The New World

Taking it all in, and finding joy where I can in dark times.

I’ve been on a break...from everything. I had just started ramping up this blog when a global pandemic hit and totally upended reality. Combine that with the closure of businesses, massive unemployment, an economic depression, social distancing, stay at home orders, culture wars, uncertainty about the future, the outrageous evil and structural inequality of black lives being destroyed at the hands of police, protests, a president that incites violence against citizens - and I haven’t really felt much like blogging. Weird, right?

That’s why my last post about Yahoo Falls felt so...canned. I was pushing myself to keep writing even though things were falling apart at the seams all around me. After I published that post I realized no one would cares about that right now. Not even me. And that’s when I decided to step away from my blog. Still bright and shiny and new - and totally abandoned. I hoped I would come back to it, but it wasn’t the right thing for me to be doing then, and I wasn’t going to force it to be. It felt wrong to write about outdoor recreation and plan adventures when the world was upside down. Especially when the writing comes from me - a privileged white woman that has been largely been unaffected by the turmoil millions of people around the world are experiencing right now. 

But, in the middle of my third month working from home, I have finally had enough time to process some of this. In pieces. I won’t say that my mental space is in good shape right now, but something has definitely settled into place. I don’t feel as adrift as I did at the beginning of all of this. That may change tomorrow, or swing wildly out of wack again without warning, but I am going to write this while the inspiration holds.

I think what’s changed for me lately is the realization that none of this is going away. The virus, the injustice, the economic upheaval. This is not just some weird fluke that will be swept under the rug of normalcy when it returns. It is not returning. The world got flipped upside down and I kept waiting for it to right itself…but it’s me that needed to reorient myself to the world as it is now. This is what it feels like to live in a historic moment as it unfolds. This is the flash point. Whatever our society looks like after this, it will not be what it was before.

It’s up to all of us to choose how we will “reshape the rebound” (to steal a phrase from a friend). How can we ensure that the world we create moving forward is more equitable? More sustainable? A world where people value human connection, and local businesses, and public spaces, and the outdoors? This global event has thrown into stark contrast all the weaknesses of our society. What before seemed like cracks have been exposed as impassable chasms. It’s well past time for change. 

So yeah, the world doesn’t need another adventure blog right now. But this blog isn’t for the world. It’s for me. And I will try to use it to the best of my ability to process, spotlight, and reflect the things that matter to me, when I have the time and the willpower.

Deep breath. The new world awaits, and it’s ours for the making.