by Stephen Cocconi
By now, most of us have heard the phrase “getting back to normal.” For some, the reality hasn’t quite sunk-in that after a year of COVID changes, “normal” will have a new set of parameters. From designer masks, to disinfectant, to “physical distancing”, and realizing that the only social distancing most of us experienced was a polarized electorate yearning to be healed. Those elements will become part of a “new normal.” It will be up to us to create it, individually, but also collectively. In our communities but particularly in the garden of our own attitudes.
I use the metaphor of the renewal of Spring to help us visualize that it is always, and indeed must be, preceded by the Winters of our discontents. 2020 was such a cold snap. Much died. Many of our cherished fallback habits, and even the beliefs that belied them, expired on the vine of the familiar. We were caused, indeed forced, to cutback and cutaway. It compelled many to face the reality that with great freedom to preserve and protect, comes the obligation to prune our own branches of self-indulgent habits. Some rebellion against these necessary limits wanting to pretend forever the Summer of no constraints, decry any measure of self-restraint as an abuse of rights, but certainly as loss.
Loss is inevitable. And where there is loss there is grief. All of us have experienced some loss in 2020 yet some have not faced the sadness or fear of the unknown “what comes next?” reality. That when we reach the end of the pathway of the familiar we often see only Shadows of thickets ahead of us. Fear of the unknown can accompany grief or even a headlong rush into anger at its presence. These emotions arise when we fail to realize that Winters of change are always recurring and indeed always bring renewal. New conditions, new growth and if we tend to the garden of our own lives, a harvest of potentially delicious new fruits from our labors. But without tending to the garden, pruning your habits back, planting a few different varieties, taking care of how you use your resources to nurture the fledgling growth, nothing new will take root, nor sprout. Weeds will set it. They will look familiar but they will crowd out any productivity or diversity. It is a choice to pay attention and work anew toward re-newal. Or drop head down and bitterly grieve for what was, or be angry about our perceived loss, yet not turn our eyes toward the sky to realize that Spring is always cyclically coming, always following Winter, and always a chance for renewal.
This society seems to only embrace change when we are incentivized to make it. Well, we have an incentive. It is called our lives and living them more fully. Will we renew them by cultivating new attitudes and habits? Or will we let the garden of our minds and the great expanses of our collective vistas succumb to grief and rot in bitterness of what we miss? Or perhaps, we can be the Pioneers of the 21st century and Renew our commitment to exploration? That is the choice! What do you think you’ll do? If you need an incentive, consider the proposition from Eleanor Powell who said, “What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.” Even if you are not religious nor spiritual, I think we all have a duty to ourselves, and yes, an obligation to those we love, to grow ourselves up and share in that bounty together. Flourish in 2021.