Destiny and 2020

 

Another snagged photo

I am enamoured with Rita Eberle-Wessner's shots of light coming through forest trees. I've used a couple of her other shots, too, to begin a post. She's able to capture what I feel in my heart so often these days. A feeling that there must be a day when the light will emerge and open up our grey and listless world into a new dawn.

With the pandemic on one side, keeping us separated and in misery as we move through the months of lockdown (not everyone, but most of us) to avoid getting the virus or spreading it to vulnerable others, it's easy to forget that these times will pass. It feels like it's been going on for ages, but it's not even been a year yet. There is no doubt that we will look back on the year 2020 as one of the most difficult ones that the US has endured. We are now leading the world in deaths by percentage of population, with almost 300,000 Americans already dead and being months away from a vaccine distributed to vulnerable populations. It's a staggeringly scary statistic. Sometimes I get really discouraged and wish I could move to a country that has a more reasonable government. But where? Canada, just a few miles from here, is doing so very much better. But the border is closed: they don't want us to infect them with our belief that it's our right not to wear masks or distance ourselves from others.

I say that, but it's not what most of us think is right. I am so happy to live in a state with mandates that help to protect others, as well as ourselves. I just read yesterday that Iowa, a state in the middle of the country, has a 50% positivity rate. In other words, half of of the population tested for the virus has it. Now that's really scary!

But all this is not what I intended to say in today's post. What I'm getting to, eventually, is that we are not alone in this pandemic; the entire world is working to get it under control. All I can do is my own little part, and that is all any of us can do. I am part of the vulnerable populations, being in my seventies, and even with no underlying conditions, it's possible for me to die from it. Although I think I might have already had it, the case was a mild one and might not be protective. I'll get the vaccine as soon as I get a chance to, not because I am so afraid of the virus, but because I'm afraid of giving it to others unknowingly.

One of my friends has decided that the year 2020 has been awful enough that whenever anything bad happens to a friend, she says they got "2020ed." And of course most of us have seen that image of a hand spelling out "2020" with its middle finger showing what many of us think about this year. I sure hope the coming year, 2021, will be a better one. With the vaccine available coming in a few months, it should be a better outcome for the world.

Do you believe in destiny? It is defined as "the events that will happen to a particular person or thing in the future." Sometimes I think I know what will happen in a particular instance, and I'm usually wrong. Things flow from events and often take a turn that I never expected. It happens to all of us. And in the case of our current situation in the world, I really have very little idea of how things will look when we get to the other side. One thing I am fairly confident of, it won't look like the time before 2020. We will all be altered in one way or another. That fact makes me happy, because it means we can be somehow better, more connected, more caring about our friends and family. When you lose something precious, it makes you realize not only what you had, but how you might keep yourself from greater loss.

Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself. —Walter Anderson

I had an epiphany the other day: I realized that the events shaping our world right now are perhaps aligning themselves for a larger purpose. Maybe we are being guided and just don't know it. Sometimes I think I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, that a sea change is about to happen. There is only one way to know if it's true, and that's to be able to look ahead into the future. Since I cannot do that, I can only hope it's true. If I am fortunate enough to live until then, that is. 

You know what? I'm just riffing right now looking for some way to end this post. It didn't come out like I hoped, and I truly just wanted to give you, my dear readers, something light to think about and brighten your day. Instead, it's been a bit of a slog, and I apologize for that. Sitting down to write on a Sunday morning doesn't always turn out the way I hope it will, but I'm always a bit more centered after the attempt. Unfortunately for you, it might not be very coherent. Sorry about that. Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't.

In any event, the day is calling me to get out of bed, with my dear partner still sleeping next to me, and see if I can find a better start to my day. I have coffee to drink, friends and their conversation to enjoy, even through a mask, and hope for better days ahead. 2020 is almost over! Whatever you do with yourself between now and next Sunday, I hope it will increase your happiness and give some light to the world. Until we meet again next week, I wish you all good things.