It all changed March 13, 2020 for many of us in this country. That Friday the 13th was auspicious in ways people like me didn’t see coming. The pandemic had reached a threshold, and on a dime, we started shutting things down or readying ourselves for the consequences of staying put in our homes and fear.
Kelley Hunt and I were in the middle of putting the final touches on an all-day workshop bringing people in our community together to write songs and stories of the East Lawrence neighborhood. When I called her and said we had to cancel, she said she was thinking the same thing. Never mind the piles of cold cuts, and fresh bread and notepads we had assembled. We would have to work with people a different way to complete this project.
We all had to find a different way, moving at triple speed to bring our work into our homes and over our screens while the days extended in triple slow motion. Wasn’t March of 2020 over 72 weeks long? Wasn’t each day a week of trembling throats and scared stomachs? Wasn’t each night punctured with insomnia as so many sat up in bed, asking ourselves or whoever shared the bed with us — human or cat or dog or ghost — the impossible questions. When would this end? What was this? Who would it hurt or kill? Would we be okay? How would we find a way through?
As I type this questions, I recognize how far-too-relevant they are for Ukrainians right now as their cities and towns, hospitals and military bases get bombed and shelled, as the Russian troops encircle and threaten what was once a normal country living its normal life. The wolf is at the door, and he’s armed to the hilt with no vaccine possible against such evil.
These are times — pandemics and wars — that break open our hearts to show us what we’re made of and expose all the cracks. These times also stop our thoughts and thinking in their well-worn tracks. We just don’t know. We just didn’t know two years ago, and we have no idea about what will or won’t be resolved, and how, and where it will land in two more years.
But we do know how important it is for us to tell our stories, write our poems, sing our songs, so often each one a lantern in the dark. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that life found Kelley and me in the middle of facilitating people to do just that on March 13, 2020. Just today, Odessa-born poet Ilya Kaminsky wrote in “Poems in a Time of War,” that when he asked an older friend in Ukraine how he could help, his friend replied, “Putins come and go. If you want to help, send us some poems and essays. We are putting together a literary magazine.” Kaminsky reminded us, “In the middle of war, he is asking for poems.”
I would add do whatever you can that helps and helps you find your courage and voice.
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