I take seriously my job of safeguarding the special bubble in which 50 of us (between Detroit Street Filling Station and The Lunch Room Bakery & Cafe) spend our work lives. As much as I’d like to steer society in a different direction, my main sphere of influence is my business. There are things I can fix more easily than others. My level of frustration with our current reality varies by the day. It bothers me that people will flirt with COVID and take unnecessary risks, expecting that our health care workers will fix us if we fall ill. I also believe in civility and listening to all viewpoints, and am deeply saddened about how polarized we have become and how viciously we attack those with whom we disagree. I take seriously my role in our democracy and probably have an over-inflated sense of my own power to effect change. I care about people I know and people I don’t know. I’m an activist, a news junkie, a mom, a business owner, and a participant. My feelings have been and continue to be a rollercoaster. I’m not sure if he would say the same about a blog post, but here goes. The contrast in realities is hard to reconcile.Ī close friend recently told me that the key to a good yearly family newsletter is to talk about not just events, but feelings. News photos of packed bars appear on the same sites as photos of overflowing emergency rooms. We continue on with our daily routines – some altered more than others – and determine our level of risk comfortability associated with various activities. People get married, have babies, change jobs, and pursue their educational goals. Health care workers are crying for help and teachers are burning out from the stress of the youth mental health crisis and fears of COVID and school shootings.Īnd yet in some ways “normal” life proceeds. Half of our country has outlawed pandemic-related mandates. Pro-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers dig in and square off in increasingly hostile confrontations. A woman’s right to choose is in serious jeopardy. Climate change is proceeding at an alarming rate, evidenced by a spate of extreme weather events (when did the term “atmospheric river” enter our lexicon anyways?). There was the final year of Trump, January 6th, police shootings and a vibrant Black Lives Matter movement and subsequent backlash. We have been through nearly two years of a pandemic and all the accompanying stress. It’s impossible to know if conditions are returning to normal, if they’re getting farther from normal, or what normal even means anymore. Maybe that’s because I’ve become less certain what to write things change so quickly. For a while my posts were more frequent over time they have slowed. I started writing this blog in April 2020 as a way to chronicle life during this special period.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |