Hope Writer Challenge - Reach

An enormous Italian Renaissance style sunset over my house for the #hopewriterlife, writing challenge for @hopewriters about Reach.

Reimagine 2020 with an Idea of Writing Reach and Change

Italian Renaissance Style Sunset over San Diego

The moment I begin to reimagine this year I start by imagining it without cornonavirus.  My very next thoughts are of comparison, reflecting on the deep differences we see between now and the years we've known of late.  So, for me to reimagine this year with the themes of writing and reach in mind I must compare my present with the recent past.

Writing for me has always been something I must do on occasion when I can't sleep.  My mind runs mad with stories or turns of phrase that demand to be recorded.  Sometimes writing is how I process my world and thoughts, and it's the only thing that keeps me from falling to bits.  All of this is to say that writing had been a deeply internal process for me and reaching any sort of audience with my writing has been a rather new thought.

Only in this last year I stated to notice that there is a part of me that wants to be seen and heard with my writing.  And as much as it scares me to bare pieces of my soul to the world thus, there has been a nagging thought that it is selfish of me to keep these pretty turns of phrase and hopeful midnight musings to myself.

I don't exactly have grand dreams of reaching an audience for myself.  There's a large part of me that's still frightened to be seen.  But when I think of the purpose of my writing, especially now, I think it is my purpose, my duty, to offer help with words in any way I can.

In these strange times I've been writing again, for a data center company of all places; offering hope that people and communities can and will take care of one another in these days of doubt and fear.  In this unlikely place, I have found the opportunity to bring messages of the way that our infrastructure connects us, instead of focusing on our distance.

That is not to say that I don't feel fear and doubt myself.  I too have been overwhelmed. I have had my share of anxious nights.  I have cried for myself and those around me, feeling our losses and our hardships keenly.  I simply choose, whenever I feel such emotions, to seek out stories that acknowledge pain and still uplift.

I have in my search found hope in the strangest places.  I have found large companies using their considerable Reach to send messages of hope, connection and perseverance.  I have seen neighbors help one another, offering the help and services they can.  I have seen people donating food and masks and supplies where they can.  I have seen people writing letters to friends and holding video chats to check in with one another.  I have been invited to free painting classes and seen many strangers advertise free counseling and tutoring during this time.  We are all offering what we can.

And it may not be seen as a lot by the eyes of the outside world, but together when we all offer what we can to anyone we can help, we all make the difference.  My reach my not be large.  The five masks I helped make may not be enough.  And the words I can offer may not be groundbreaking.  But together, that is where we have magic.

For the reach of one person is small, but with many hands and more helpers we can reach so much further. If I can help one person who can then help two more, together we can make all the difference. Doing our bit is all we can do. Even as we may feel isolated and alone, even as we feel powerless, if we find one way to help someone else shoulder the burden of this time we are doing our bit. And together we can change the world. 

Together our reach is infinite and we are unstoppable.

I wrote this on May 12th and I think it's more true than ever.  As I reread it this week knowing what turmoil we are in trying to address the blatant racism and tragedy we have all seen it only rings more true.  Individually we may be small, and our reach unimportant.  But together, with all of us doing one small thing, we can make the world a better place.  Together our reach is infinite and we are truly unstoppable.

Little Things that Surprise me Most during this Covid-19 Outbreak: Elastic Shortage and Pigeons

Everywhere you look the world has changed.  It almost feels weird when you find an aspect of your life that hasn't.  Almost nobody goes to work anymore, working from home and trying to find unique ways to do your job or keep up with your friends is now the norm.  Schools are doing distance learning.  People are cooped up indoors.  All over the world there are empty squares and streets.  And little things that nobody ever thought of are now big.  And somehow the big things we all worried about three weeks ago seem small.

My mother and I were both feeling a bit like we were useless trapped inside.  But now we are coordinating through the phone and email with a neighbor who runs a local food bank in need of masks.  Mom and I are now busily looking up patterns and sewing fabric masks to help volunteers hand out food to the people who need it.  The numbers showing up at this local food bank have swelled from 160 a day to 400.

People have lost jobs and income.  People are in need and frightened.  And we are all doing our best.  Making masks from home with scraps of fabric piled in the attic.  There is an elastic shortage.  We used all of ours and now there seems to be none anywhere.  People across the country trying to sew masks to help first-responders are using hair ties and headbands for elastic.  An elastic shortage.  I would never have guessed.

And it's the little things that keep surprising me.  I saw a post on Instagram of the pigeons in Spain flocking to the only person on the street.  Nobody is out so they have no food to scavenge.  I have never felt sorry for pigeons the way I did when I saw them desperately following this lone human, begging for food.

A small piece of my heart broke for them.  Not even the pigeons, a seeming constant in every city, are unaffected by the global pandemic that is bringing our world to a halt.

Everywhere I look I find another thing that surprises me about the way our world has changed.  It makes sense, the way that streets being empty brings the wild animals out into the cities.  But it doesn't make the world any less surprising as every day seems to bring tiny revelations of our newly altered world.

We are all doing our best.  Fashion houses in NYC as well as individuals with sewing machines are churning out masks.  We know they aren't as good as N95 and surgical masks, but they're all we have now.  And we are doing all we can.  The fact that everyone is coming together, online, through tutorials on YouTube and through Facebook's Covid-19 Support page Community Help is a bright ray of hope.

The news is now almost entirely fact driven informative pieces relaying the situation on the ground to those who need to know.  I don't see the judgemental and hateful partisan things I once did.  Legitimate problems, calls for aid, and the way that people are trying to lift one another up are in the news now.  And for the first time in years I read the news with hope.  Hope that I'll find real information.  Hope that I'll find answers to questions I have.  Hope that I'll see humanity fighting it's hardest to become better.  Because faced with a global crisis we are more than ever all connected even as we sit in our houses all alone.

Stay home.  Stay well.  Stay connected.  Continue hoping and helping.