Life today can be compared to an amusement park. At times we are on a merry - go - round, slowing and speeding up, at times almost out of control. Other times we are on an insane roller coaster, the drops of which have never been seen before, the climbs so steep that one wonders if the cars will succeed in reaching the top or will they fall back. What dangers await the riders? What unknowns have been programmed in, each ride being different from the previous one and indeed for each rider.
World wide we appear to have some of the same experiences. From one side of the globe to the other, the virus has gobsmacked us but good. Live in the Uraine? Live in Turkmenistan or Russia? Live in Sweden or Italy? Anywhere, it all just seems the same with society facing a virus that seemingly has no borders, no ends to its powers to corrupt and attack each and every part of our body. It is different in each victim, thus making treatment more difficult, no matter where you live, no matter whether your ride on that merry-go-round is a horse or a yak. It seemingly can rise to bite you at will. And there is no knight on a white horse, lance at his side, ready to ride in and save us all. Just not there. Not yet.
So we are tired of spinning around. Tired of dealing with the inefficciency of the government, of people playing politics and chess with our lives. proving points, putting one over on the other side, getting a leg over or ahead and then trumpeting the victory in major tweet storms. Our adults act as children, fuss and whine, while the kids adjust. A twisted ride indeed. A ride definitely adversely affected by corruption and incompetence.
At the other end of this amusement park are the bold ones, those who refused to give in, who refused the mask, the social distancing, for they are the invincible. While the other side is glue, all seeming to stick to them, the illness growing despite precautions, despite obeying of the laws, the coaster riders dare fate to attack them. Nope, it won't, for they are rubber, and all bounces off. Well, they were and are so wrong.Somewhere, somehow, during one of the many ups and downs, hairpin turns, they, too, have been struck, caught unawares though they were warned and chose to ignore it all. Hubris takes a mighty toll indeed.
So in this gluey world where we fear tiny microscopic droplets, hunch our shoulders away from others, what do we do for relief? How do we ease tension that works on us, that could take us down the wrong slope at the wrong angle? The answer is in the creativity of the human being. Yes, we are facing a plague that appears to be unbeatable. We cannot stop it nor cure it with any certainty. We cannot predict its final course nor when that might be. We cannot state with any definite good news feeling that we know when that so needed vaccine will be ready, safe, mass produced, enough for the world, with a plan for distribution down tothe last outlying villager or the hermit in the desert and the crowds of the cities. Enough to defeat this plague and others to come.
But until then what? We laugh, and I am sure most of us have laughed at the words of the mothers who are tired, frustrated, the fathers who are bewildered at what goes on when they are not home, what is truly required to keep a household on an even keel. Music, art, Zoom, What's App chats, distance visits with masked and distanced people talking with friends.
We volunteer. We bring food and hope to shut ins, to elderly, to mothers with young kids, to kids who need some new diversion.We man the food banks. And we act and react as communities, from the dancing on the balconies of Israel to the nightly clapping at 7 PM in NYC for all those keeping us alive, at their own peril - from grocery workers to nurses. From med students rushing their school to doctors, nurses and all hopital workers exhausted by the round the clock intensive care. We thank the guys who deliver the food we do not have to go out for. We love those stores open for our food and necessity shopping.
We think, we hope, we pray, and this side of us is rubber. We are bouncing back. We are taming those up and down horses. We are learning to control and temper some of those angles and speeds, curves and downslopes, ease the upslopes on the roller coaster we are all riding.
When the choice is laughing or crying, the better medicine is laughter. We mourn our friends and loved ones who have left us, torn from us, we pray for them, but we also must laugh at the antics of some, of the cleverness of others. Most important, we have learned that we MUST prepare for the future, not allow corruption, cronyism, inefficency, greed and sloppiness to harm us again. We must allow that realization to stick to us like glue and then bounce back on that strained and tired rubber matting, but bounce back we must and will. No alternative to that is acceptable. None.
So today, as we pray for yet another friend in the ICU, we also tell stories about her and others that make us laugh through our tears, sending that laughter and love winging through the air to her and to all the victims.
And we do our part by not being moronic, dangerously so. These are life and death times and politics should play no role here, though unfortunately it has been injected into it, slowing the horses and rusting away the braces of the coaster structure. We must stop that. Our lives depend upon that.
We must be here for the now and the after. To do that we need to do two things especially right.
We need to BE WELL and STAY SAFE.
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