Joy

I used to be good at being alone.

As a kid, I would pretend my sandbox was a kingdom. I’d take a plastic CD case — the tube kind that held a large stack of CDs — and put two ants in it, pretending they were king and queen. I’d put a few leaves in there for nourishment, then bury the case in the middle of the sandbox, imagining all the other ants around the yard would visit them in their castle.

Now, when I walk around my very small one bedroom apartment, completely alone in quarantine, I’m trying to find that sense of joy again. What was that magic formula when we were kids? What spell did we cast that made the mundane so imaginatively expansive?

Trust in ourselves probably helped. In my case (the CD case that kept me protected), I didn’t have a number of people telling me I was “wrong”. I wasn’t yet consumed by others’ fear, others’ misguided information, and made to tread lightly as a result. All I had was love and encouragement to be myself and play with ants.

Now I second guess my choices.