What has been heard, what has been said, after 24 or 27 months give or take? More or less, what was said (even wished) was mainly, and above all else, that we wanted things to return to normal.
We were longing for the everyday day-to-day, the regular way, sort of; or at least, some semblance of such. We wanted, we said, to be with people again, doing the things we usually did.
We wanted to see smiles, again, on stranger’s faces, we said from behind our masks and wanting so much for our lips to be read as much as our expressions of joy. Or reality. Or anything other than what it was for the 26 or 25 months of what came to be.
We weren’t asking for much, really, or nothing any more spectacular than what life grants us on any given day. We wanted the ordinary, if nothing else.
What we have known is not over. How we are living, coping, or struggling, is not the same as it was eight months, or 11 months, back (or 25 or 23). It was a long time, and longer still will be this shadow of a virus that has hung over us (more than a footnote, and still not quite a chapter) in this never-ending story.
What was, or what is, close to some kind of normal, feels closer now. Dare we say it? We wished it, didn’t we, and here we are now more than two years later, finally gathering in parks and parades, galleries, shopping malls, and back at the office.
Masked or unmasked, we might not be as close as we were before, but we are working on it. Aren’t we? Can’t we now see, or hear and experience life, a little bit like we did before?
Yes, we want more, but right now this is as good as it gets for those of us still cautious, yet relieved, that we are here to see what’s going on.
It is, or seems to be, a return to the usual, the normal, and the everyday ways. For some of us it will never happen, for many of us it will never be, but for all of us there is a new (or another) opportunity for ordinary.
The ordinary: after all we have been through, that may even be better than it sounds.
06/27/2022 j.g.l.
2 replies on “Still Swallowed By The Cracks”
I woke at 4:30 this morning, unable to go back to sleep, and I started thinking of my granddaughter who will be turning 17 this week. Somewhere in her, she has a base of sweetness, love, caring, compassion, but right now she is displaying (in my eyes) an anger and rebellion (and when I remember clearly, not unlike me at 17) that worries me a bit, probably much like my behavior worried my parents. I ended up writing a letter to her in my journal today, which I might well transpose to a birthday “letter,” that was pulling in the same general thought of needing to take individual responsibility to mirror the world we wish to see, not the world that seems to be revealed in these ever growing cracks, to be aware of the pulsing push and pull of the world with its growing multiple layers of manipulation as to “what is real.” “Globalization,” though embraced by those with a moral compass and compassion to reach out and help others, was, I believe, based on financial greed which, of course, would fail or should fail. So as we shrink back into our smaller communities, I have faith that people are taking individual stock of what’s important – loving kindness, compassion, generosity — and hopefully regaining the knowledge that the only person or thing we ultimately can control is ourselves and how we move through this world. We will attract what we believe and how we act; and though it seems that the pendulum at its highest height is looking more like a giant ball of destruction, in the pause before it begins its swing back, hopefully people choose differently, and when the pendulum sweeps downward again, humanity will be see the ball of that pendulum as a moral compass glistening so brightly that it will spark the energy of personal responsibility to love thy neighbor, to be mindful of right speech, right thought, right intention. For sure, not everyone will even be aware of the swing of Life’s pendulum or even notice its brightness as they cling to their darkness, but for those who do, they will not suffer as deeply as those who cling to immediate gratification and the chatter of madness. That is my hope. Thank you for your posting.
I appreciate your thoughts, and your hope. The corporate term of “rightsizing” apllies so much, as we do attempt, or try to attempt to gather in smaller more exacting communities, virtually or in real time. Thank you. Keep hoping.