Friday Dispatch: Covid Edition

Welp. It finally got me.

Friday greetings, dear readers.

I’ve often described not getting Covid as dancing between the raindrops, and this week it finally happened.

Ironically, I got my new booster and a flu shot Wednesday morning. Other than a sore arm, I felt fine all day. Wednesday evening, my throat was the tiniest bit sore and I had a night of tossing and turning.

Then yesterday morning, I also had a runny nose. When Dr. Google told me these were not usually side effects of the vaccine, I knew I should test. Seeing that second line appear was surreal, to be honest. I sat there for a while with my coffee – which thankfully I could smell and taste – feeling slightly incredulous.

So this is it, I thought, knowing there was nothing to do but surrender.

As the day progressed, so did my symptoms pretty quickly – full-body ache, fever, chills, congestion. M.J. stocked us up on children chicken noodle soup (woah, weird brain fog misspelling there), Tylenol, tea, popsicles, Nyquil. Being a former smoker and having had cancer (honestly always odd to write that, since it was so early, but cancer is cancer) qualified me for a Paxlovid prescription, which I started last night despite my fear of the horrible mouthtaste some people experience. I’m isolating in my son’s room since he’s away, and M.J. & I feel like we’re on different continents. Fingers crossed they don’t get it.

And wouldn’t you know, last night we discovered a significant leak under the kitchen sink that had somehow escaped our notice, complete with black mold! Our landlord is lovely and responsive and has called a plumber, but it was one of those moments where you just want to cry.

I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to attend Shabbat and Yom Kippur services in person. Tomorrow is Shabbat Shuvah (שַׁבָּת שׁוּבָה) – the special Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – which also happens to be our anniversary in the Hebrew calendar (it’s September 27 in the Gregorian one).

In a beautiful reflection on the meaning and messages of Shabbat Shuvah, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat writes:

Our community needs us to wake up. Our souls need us to wake up.

To what do we need to wake up at this moment in our spiritual year?

To what do we need to wake up at this moment in our national life?

Much is going to be asked of us in this new year. We need to wake up. We need to strengthen our souls and strengthen our resolve to stand up for what's right.

God is here to wake us up. To rouse us from our sleep. To arouse in us the yearning to do what's right. To enflame our hearts with a passion for righteous acts and justice: on a personal scale, on a communal scale, on a national scale.

Will we be woken?

I’ll admit it’s a bit ironic to read these words when what I really want to do is go back to sleep! But the spirit of these final Days of Awe is with me, as I continue to cast off that which I don’t want to carry with me into the new year, and contemplate the qualities and actions that I do want to strengthen. I’m also so glad I got to do a little tashlich ritual with Aviva last weekend and again with my local sisters and our Jewish community on Wednesday.

I’m making way way through Pat B. Allen’s Art Is a Way of Knowing while I convalesce – it’s assigned reading for the Creative Facilitation Training with the Jewish Studio Project that begins next month. I am in a liminal space in some ways right now – trusting that old saying about what you are moving toward is also moving toward you. So being in a quiet room with Covid, a giant tumbler of water, magazines for collaging, and space to just be with myself, could be worse.

Lastly, I’ll just say that I’ve heard from so many folks that they’ve gotten Covid for the first time in the past month or so. Let this be my PSA to get boosted if that is an option for you.

Shabbat Shalom and love,

Jena

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