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Blue Sky

A Letter From the Post-Pandemic Future: Everyday Magic, Day 1004

Updated: Sep 25, 2023


Dear You,


Yes, I hear you knocking on my door at all hours of the day and especially night, calling me out of my sleep because you’re not getting enough of your own. You want to know what will be, how it will happen, and especially when. Fair enough questions given that you’re human, and humans can’t help but to desperately want some ground under their dainty or lumbering feet, a sense of control so they can puzzle together some steadying vision of what they believe will happen. You’re planners, all of you to some extent, and you like to think your plans matter.


So here’s the deal: I can’t tell you how you leap from here to there or how high you’ll have to jump to make that leap because this isn’t a situation of you being able to soar high enough on your own volition to aim yourself toward a pre-designated target. Besides, it usually doesn’t work out well for the future to be too chatty about itself with the present. But what I can tell you is this:

  1. Be where you need to be. For most of you, that means home or whatever approximates home for now. Some of you go out to work in hospitals, grocery stores or gas stations, and that’s, as they say, essential work, but if you have an option to work, worship, meet and otherwise gather from home, believe me (and I should know) that you’ll be glad you took that option in the long run.

  2. Many of you — I’m eyeing you, America — really don’t like being told what to do and not do, where to go and not go. Please, for the sake of my time, get over yourself. No one is ripping away your liberty or free will, just tilting you toward using it to discover greater freedom and possibility at home. You are completely free to clean out that drawer in the kitchen that holds everything from extra screws to old sunglasses. You can discipline yourself to create a new wall hanging out of scraps of fabric or a new garden bed. There’s plenty you have dominion over.

  3. At the same time, this is a pandemic, not an all-expenses-paid creative retreat. If can’t do more today than make some microwave popcorn and stare out your window at a pair of cardinals, that’s okay. You’re not going to regret the days that don’t register on your old scales of productivity. You will regret driving yourself crazy to win the pandemic self-improvement sweepstakes, so don’t even enter. Create what comes to you. Sleep enough now (believe me, there will be a lot of new work ahead when you get to my time). Take good care of your body and soul, and if you live with others, your housemates or pets too.

  4. Accept that you have many shifting behavioral and emotional strategies and phases to cycle through, and you don’t all do this the same way at the same time. Try not to judge your brother-in-law for practicing for a marathon while the only marathon in your life involves Netflix. If someone judges you, tell them to back the #$% off, but say it nicer — this isn’t a time to escalate tensions. One other thing: make your bed. That’s something you can do to put some semblance of order into your day from the get-go.

  5. Some of you are suffering tremendously. Maybe you’re sick with something that’s different or the same as Corvid-19. Maybe you’re terrified of dying or of losing someone. Maybe you’ve already lost a beloved, or you’re climbing out of a close brush with death. Many of you are losing income, and the unemployment checks haven’t started trickling in. Or you might be on the cusp of losing a job, health insurance, and other necessary supports. Some of you (maybe all at moments) are swallowed up in dread, despair, and anxiety for stretches. All I can tell you is that this is horrendous, I’m so sorry, and I wish I could do something for you back in what’s my past. But I can also tell you this: hang on, Sloopy, hang on. That’s because….

  6. This future — and I know I’m biased here — is very promising. Many of you are already opening your hearts wider than you have in some time, helping others with donations, prayers, plans and tools. You have incredible potential to change yourself, and with you the world, for the better by just learning to stay. Sit tight without trying to impose your will or ideas of what your life is supposed to be on yourself and others. The more you do this solo, the more you learn how to do this together, household by household, community by community.

  7. Also, listen to the real science (the more of us who do this, the better for the future). It will enhance your ability to be guided by reality in other aspects of your life too. At the same time, protect yourself from whatever news overwhelms you or sensationalizes reality. Take news fasts when needed or ask someone close to you to update you on anything vital you need to know about the real science and reality of where you are.

  8. This is the spring and beyond of being much more than doing. Listen to the birds. Pet the cat. Take notice of that shining pale blue that holds all the trees in such grace. Marvel at the lilac, and this year, you have the time to smell them and even get down on the ground to smell lily-of-the-valley. Listen to your favorite singer streaming an old song about when you first fell in love. Cry at the end of “Casablanca” and laugh at “Ferris Bueller.” Call your grieving friend. Zoom with your lonely mom. Text your unemployed niece back and forth about cool movies she likes. But also get in touch with yourself: who you are (whatever that means) without decking yourself out in the story you don each day about who you’re supposed to be.

  9. One other thing to remember: you can’t see the whole story until you get to the end of it. Yes, this pandemic absolutely has an ending, and most likely, you’re okay there and then, even if a little older, sadder, and wiser. When you get well past the arc of this story, you’ll see what the arc was, not just for our planet but for your own precious life. Especially, you’ll know heart-to-heart more about the preciousness of this gift, this life

Hey, kiddo, please also remember that I believe (and depend) on you.


With love always, the future


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