Each In Our Own Way

I would rather not write about what is happening in front of our faces and behind our backs. I would rather be telling tales tall and tiny of anything but I cannot, for my eyes won't allow it, my fingers won't follow my request. My head and heart demand that I speak as witness to the evils that threaten to swallow us whole.

So many I know have turned their heads and closed their ears to the sights and sounds that would otherwise follow their every gaze and haunt their every thought. It is not that they care any less than I, not that they don't wish as hard as I, not that they hope any different than I. It is but that the storm is too large, the pain is too great, the noise is too loud, for them to endure. It is a matter of survival.

Our world has become unrecognizable. Every tree, each blade of grass, the very land upon which we stand, not as it was before. The air we breathe, the rivers and oceans, the birds that fly and the tigers that roar, everything everywhere, all at once, has been altered. We are not who we were, at least who we thought we were. Nothing, nowhere, all at once has managed to escape.

I still experience the joys, still laugh as loud and as often. I am still the same, even as I am not. I still find the pleasures in each day, still the light that shines through the darkness, still the moments that bring purpose and meaning. It is just that there is now an asterisk that attaches to all that is good and right.

We are all struggling to find our footing. We search the horizon looking for sanity to return, to reveal itself and loosen the grip of what has engulfed us. Until that occurs, it is all but one unsteady step after another. One deep breath at a time. One day at a time.

Each in our own way.