The Zoom Scene You Choreograph & The Zoom Scene You Get

It looks like something a commenter on Tripadvisor would post: “The hotel room we were promised on the website, and the dump when we arrived!”

That’s what comes to mind when I look at the scene I had carefully set-up for our first zoom call with members of our community, and the shot I watched back after the recorded call (the camera had shifted - last minute - unbeknownst to me).

Look, I know some of you are wearing sweatpants under your dress shirts (or no pants at all)!

We’re all joking about such things, as we navigate our current reality.

So, of course, I thought I was safe setting up something beautiful: white tablecloth, fresh flowers, challah, candlesticks, while the messy, unfinished thing I keep meaning to get to: the bookshelf with the shelves inserted on a slant so that nothing stands straight, crooked so long that I’d given up trying to stand books at all, and instead piled in my kids schoolwork and games (and apparently, also, a yoga brick and sand-timer and ritual essence mister) remained out of frame.

But suddenly it was in focus.

On all of us: the untamed chaos of our lives, broadcast-live from our living rooms.

And it doesn’t matter, really, because there are infinitely more important things going on.

That wasn’t my first reaction, though.

My first reaction was shame. The kind that I’ve listened to enough Brene Brown audiobooks to know required calling a friend.

And my oldest childhood friend gently asked if there was some way to edit this mess out of the scene, but then quickly reassured me that it was the funniest sight she’d seen in a long time, that it was real and relatable, and that she loved me and was grateful for our friendship.

I watched the recording back, after talking to her, and heard myself — not realizing that everyone else also heard me— explaining to Dan that our ‘Please Stand By’ sign was backwards because he needed to write it in mirror image: “like Encyclopedia Brown,” I told him.

It’s the type of banter and teamwork that I’m thankful characterizes our relationship, and I laughed hearing it back this time; I laughed until tears began streaming down my face.

That was ten days ago.

We’re much deeper into it now.

Yesterday, I asked a friend - in complete sincerity - if it was better for me not to join my son’s preschool zoom because he refused to join, or to keep showing up with a giant stuffed penguin next to me in his absence.

We’re all figuring this out.

I need to repair the bookshelf.

But, right now, my consolation is knowing that it doesn’t matter, because there are much more important things going on.