MENTAL MINESTRONE

Yesterday I felt delicate. I’d slept badly, I’d woken in the middle of the night frightened by a nightmare only to realise that reality was far worse than my bad dream, which brought on an anxiety attack. I lay in bed struggling to control my racing heart using breathing techniques, desperate to turn on an app called Insight Timer on my phone and listen to one of my favourite sleep meditations. But Cedric was sound asleep and I didn’t want to disturb him. I tossed and drifted and turned for the rest of the night, waking up with an ache in my chest and a hole in my stomach that wouldn’t go away.

 I’m having a hard time coming to terms with how stressed I was by my surreal trip to the supermarket on Saturday. Could it be that my overreaction to an event so insignificant on the grand scale of current events had been brought on by our full week in isolation, from not having witnessed first hand any of the crazy changes going on outside?

Whatever it is, it annoys me. I feel anxious about having felt so anxious, if that makes sense. I feel as though I’ve let myself down. I feel as though I want to just stay isolated and not go anywhere at all. Which is actually what we’re all supposed to be doing. Which should cancel out my annoyance at my anxiety, in a mathematical, logical sort of way. 

 Except that I’m not wired logically. And I’m certainly not wired mathematically! My brain is kind of freestyle. It’s fifty thousand shades of every colour of the rainbow, sometimes within the space of a minute. I guess some would call it monkey brain. I’ve decided to call it mental minestrone, partly because I like the sound of it, but mostly because I’m half Italian, and Italy is on my mind a lot at the moment.

Let me immerse you in some of my mental minestrone.

I have two horses, and here in Switzerland we’re allowed to go and ride and take care of them, which is wonderful if we go about it in a responsible way, keep our distances, respect each other’s spaces, don’t hang around or get in each other’s way.  Basically, if we go to the stables, do what we have to do, and then go straight home we should be absolutely fine.  

What I’m having a hard time getting my anxious head around at the moment is actually riding my horses. But admitting to this anguish makes me angry with myself, because all around me my equestrian friends are keeping calm and carrying on. I envy them because riding, to me, is the best thing ever. 

 But riding horses is a high risk sport, and even if we make extra sure we’re not taking any unnecessary risks with our horses at the moment, we’re still in the high risk category.  The last thing hospitals need right now is having to deal with riders coming off their horses, and by the same token, hospitals are the last place any of us want to have to visit at the moment. I’d rather find other ways to exercise my horses for the next few week or - God forbid - months, and so for the time being I think I’m going to stick to lungeing them. Céline, the owner of the stables, has been riding them while I’ve been in isolation, and is happy to keep on riding them a few times a week. So between daily turnout, the water treadmill, lunging and Céline, they’re not neglected or lacking exercise. 

 It’s just that it annoys me that the idea of riding worries me. That I can’t just say, what the heck, enjoy the moment, you’re a good rider, it’ll be absolutely fine, stop being so damn insecure. I’m slightly jealous of other people’s less anxious brains, a realization that increases my annoyance at myself. 

 You probably think I’ve drunk the Koolaid or something!

 At the end of the day, we all just have to do what feels right for ourselves, our families and for the entire community. For the entire world! 

 Our minds are boggling under the responsibility. As mind boggling situations go, this is a whopper, so we’re allowed.

 I drove to the stables early this morning and enjoyed being with the horses again. It was quiet, there was hardly anyone around, which was a relief as I couldn’t have coped with any of the usual equestrian hustle and bustle. The stables have always been my “happy place”, my second home, so social distancing there feels weird.

 But social distancing is weird everywhere, for everyone.

We’re all knocked sideways, trying to find our bearings in a world we never imagined could possibly exist less than two weeks ago. It’s so damn violent. 

 At the same time, on a purely personal level, there have already been so many wonderful moments since we went into isolation. Even yesterday, during my delicate day, I felt grateful for funky-soft moments, such as the cat coming to sit beside me on the staircase (why I was sitting on the staircase I have no idea!), and a little bat (yes, we have bats in our walls!) flying into the bedroom while I was doing the ironing. I opened the window and off it went. 

 Later, quietly contented by the satisfying sight of an empty ironing basket, I sat in the living room, enjoying the silence, watching the ducks pootle around the pond. A local heron paid us a visit and spent hours majestically paddling around at the far end, taking gourmet liberties with the poor goldfish. Cedric channelled his inner David Attenborough, finding the best angles to film these aquatic antics. It’s rare to see the heron in our garden, especially for prolonged periods of time, and I’m certain his presence is directly related to the virtual absence of outside human activity. There’s also far less noise pollution than usual; fewer cars on the roads, fewer trains. Flights in and out of nearby Geneva airport have practically ceased. It’s wild.

 Wilder still, later on in the afternoon, our son Greg surprised us by initiating a game of Scrabble, something virtually unconceivable pre Covid19!  We sat at the dining room table, fiddling with our letters, mock-scolding one another for pinching the spot where we’d planned on planting a record breaking triple word score, playing another kind of mental minestrone.

 I loved it.

 Take care of yourself and your loved ones.

 Francesca