Day 12: We can learn beautiful things from this ugly one
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It’s Monday, and today I’ve got a note to share from Jenny T. about opportunity v. opportunism and two very good instances of puppy/bird content.
Keep reading.
Jenny T. on how we “can learn beautiful things from this ugly one”:
We can learn beautiful things from this ugly one: that working from home can be productive, that staying off the roads saves lives, that we reach out to each other in ways that can be sustained, that the government can spend our money on social safety nets, that women's burdens have been too invisible, that teachers' jobs are inordinately challenging and merit respect and appreciation and recompense, that the people who drive trucks and lift boxes and make things run may not create the systems but they are crucial to their running, that we need to celebrate all of our contributions, that space can be found for the homeless, that the internet can be used for amazing good as well as all the frippery and insidious evils, that nature rebounds when we step back, that we seek social contact even when we're distancing, that it's helpful to take stock and think critically and we're being forced to do that. At the same time, we need to protect against opportunism: putting profits before people; arguing that if education on-line can happen now, it can happen always; the jobs still offered for hours just short of the cut-offs for benefits; the sneaky reversals of regulations happening as people are blinded by covid19; the power grabs and quietly usurped authorities in the name of security; the pressure to resist social safety nets and to make them as temporary as possible; the desire to gather and own data without the concomitant commitment to putting it into public service; the efforts to reduce transparency and repress voices; the grotesque calculations of economic gains vs. cherished lives. Opportunity vs. opportunism.
Promised animal content, installment 1:
Angela W.’s bluebird friend.
A bluebird just landed on my windowsill. He's been visiting since mid-February -- or actually since February 2019, just after my estranged father died. The same bluebird returned this spring and, with him, hope. He hangs out with me in the mornings as I practice music; occasionally he sings along:
Here's a 2020 solo performance.
Sometimes he brings his lady friend, and she sings, too. Their visits are sweet and surreal.
I think we're all surrealists now.
I didn't have my camera nearby when he landed a few moments ago, but I did when he visited several weeks ago. He flew to our living-room window, hovered, and gazed in at me and my husband, as though to say: Wings up!
WINGS UP.
Finally, Bianca C. blessed us with a video of her adorable puppy with this note:
In what seems like a prescient move now, my family got a new puppy just a few weeks before lockdowns began. (In fact, her "baby" shower—I know—was the day before shelter in place was announced here in LA County.)
Like most puppies, she loves to play and has identified a few chew toys she especially loves. She sinks her teeth into the rope and locks her jaw and, though little, stays strong. One of my favorite, if not slightly mean, things to do is to gently lift her off the ground once she's latched on. Her little legs wiggle but she refuses to let go. She stays the course.
There are a number of ways to think about what her determination can teach us: we too must stay the course. We long for the chew toy of normalcy, if you will, even when our legs are dangling and it feels more precarious. But mostly I stare at her and, despite all the bad, am grateful to have the small joys that come from spending so much time with her.
GET THAT CHEW TOY OF NORMALCY.
See you Wednesday, aka Day 10.
Have a story, thought, or picture to share with the group? Reply or send it to hi@lauraolin.com.