I have spent my life learning a very annoying truth: there is so much in life we have no control over. I’m not saying this to absolve myself of responsibility, because the one place where we have the most ability to exercise control is over our own actions. I’m pondering this because I recently made some grand plans, both personal and professional, that fell apart because I got sick.
Last week, I was on a work trip. The plan was to help run a training event in another city. But I spent most of the trip hibernating in my hotel room, self-enforced quarantine because of a virus. Another in what has been a rough year for me health wise. And yet, in some ways, I feel healthier than I have in years.
I was frustrated that while I was in bed watching Netflix, my colleagues were having to manage everything without me. And yet, guess what? Everything went fine.
I had also planned a more personal excursion for this trip that didn’t happen. We were in the city where I lived between the ages of, I think, two and eight years old. The place of my earliest memories. Not all of those memories are positive, so I wanted to visit a place that contained some happy thoughts.
I wanted to do a solo pilgrimage to visit the Peter Pan statue in the botanical gardens. Instead, I wrote this poem:
Hey Peter Pan,
I thought you had summoned me.
A side quest within my work trip.
A personal pilgrimage.
Back to a place of childhood.
You and my father intertwined in my memories.
Back when I believed that I could fly,
and when his claustrophobia smashed through the window.
I thought you could help me through my fear
of a fate like Icarus. Or of nothingness.
I travelled far but did not get to you.
At least, not physically.
Instead, I got the flu
and quarantined myself inside my hotel room.
Happy thoughts, my friend.
