Hope Writer Challenge - Reimagine

The last topic for the @hopewriters writing challenge is Reimagine (#hopewriterlife)

Ah yes, reimagine.  What can I say?  Of course I imagined 2020 differently.

We all did.  We all of us had a rhythm and a plan for our lives that didn't involve being stuck indoors and suddenly conducting our business and entire social calendar through a video chat.

I've watched people struggle putting desks together on their own in order to try to accommodate a home office.  I've heard people ask for prayers as they set up Google classrooms for kindergartners saying "God is my only tech support".  None of us imagined the world this way, or were prepared for it when it came.

So when I reimagine 2020, I naturally start by thinking about my original plans.  I think about the way I had mundane plans for doctor visits and a few weekend plans to see friends.  And I begin to question if my plans haven't changed for the better in some ways.

I'm more aware of and focused on my neighborhood. It's becoming a community again. And I have been able to help address some needs there I might not otherwise been aware of.

And as I think about how I want this year to progress, I've been thinking about what goals, writing or otherwise, I want to accomplish.  The conclusion I've reached is that I want to be more bold.  I need to stop prepping, stop organizing the supplies and just do it.  I am skilled enough.  I am ready.  Whatever isn't perfect I'll edit and work on once I've sat down and accomplished some things.

That is my goal, to put into action some bolder plans than I might not have imagined myself doing at the start of this year.  The world has paused for a moment and I've used that pause to reflect on what I really want to achieve.  To reflect on what I really want the future to look like for myself and our world.  I hope you can all step out into a bolder better 2020 as well.  The future is what we make of it, let's make it a good one, a bold one, a better one. 

Hope Writer Challenge - Reconnect

For the sixth day of @hopewriters writing challenge (#hopewriterlife) the prompt was Reconnect.

I Reconnect is an incredibly important theme this year. As we reimagine how our 2020 will look in the future or what it may have been in a different version of itself, reconnecting is at the core of it.

As we all entered lockdown, with very different flavors and inflections based on where we lived, we all had to reimagine connection.  In isolation connection is more important than ever.  But we had to reimagine it and how to reconnect.

I have personally found myself reconnecting with old friends that live far away.  I love them dearly, but the distance often keeps our lives rather separate.  Now that all communication and connection is digital it seems easier to reconnect with friends from out of state.  It's just as easy to get an out of town friend on zoom as it is to get your close neighbor on a zoom call.

With less outside activities demanding our time, there is less competition for our focus, and more time to schedule for friends.  Time zones seem to matter less when you're in all day.  And while I don't want or expect my friends to keep their schedules open indefinitely, it has been a lovely change to reconnect with good old friends at this time.

Some of our built up rhythm will carry with us into the rest of the year even as restrictions lift.  In part because we have reimagined how we connect with one another already.  My friends and I have started a quarantine book club.  When we go back to our outside activities we may not be able to zoom call each other all the time as we have been regularly.  But we will keep up our digital bookclub.

Sometimes all you need for reconnection is a start.  As we strive to reclaim a sense of normalcy we find ourselves not just imagining, but also reinventing the way we connect.  And I think that having put so much time into reconnecting we have enriched the days and months to come, whatever they may hold.

So, find ways to reconnect in a positive way.  Call someone you care about, tell someone how special they are to you.  Have a phone or zoom call with people you miss.  Enrich the rest of your 2020 with positive and meaningful reconnections. 

Hope Writer Challenge - Reimagine 2020 - Rewrite

Hope Writer's hosted an Instagram writing challenge to reimagine 2020.  The challenge had a different topic every day for a week. And the first day's topic was Rewrite.  I wrote about all of this on Instagram on my profile @madderhattery, but I'd like to repost the writing here because I think we need more words of hope these days.

Reimagine 2020 - Rewrites

Spring Blossoms in Chicago - photo by The Madder Hatter

As part of the Hope Writer's challenge I'm talking about Rewrites today.

As much as we may wish to change the things that have already happened, we cannot.  What we can do is take this unprecedented turn of affairs, this global pandemic, and use it to rewrite our lives.

Everywhere I look I see neighbors meeting and growing closer during this new distance.  Being stuck at home has forced us to look closer at our communities and see the very real things going on in our own backyards.

Sometimes, we get so caught up in the rhythm of our daily lives that we don't ask ourselves if it's the right rhythm.  This forced pause has caused us to look inward.  We can't run from our thoughts and doubts when they are the only company we keep.  So I think it's time we face them.

