Photo by Johannes
Plenio on Unsplash
Change is such a huge topic. It is scary for some and can be transformational
for others. For most people it is some combination of the two. Change is
sometimes forced upon us by outside events—this pandemic is one of those. Other
times we initiate change because whatever is going on in our life is not how we
want it to be. In both cases, we need time to be still. Time to be cognizant of
the change, evaluate its impact, and then to take steps to adapt if we can.
I am a person who is what they call an “early adopter.” Usually that phrase is used for technology changes, but it can also be applied to other change. Early adopter means that I look for the positive in the change and I’m willing to try it out and see what makes sense to me. In technology, I’ve often tried out new software before most people. I love the idea of things being made more efficient for me. In trying out software, I also often find ways to use it that was never conceived by the developer. Where the software was developed for one purpose, I find a way to use it to solve a different problem that’s been nagging at me.
I’m willing to make larger leaps in technology because I’ve seen the usefulness of starting from scratch rather than trying to “fix” old code. Technology marches forward so quickly with new invention that one must embrace the new to make the next large jump.
In a non-technological context, I try to see change as an opportunity for learning, gaining more understanding, and sometimes for personal transformation. Even when the change involves tragedy, like the death of my brother as a child or the deaths of my father and several uncles as an adult, I’ve found a way to adapt. To move from the loss to the honoring of their lives through changes in the way I live my life to reflect the best of them.
But I’ve Struggled with Change for Two Years Now
But the last two years have provided too much change—change that was built on four years previous to that where I found the world to be unrecognizable. Politics have always been divisive. I’ve lived through the 1960s and 1970s—Civil Rights, Watergate and Vietnam. Yet, it seems even more so now that the lessons of the past are forgotten.
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| Photo by Tran Toen on Unsplash |
Floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes have always been a part of
the news cycle and I’ve lived in parts of the country where those are to be
expected. But it was never as large, as widespread, and consistently happening
more often than in the past two years. Furthermore, these ongoing climate
events have made me more aware of the growing economic divide between the rich,
the middle-class, and the poor.
Add the pandemic and it is too much change, even for someone like me who is normally able to move through it and learn from it. It’s not that I’m unable to get out of bed. It is that I have been unable to find a way to understand, evaluate, adapt and find ways to make my life and the life of others better. Though I’ve made a promise to step forward every month for the past six months, I haven’t been able to do that. I think about it and then retreat because I feel that central truths of my belief system, around the inherent dignity and worth of every being and the general goodness in humanity, are being proven wrong. Yet, I’m not willing or able to give them up. Instead, I’ve kept going to a place of denial instead of dealing with it. I scramble to the safety of logic and technology and that keeps me from stepping again into creativity and feeling.
An Opportunity for Transformation I Hadn’t Seen
Friends I know have been sharing with me the work of another writer—someone I didn’t know existed. His name is John Roedele. He is a comedian, a prose writer, and a poet. He publishes his work on Facebook and often reads it in videos. He is very good at observing the human condition and shares his insights by providing the impact on his own life. He has become one of those points of light in my inbox.
August 28th, he posted a short prose recap of his 47 years of life and what he’s learned. There were many brief insights, but this one really spoke to me and shined a light on this particular time in my life.
We treat grief like it’s a
summer storm
-as if it’s a temporary event
that will
quickly pass. It won’t. Grief is
a comet.
It terraforms our world.
Grief doesn’t always destroy us
- but it
changes the shape of our
continents.
–John Roedele
For me, the reason the past two years is so difficult is that the changes have come in such rapid succession, without breaks, that I see now we’ve been hit by multiple comets and each one is trying to “terraform” our world. I haven’t been able to absorb even one and look for lessons, nevertheless four or five or ten.
I’ve read articles and heard reporting on the extended grieving this pandemic has caused, but I didn’t accept it for myself. I now realize that is what has been happening to me. To take the terraforming metaphor into my heart, I have a way forward not by wholesale transformation but my incremental alterations. In effect, terraforming the human landscape.
I’ve been pummeled by the storms because I was filling the times of stillness with counting the seconds between the thunder and lightning. With some practice I’ve learned that, if I take time to dwell in those moments of stillness, I will see others there with me in the quiet. Others who still believe in the goodness and dignity of every person. Others who are quietly reaching out and building on that foundation of trust and common good, while at the same time engaging in terraforming the human landscape by altering those foundational elements that are hostile to living and working together while striving to thrive in peace.
Now I can return to writing and building those stories and characters where they also survive the storm and find a way thrive and love and scratch out a life of possibilities.
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| MAGGIE LYNCH |
