Pandemic Reflections
It’s been everywhere and in everyone’s thoughts this March, reactions and reflections on a year living with a global pandemic. It’s a full spectrum feels milestone. This pandemic has highlighted and illuminated so much, has asked each of us to reinforce our foundations and forget what we knew as we tread through the great unknowns.
So much of this year feels a blur, but I remember vividly closing the studio and the week leading up to it. Watching NBA the week prior, the abrupt shutting down of play and the subsequent WHO declaration of the global pandemic. My partner and I both cutting work and trips short to reconvene at home. I knew then what I didn’t want to know, that this was going to be a long journey. We were in uncharted territory. Could we mitigate risk? How quickly would things change? What was our responsibility? Can we stay rational in a sea of fear? These were questions on repeat as Britt and I navigated the early days at the helm of a community we cared so much for. As a general information hound, I consumed more in these days than I had in a long time. The noise was fervent, and we did our best to stay calm, without panic, ultimately choosing to listen to what felt true to us – which is the way we have always made decisions together.
March 16 was the day we sent an official email closing our doors indefinitely. After hitting send, I sobbed at my computer. It was one of those involuntary cries that erupt without warning when you think you “have it all together.” No stranger to grief, I had felt this before, it was overwhelmingly familiar, and it was a strong indicator of all there was to process. Our brand new studio baby had been alive for just 10 weeks. Britt and I spent 2019 working ourselves to the bone to realize our vision, and in a moment, we let it all go.
We were out of steam. I was already operating at a pace I wasn’t comfortable with. The six months leading up to March 16 were filled with long days, big decisions, and huge financial output. We went big on building foundations and came out of the gates with a bold service offering that required much investment. Since we had gone from dreams to development mode, life moved at warp speed, so when the full stop was presented, we heeded the call. Even if we had wanted to, we couldn’t muscle through this.
Everyone wanted to believe it would be a two-week hiatus on “normal” life; we knew it would be at least a 12-18 month endeavor. We needed these weeks not to push through the pain and discomfort but to sit with it. And that is what we did. Our brains and bodies begged for a hard pause. We devastatingly laid off 7 beautiful humans and went inwards with it all. With so much unknown and so much coming at us, we chose to sit with the grief of our world and listen, to attune to the task at hand: learning how to live in a pandemic.
After the pause, Brittany and Lee started seeing some clients again in April, those who were comfortable moving to a virtual platform. We experimented with community offerings in the months following that were a complete departure from what we had ever intended to serve, and it was wonderful. As people who love learning and as a business with an ethos of exploration, we have been doing what we can to move through this time with grace and possibility. We have reopened conversations to working in trajectories that we had consciously closed the door on. And we see ways in which we might realize some of our long-term goals much sooner than we had imagined when we have the ability to rebuild.
Ironically, this March, we chose to work with the theme of yielding (thank you, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, for bringing this to the forefront in our winter studies). Our monthly themes use Pilates as the tool to guide and explore concepts and sensations, with the goal, as always, to foster awareness in our bodies to bring more awareness to life in general.
Yielding is the precursor to adaptation. And when the only thing constant is change, this is a practice for the ages. Yielding asks us to be with what is and to be curious. It is neither submission nor resistance, but a gentle allowance, a simple acknowledgement, a consideration that may lead to affirmation.
I’ve learned over the years to lean into grief, to give it space and time, and not just grief alone but to all the strong emotions that come, whether they are “good” or favorable or desirable or not. What has rung true for me in my reflections and mine and Britt’s collective reflections is that our yielding to the pause, to the grief, to the gravity of what was upon us, gave us so much to work with as we moved forward into the unknown. It allowed us to stay true to ourselves and to show up for others in a way that felt full and authentic.
As well, our foundations have kept us alive, from the relational foundations with each other and our community, the deep connections that fuel the business now and since its birth in 2014, to the physical foundations we worked so hard to establish as we grew into something bigger in 2019 and early 2020 so that we could hold space for more. We chose unconventional models of rooting in the studio landscape, and these choices have bolstered our survival.
We are still very much surviving. The world is still very much a disaster on every front, from climate change to human inequities, and I, for one, am not waiting for the return to normal, nor do I want it. Normal wasn’t working. I find solace in looking forward to the perseverance of new ways of being, encouraged by seeing and experiencing the resiliency of the human condition when there is effort and resolve to learn anew, to be and see and do differently than what we’ve been culturally and systemically trained to be and see and do.
What also holds true to me through all of this is that Fine Tune remains a refuge in any form. A safe place and held space to explore and feel and tune in, to build strength and realize stability, so that on the other side of survival is the ability to thrive, continuing to move with/through and adapt to the ever-evolving nature of this life.