Bridging The Gaps

 

Yesterday, my week swerved one way. Today, it took a switch and changed direction.  Pretty much standard state of play for life these days. We have added resilience and pivoting to our pandemic vocabulary. Sounds very cool and vaguely athletic.  

Personally, if I keep pivoting at this rate, I will just get dizzy and fall over. As for "grit", I used to get that in my skinned knees as a kid and, it hurt. Gritty was not crying when the iodine was poured on. Is there a Ted Talk about that? The Iodine Experience. Pour in on, slap it with a band-aid and keep moving. Vintage kids were "resilient" we just didn't know it. Social media was not our teacher and Google was still clueless. We figured it out on our own.

In the US, vaccinations are currently rippling at 51.5% of people with one shot, and 49.9% with two jabs.  The pandemic is easing and for some, summer dreams of vacations are simmering. Confusion on where on can actually go, holds a few cautious peeps from booking the dream.  The US is not officially on the EU Green List and Asia is dying under the new Covid "double mutant" strain aka "B.1.617".  (This is a little misleading as the little bugger actually carries 13 mutations).   The whole global situation is surreal and nobody has a handle on any of it.  Suffice to say, the world is still in a pandemic and nobody knows what tomorrow will bring.  Hence that whole "pivoting" thing.

Happily for me, cafes are fully open again. The bliss of tables, wifi and Coffee!  Whew,  last year was not good for this wandering writer.  So many coffee shops I would curb crawl up to. Looking for lights. Hoping for that "open" sign that wasn't just pick-up or drive-through. A place to sit and observe the world. To be. A part of the human social experience. Driving across America in 2020 broke my heart.  So many places forever closed, people gone, music silenced. Entire small town Main Streets boarded up, ghost windows reflecting nothing.  The road-trip experience of America is forever changed. 

Meantime, the news is blasting out about a labor shortage. Cutting unemployment to "force" workers back to low wage jobs.  What kind of attitude is that? Slavery is still slavery if you get paid a dollar and milk costs $5.00. Massive evictions are coming as the Cares Act fades out with no government policies or mechanism to bridge the gap. Rents continue to rise as entire apartment buildings stand empty. Silent grey giants skirted with blue and green homeless tents.  Students debt still unresolved and painful.  In India they are cutting down all the trees to burn the bodies.  The impact of all of this is horrific on so many levels..The dominoes will keep falling. We need a better word than "surreal".

I love bridges. To my they symbolise, hope.  Concrete, wood  or metal, they create a path for two sides to find each other.  Bridge builders have a courageous vision of a world that is connected. That shares.  No wonder they are primary targets in wars.

We build bridges in our hearts and minds too. This is how we refuse to be divided by neighborhood, State, race, gender or anything else someone comes up with. We find our courage to stand in the middle of a bridge and, wait. Wait for someone to come and meet us in the middle. To share.

 What if, we stop allowing ourselves to be divided, labelled and bullied and find our common ground of humanity?  If the pandemic taught us anything it is this. We have one planet, and we are all here together. What happens in India or Africa or, the US ripples around the world and touches all of us. 

Summer is here.   Winter is still coming.  Let's use these sunny days to build bridges that will sustain us and, the world.  I am going to find another bridge and cross it. I want to see who is on the other side and talk to them. Maybe they like coffee too...