OUTRUNNING HEADLIGHTS
The Isolation Blues;
reflections during covid-19
Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the outworks of our intuition, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent.
– Rainer Maria Rilke. “Letters to a Young Poet”
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Years ago I was on a backwoods road trip with a friend of mine in TS R11 WELS somewhere around Telos Lake on a logging road late at night. We had a canoe loaded on top of our truck, a thermos of hot coffee and way-too-loud music on the tape deck competing with our non-stop conversation. My friend was driving and he had driven these roads numerous times on fly fishing trips, but for me it was my first time, it was jet black and we were moving about as fast as the music. I was familiar with the term “outrunning your headlights” but had never experienced it until right then. Of course the likelihood of meeting another vehicle that time of night in the Maine woods was minimal (a deer or a moose more likely), yet I felt a slight uneasiness that even the caffeine wasn’t addressing. “Outrunning your headlights” means not being able to safely stop within the illuminated range of your headlight. Since you can’t see beyond the range of your low beam or your high beam anything could be out there.
The coronavirus pandemic and Delta variant is an extended global crisis (20 months and counting) affecting every person on the planet in some way directly or indirectly. Just when we think conditions are improving or we have peaked, some other complication arises that continues the ongoing struggle. Even with the best science and disciplined research the data and results keep changing and we have to keep adjusting as we go. I had hoped that the worst of the pandemic would be behind us by now with a moderate level of safety and stability achieved, but it appears I was overly optimistic. “Covid-fatigue” is a term used to describe the long term affects the extended pandemic has had on our mental and spiritual state of mind. It’s been a long haul for all of us and at this point it is important to recognize that we may still have a ways to go. This is where the endurance comes in. Take a deep breath. Don’t try to rush through this or outrun your headlights. We can only see so far ahead even when we try our hardest to make sense of it. Sometimes you just have to trust your best instincts and keep putting forth your best effort.
Then again, Rilke says that if we could only see a bit further than our own knowledge and a little beyond our own intuition that we could then endure the challenges of this nerve-wracking life. Most of us may not feel comfortable outrunning our headlights, so to speak, but in this unknown space of what we can’t see just yet is the new and upcoming. Whatever that may be (good or bad), can we handle that and make the most out of it? We don’t necessarily have to have all the answers or know what’s going to happen next, we just have to move forward.
In the woods,
Dave
October 8, 2021