is gonna last, and what things look like after, and are my parents and family gonna be safe? It can be really debilitating on certain days.

JACOB: I don't know if "in control" is the way I feel or powerful, but I actually-- I have yet-- I don't feel without power at this point. I think, you know, I'd like to answer and say, oh, like a very zen philosophy and I'm letting all this flow through me, and like, that's just not the mode I've been in.

I've been very much in like, "Alright, I'm planning out months ahead, I'm tackling things." And not like in a "can't let go" type but like, you know, I just-- I think it's the provider in me. It's like, alright, I have like, I've got to like, keep this roof over my family's head, I've got to do this,

I don't want to go into massive debt, I want to-- and so how can I best see five steps ahead. And so I'm definitely, mostly planning, trying to figure it out.

Don't feel like I'm in total control, obviously, I'm not, but I don't have a lot of like, the surrender vibes going on, although I can see how that'd be very helpful. Like, Parker do you?

PARKER: Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong, there's plenty that I can do, and plenty that I can prepare for, given the circumstances.

The circumstances are what I'm powerless over, that's what I'm saying. It's like, that's what like, felt like the thing that I was resisting at first, it was like, "Wait, this can't be happening," my wife's in danger, you know her parents are in danger, our business is in danger.

Like all of these things felt like they were in danger. That's the stuff that I couldn't-- that I felt like, powerless over, in a way. And then something happened, I don't know, where I was, you know, like, I realized my powerlessness over the magnitude, the larger thing.

And then, so yeah, I started to find the smaller things, the tiny things that I either can control or that I think I can control to make me feel better. Like, you know, do I have some money in the bank?

And, you know, is there food, and little things. Yeah, I wouldn't say that I went through it in a zen-like trance, but I feel like certainly there is something about being so utterly powerless, so unable to affect something that's so big going on, that allows me to like, relax a little bit.

And that resistance mode in me like, you know, like I release my grip and I'm like, alright well this is happening, so what are you gonna do about it, versus just wishing it wasn't happening. 

JACOB: I definitely had a lot of the, like, okay, you can't get out of this time period in your life, so try to be as present, and enjoy the things that you could enjoy.

I don't, yeah, I don't feel like I'm struggling every day, or fighting against the tide of the universe. I've definitely been enjoying a lot of the slowed down, time spending tons more time with my kids, walking my dog.

I've been-- Megan, I totally feel like I've heard a lot more nature, like, I'm just paying attention-- it's also springtime, but I'm just paying more attention because I have more time, and I'm sitting outside with no music and nothing.

And I don't usually do that, and so I've been trying to like, sit in, okay you can't do anything about this, but also holding that with planning for the future. 

MEGAN: Yeah, I was taking a walk through Sharon Woods in Cincinnati a couple weeks ago, and one of the things that struck me as I was really taking everything in, there's this beautiful stream that runs through the park, and tons of waterfalls, and I'm seeing all these rocks, and I'm just thinking about the way that nature finds a way around everything. Like, the water finds a way around these rocks, and then I'm walking on the paths and the moss has grown over all these paved paths in the woods.

And it feels like there's something that's telling us that we all needed a slowdown, and a recalibration, on a bigger scale. And it feels really good that nature finds a way around it.

Not to say that this isn't going to be a really hard time for so many people out there, and there's gonna be loss and really horrible things, but it feels reassuring to know that there is gonna be a way through this.

PARKER: I think that that matches like, that we all have these extreme mood swings, right, from like, "I feel enlightened and connected with everything in the universe," and all the way to like, "I am so depressed, I'm about to watch you know 32 hours of Ozark," both of which I've experienced. It sounds like that's a popular sentiment, a lot of people kind of swing from one side, and really quickly.

So holding that at the same time as like, there's so much death and suffering, and fear and anxiety around, you know, money and global markets, and all that shit, mashed with the earth is getting a break, there's less pollution, I mean, there's-- yeah.

And all happening at spring, like Jacob's point, it feels like, so clear, and so obvious, right. And it's true, at least here in Tennessee, like, you walk around and it's cool, and crisp, and clear, and all the animals are out, and it's just hard to hold that in one hand, and then like global suffering and death in the other hand. It's like, but man, it's like, that's not what life is. I don't know how to better describe it.