An Editor’s Note: Rarely do I cede my Friday slot on Morning Open Thread, but our guest contributor this morning came to me with a wonderful idea that blossomed into a timely and relevant piece; I thought it deserved a wider audience. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do and please welcome Azalea Bush on her first Morning Open Thread. Thanks and be well—P Carey.
Morning Open Thread is a daily, copyrighted post from a host of editors and guest writers. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.
I’ve come to think of this post as one where you come for the music and stay for the conversation—so feel free to drop a note. The diarist gets to sleep in if she so desires and can show up long after the post is published. So you know, it's a feature, not a bug.
Join us, please.
Hello friends ~
It's the end of the world! It could be. Maybe not. Is it?
For most it's the end of paying bills on time, of dancing with friends, sitting in cafes or getting to bed on time. At least for now. REM’s ‘End Of The World As We Know It’ is getting a lot of play.
Certainly it's the end of the same old same old but, in that, I am hoping we can collectively and globally find a fresh Beginning. At least there is an opportunity for that. Don’t get me wrong, Im not all cheerful and motivated. Im not getting up every morning to go for a run, bake a loaf of bread, sew a slew of masks, organize my closets, paint the kitchen or work on my novel. I’m not that person, no offense.
There are loads of online positivity and offers of free classes, audio books, ballets, movies, concerts, therapy, meditations, all gifted to bolster your spirits and feed your soul and, Im sure, help us remember them when the good times come back.
That is, if it is not the end of the world.
People and businesses alike are thinking more about spreading kindness and care than in our pre-pandemic days. At least there is an opportunity for that. I have read the articles about how the blue skies are becoming visible for the first time in many decades in some parts of the world and how one can see the bottom of the Venetian canals—whether or not a dolphin was spotted there, well I like to believe that's true, don’t ruin it for me.
Quarantine-Detention-Imprisonment-Isolate-Reclusion-Segregation-Separation. I’ll stop, but I can see, looking at my Thesaurus, why I might be struggling to motivate. Days blur together now and I really can’t know what the future will bring. Not even tomorrow. If Im honest, the future has always arrived regardless of what I think and I have never been able to plan for it. Sure, it may not arrive one day. Scratch that, it definitely will stop coming one day.
It Will be the end of the world.
So despite all those freebies I’ve listed, I’m just not in the mood. Odd for me that I am not feeling drawn to entertainment for distraction right now. But I am also not sleeping so the other night I figured I’d try watching a movie. I could not watch any narrative story telling, I needed something I could relate to. I found a Ken Burns documentary about the Dust Bowl years. It felt relevant.
First of all I learned a lot interesting history, most importantly, that the dust storms were a man made climate crisis.
I. Did. Not. Know. That.
I am astounded that the horrific suffering endured during a decade of dust storms, all caused by the greed and carelessness of humankind, did not teach us anything at all going forward. We continue to taunt and offend nature in the pursuit of immediate gratification, wealth and power while ignoring any warning signs (hello pandemic.)
But this show also left me feeling hopeful. There on the tv screen, masked faces of the past, like ours now, huddling together as families within their homes, weathering out the storms. The constant battle for survival against the sand and dust. The incredible losses they suffered. The sorrow and the hardships. Well it made me feel a little silly to complain about being in lockdown, even tho, yes at least they could hug each other.
We are all of us in this together now and the work of it is only to stay apart. An ironic and most difficult task because the love and compassion we feel for one another during a crisis—the way we humans drop our differences and just fall in love with each other in a catastrophe—feels like a return to real life, truths, and what it means to be human. When we are stripped of comforts and excess we band together, that affectionate brotherhood rises from the ashes. I was once on the brink of death in this life of mine. Ok, two or three times. But the point is, that at those moments, I felt a deep appreciation and love for every person I saw or knew or met. I could weep at the beauty of a tree. Its ridiculous how raw our hearts can be at the end of the world.
The Burns series spotlighted interviews with folks who had grown up in the Dust Bowl and they were frank and honest people, telling it like it was, endearing themselves to me. A couple of them mentioned a phrase, which had haunted them since grandmothers uttered it as the storms approached; “its the end of the world.”
And so it is. As we’ve known it.
❧
❧
☕️
Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?