It's time to take the giant blank slate of our future and reimagine it.  How often have you heard someone shout down your dreams because they couldn't ever be?  It's just the way the world is.  Yet, here we are living in a world nobody had imagined.  It tells you something; some of the largest most unavoidable things about modern life are entirely arbitrary.  And not only can we change them, we can change a lot of them all at once in the course of a few weeks.

So take up your life and examine it.  Listen in the quiet for what you've always known you wanted and use this pause to start fighting for it.  The future can be rewritten, no matter what course it was on before.  Take a moment to learn from your fear and anger what it is your heart really wants.

Don't put off that project, career change, or dream.  Start down that path today.  Nobody can say what the future will bring, but it certainly won't hold the things you didn't bother to fight for.

You are the author of your future.  Pick up your pen today and remember that coming together (even when that means staying apart), is what makes us stronger.  Remember that there is always something you can do to help both yourself and someone else.  And remember that every single one of us will help shape the future.   So make it a good one.   Make it a beautiful one.  Make it a loving, accepting and hopeful one.  Join me and rewrite a better future for all of us.

A Whole Tree of Spring Blossoms in Chicago photo by the Madder Hatter 

I wrote those words about the global pandemic just a few weeks ago, but I think they take on new relevance now considering the racism and injustice we've all seen this last week.  Even reconsidering it all I want to leave you with the same words.  

Join me and rewrite a better future for all of us.

Hello, Handbasket!

Today I find myself concerned because I have stopped for a second, looked around and realized I'm sitting in a handbasket.  Yes, this is a metaphor.  And when you are sitting in a metaphorical handbasket you know what your ultimate destination is going to be.  If you don't, I applaud you and I would appreciate life advice.

Now, in the moment of inevitable re-evaluation that this sort of handbasket sitting causes, I thought about how I had arrived in the center of this particular handbasket.  Life has a strange way of wending around like a lazy river.  It takes its own time, bending here and swirling there.  Moving in a muddled way that can take a distracted traveler by surprise.  One moment you've put into the river in a canoe, knowing exactly what direction you are headed.  The next while you take a moment to admire the scenery, you realize that you are suddenly in the eddy of an oxbow facing entirely the opposite direction from the one you expected and your canoe has magically turned itself into a handbasket.

At moments like this, I like to assess my life and try to figure out which bend in the river has put me in this precise handbasket.  So, I looked around at a few of my fellow travelers.  A few of them looked shocked as though they'd been newly apprised of our destination.  A couple of them looked grim as though they'd known about our dire situation for a long time but seen no way out of the inevitable.  Not a one of us was entirely sure how the river of life had turned us around and spit us out into this handbasket on the highway to... well, you know.

Hindsight has proven the few souls that bailed earlier to be the wiser travelers on this path.  Alas, I was not so wise as they.  I have only now seen the handwriting on the road signs.  So here we are, a sad group of somewhat more or less shocked travelers in a handbasket speeding down the highway.  I gape as we roar past another group of people along the side of the road feverishly bent over their wickerwork; weaving a new handbasket for their own impending journey.  That's when I realized that not a single fellow traveler was arguing about whether we were, in fact, on our way to H*ll with impressive speed, we were merely quibbling about the ETA.

The way things have gone today, I think it might be wise to invest in wicker.

Welcome Sweet Shrouding Fog of Unknown Futures

Goodnight World,

Rest in the peaceful shroud of unknown tomorrows.  May the languid winds of unformed futures gently smooth your weary brow.  Too long have you worried over the unnamed monsters of the morrow; turning desperately this way and that to thwart them.  Morning's harsh light may part the mist and reveal to you the fearful outlines of Scylla and Charybdis.  But here, now, in these final hours of rest welcome the sweet shrouding fog of unknown futures.  Scylla's slashing teeth cannot steal your slumber from you.  Neither can Charybdis change your course this final night of sightless sleep.  Inevitable fate awaits you, World, one man, or even many being powerless to change it.  Fate, ah The Fates, there is no room for fear in the unfamiliar future they have fixed for you.  Mist will rise, the shroud will part and tomorrow you will stride forth boldly into the fray, the fight, the future.  Tomorrow, deeds having been done, the course of the future will unfurl before you in all its fury.  Scylla and Charybdis will greet you and the terrible consequences of the course set before you will be plain to see.  Tonight, embrace the twilight of unrevealed tribulations.  Lay fear aside, thank all the stars that you were not born into Cassandra's curse and gather the dusk around you in the final slumber in the blissfully unknown future ahead of you.