It has been a little over a month since my last column. There are several contributing factors to this. The most obvious one for me is the October 7 attack in Israel.
It seemed to me that writing about anything else would be a disconnect from what is going on and that assuming life is normal would diminish the reality of the world today.
Well, I have changed my mind. Not about the thought that most columns would pale by comparison but the simple fact that life goes on. Life is changed but it does go on.
I sit here, writing, with my cruise to Antarctica outside barely 24 hours in my rear window. The cruise of a lifetime. Reassessing my life, reflecting on what has gone on and what lies ahead. Don’t worry, it’s not that heavy.
Escapism is not a bad thing because we never truly escape from reality. It hovers in the background, and we pull it out when we need to or there is an a-ha moment where we need to relate or reveal.
Last week, I walked on an ice floe, just a few feet away from a ship that carved a path into the terrain. It was amazing.
Sometimes, changing the conversation doesn’t mean ignoring the elephant in the room. It focuses us back on our lives, our ‘bubble’ and we feel grateful. Sometimes, that bubble shields us from the pain we feel.
War rages on in the Middle East. A gracious first lady is gone. Wednesday marks the 60th anniversary of JFK’s assassination and 69% of America still does not believe there was a lone gunman. Four names remain on the missing list from the fires in Maui. Closer to home, some families will not spend the holidays together as the weather will impact travel in the US.
While we have moved the war in Ukraine out of our minds for the most part, until our immediate universe is impacted, we keep a SAFE distance.
Folk singer Phil Ochs put it in perspective. Take a listen.
Love and humor are key to our daily existence. If we put that on the back burner, we lose a lot but there is a ‘happy’ medium.
The holidays are upon us and if there was never a more important time to balance the good and the bad than now. We can embrace the good but we can also acknowledge the terrible and talk about it around the table. In fact, we MUST talk about it around the table, lest we become immune to suffering. There are things we can do to ease the pain in our hearts and those whose lives are in turmoil.
And for many of us, we are in the position to do so.
To quote the late Richard Nixon (yeah, that guy): “Only when you have been in the deepest valley, can you know what it’s like to stand on the highest mountain.”
I stood on a glacier last week and saw a penguin. If we hold the beautiful and awesome in our hearts, we can find a way to care about all the others.
WOW!
Great article.