Back to normal? No thank you….

Well here I am talking about the weather again.  But in all fairness, it is Vermont, and weather is an important part of our lives.  Today is a blustery, rainy day, with possible high winds and an arctic front coming through.  And how do I feel about it?  I LOVE IT!  Terrible rainy days have always been my favorite, because they are permission givers.  Yucky, bad weather has always been a signal to me:  feel how you feel, move to your own rhythm, hunker down and rejuvenate.  Many of you might feel that way as well.  

So, let’s ask ourselves this question - why do we need permission?  The answer: FOMO.  I for one, am highly susceptible to FOMO (fear of missing out), and it’s not because of some lacking thing inside of me.  It’s the culture that we’ve created in the United States.  I’m sure it happens in other places too, I just can’t speak to it, because I only live in the U.S.  Here we’re about the next big thing, the competition, the winning, the worthiness through outward means, productivity, money,  Keeping Up, Keeping Up, Keeping Up!

Covid has given our country a big collective pause.  And while I too am tired of masks, and could use a good party hangout, for the most part I have loved the pause.  Not the reason for the pause;  the fear, the deaths, the conflict, the divisiveness, the gross mishandling of our country’s wellbeing.  But the pause?  ABSOLUTELY.

When things become safe again, how about our “new normal” isn’t zoom calls and mask wearing?  How about our new normal is like one large drippy rainy day.  A day where we get to feel how we feel, move to our own rhythms, and hunker down to rejuvenate.  Before the big machine of U.S. capitalism throws us all back into the hustle and the keep up, keep up vibe, we say NO.  

As a people, as a country of humans, let’s insist that we have a right to wellness.  All of us.  Factory workers, business people, moms, builders, dairy farmers, teachers, waitstaff, healers…….all of us.  

Let’s disagree to being worker machines who disregard our bodily needs in the name of productivity.  

Let’s disagree to social situations where we’re worthy because we wear the right clothes, or our kids succeed in the cool ways.  

Let’s disagree to driving way too many places so that we can consume as much fun as possible, and not miss out on anything.  

Let’s disagree to creating goods at the expense of our earth and the people on it, so that we can have, have, have.  

Let’s disagree to looking through each other……… and around each other…….. and agree to look AT each other - to see the humanity in each of us, and be committed to a world where that humanity, that daily experience of getting to be exactly who we are - in health - is the new normal.

Tall order, right?  How to even start? 

Well, first, resist the FOMO.  Disagree to the hustle. 

Insist that wellness, health, and the space to be with ourselves and meet our bodily and emotional needs, is a basic right of all.

Do not charge blindly back into “normal” the moment the masks are off. Walk lightly, tread slowly, continue to spend each day with yourself even as you engage more in the world.

Choose on purpose. Bring that nourishment into your life first, and then speak up for change.

**Privilege acknowledgement:  I recognize that it’s a privilege to even think this way.  Why?  Because my basic needs are met.  I have a house, food and warmth.  I don’t have a job that I worry about losing if one of my kids gets sick.  That is a privilege in a country where many people work most of their waking hours, for non-livable wages, at the expense of health, and family.   

People who have the privilege of not struggling to meet their basic needs, are the ones who need to speak up.  A cultural shift is deeply needed.  Those who are in a position to speak up, should.