Friday, May 15, 2020
Olin Johannessen
Where do you turn for support during difficult times?
The idea of support is a funny one; it gets tricky when you account for the fact that people’s circumstances are almost always changing with time; different situations arise and resolve, or change and continue unresolved. I cannot recall a time in my life absent of some type of conflict or frustration, and while these times are no different, the fact that I’ve been lucky to find support in a variety of places has undoubtedly made the persistent stress of these circumstances less, well, stressful. I won’t sit here and tell you I am stress-free, or that I don’t feel the anxiety and insecurity that seem to creep into my mind each day, but I will tell you that I’ve found support in a few key places, and that I find my spirit mostly sustained by those supports, and fulfilled through them.
The most important person in my life is my wife, Ashley. You all know her from her variety of roles at SJC, and she is the beacon in my life. She is the one true friend I know in this world who can see me wholly with all my flaws, blessings, demons, and bright spots, and still show me kindness, love, mercy, empathy, and truth. I say with great confidence that nobody makes it anywhere in this life alone, and I am blessed to have such a wonderful and caring partner to walk beside me on our way together. She brings me peace when I am disquieted, she encourages me to seek out and pursue ideas that inspire me, and she knows when to force me to go outside and take a walk to clear my head. People like this are often compared to rudders, but perhaps it would be better to say that she is my compass. She goes ahead of me, and guides my True North pursuit.
I think often when we consider the idea of support, we think of external forces from which we benefit, or special persons with whom we may confer when we are troubled. These are valid, and as I’ve just enumerated the myriad ways in which my wife supports me, I knowingly and actively engage with the idea of those external supports. I am also, however, finding that I can create a sense of self-fulfillment by tackling tasks during this seemingly unending time of social isolation. I am blessed to have solid walls around me, and a roof overhead; a refrigerator and pantry that are mostly well-stocked. These external supports enable me to live securely, and carve out time where I can get to the more exciting work of building up my internal supports. Creating an internal sense of security and accomplishment by taking on small projects that have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
So, (and I know this sounds clichéd at this point, especially if you are someone who reads the internet) one of the projects I’ve begun incorporating into my quarantined life is bread baking! Baking bread is one of those things I’ve never been too hot on as a practice. In general, I don’t like practicing things at all. In fact, I hate practicing things. If you ask Ashley or Jennifer, they’ll tell you that I’d much prefer to take a listen or two to a new song we’re learning, and then show up and perform it. Once. No rehearsal. Bread baking does not work this way, so much (spoiler alert: neither does music - you gotta practice). You have to do it, like, a bunch of times before you get the feel for how each style of loaf you create should look, smell, and feel at various points throughout the process. I consider myself a fine home-cook (thanks, Mom, for helping me learn!), but the thing about baking bread is that it requires a closer adherence to the directions - another thing I’m not always so great with. The quantities, the times, the temperature of the liquids — the type of flour, the fat content in the milk — how much kneading is too much? What does “fold in,” versus “incorporate,” versus “knead” mean? Endless variables! Perhaps why I gave up cooking chicken breasts years ago in favor of the thighs and drumsticks which, due to their muscular makeup, are far more forgiving in the cooking process. You just can’t kill ‘em!
Regardless of my own issues with following directions closely, or lack of desire to allow the repetition of practice to engrain its important glutenous lessons into my muscle memory, I will say that I’ve become a nice little home-baker in these past eight weeks, and I can successfully make two contrasting, yet equally delicious, styles of bread. And as I have learned to appreciate so deeply in this time of quarantine, baking bread is a process that has a beginning (usually kind of messy and sticky), a middle (requiring much patience - another trait I must work at developing), and an end (which is hopefully, pride-filled). Not all that dissimilar to having and raising children, now that I think of it.
I play games. All sorts of games. Mind games such as the NYT Crossword, as well as their other word-related games such as Spelling Bee, and more recently, Letter Boxed. I love word puzzles, and they give me a new challenge throughout each day that I can begin, work through, and (hopefully) finish. I’ve had a few major points of pride recently in that I have now solved over 52 consecutive Monday and Tuesday crossword puzzles without assistance or error checking! Also, I’ve reached “genius” status in almost all of the past week’s worth of Spelling Bees! Still working towards that perfection point of finding every available word of four letters or greater in length, but I’ll hope to get there with more practice. Ashley and I play Nintendo Wii Resort with our sons, who’ve become quite the little masters of games such as basketball, bowling, table tennis, and wake boarding! They love it, and although it’s more screen time, it’s a fun and somewhat active way for us to play when the weather doesn’t easily allow outdoor time.
One other project that I attempted which has brought me great pride and fulfillment is the act of composing an old-fashioned country music song. Not like one of those new-fangled, ginned-up flashy ones about dogs and pickup trucks and cold beer on Friday nights (can’t we have cold beer other nights, too?). Yep, I wrote a classic country music song. The song has a beginning, a middle, and an end. I got to start the process, work through it, and finish it. And then work though and finish it again. And again. And again. And I’m still not ready to share it out with the greater world quite yet, although a special few have seen a little draft preview (I’m looking at you, SJC Dad Texts groupmates!).
All in all, this time has been decidedly strange, and not without its share of stressors. But I remain grateful to be able to be safely working from home with my wife and my beautiful boys, connecting all together in ways we could not imagine within the confines of our otherwise highly-structured and somewhat over-scheduled “normal” daily lives. We miss our friends and family, but we continue to stay home and practice social distancing, and wear our masks out in public, both to protect ourselves, and others. I thank God each day for my blessings, and ask for his vigilance over those who are less fortunate than I. And I think about you all, and dream of the time when we can re-enter those four sacred walls of St. John’s Church where we all find our home away from home — where we create those internal supports outwardly for each other. I miss and love you all.