Show me your new eyes

No.
You're kidding me right?
You aren't actually telling me, person-walking-designer-dog-in-the-affluent-neighborhood-where-I'm-cat-sitting, that the "really hard thing" about this pandemic is that you don't have a trip to look forward to. 
Like, to Rome.
You didn't really say that, did you?

I mean, yeah, you did. 
You definitely did say that.
But you didn't really mean it, right? Not seriously.

And you, Other person in the neighborhood.
Are you kidding?
Are you replying in all seriousness that the answer to this Hard Thing About Covid is to start planning a trip?
Like, to Costa Rica?
That, while you can't go now, you're enjoying researching the best beaches?

You two are going to follow that up with a disclaimer, right?

You're going to give a little laugh and add some token phrase to show that you have some larger perspective, some social- or self- awareness.

Sample phrases to show you're not a total nincompoop:

 "I know this is silly..."
"There are bigger problems, but..."
"First world problem, right?"

"I know people are dying..."

No, you're not?

I'll just have to work with that, then, and try to make sense out of this weird sidewalk conversation and what I think of it.

Let's see. I'm just writing out loud, here...
 
Here's a thing I believe, or that I think I believe:
Pain is pain.

If you're in pain, you're in pain, even if I happen to think the thing you're in pain about is...
1. stupid
2. nonexistent
3. criminally self-indulgent

So, okay. You're in pain because you can't go abroad.
And you assuage your pain by planning a trip.
I guess... I get that.

I have to translate it a little, but.... yeah.
You're saying something like,
"I am bored and trapped and secretly afraid, and I wish I could have some fun like I used to, without worrying about x, y, and z. And I can't, and I want to chew my leg off."

I feel something like that too.
I wish I could go sit in a library or a movie theater on a hot afternoon. I truly grieve that I can't do those things.

But.
But.
But...

I'm trying this out-- a thought experiment.
Leaving my judgmental self aside––
(cause it's cheap and easy (and so fun!) to judge, but it's not really HELPFUL in discerning the substructures of social interactions, etc.)–– 
can I dignify this, this, this whatever-it-is feeling that arises because you can't take a trip, can I even call this "pain"?

Hm.
Well, ... yeah, maybe. The pain of not being able to distract yourself from discomfort.
That's a kind of pain.

I'm thinking my way through this.

Okay. It is pain.
It's pretty uncomfortable to lose the thing you always turned to, because it is no longer available to you. (Like the library.)

Hm, hm, hm.

What is my problem?

Okay. It's...
[leaving my opinions on selfishness aside, because I truly don't think that's the point]

It's their solution.

That's it.
They're not saying, I need an answer that is different in kind.
I need to rethink this whole pain-and-comfort thing.
I need, in fact, to reposition myself in a changing world.

They're saying, I'm going to pursue the same thing, but in a deferred form.

Yes. And to me, this seems . . . not just unimaginative, but freakin' crazy. Partly because... 
Is that a good emotional-investment scheme? to pretend everything is going to go back to normal?

I don't think so.

So, I offered a different perspective.

(Why? 
I'm not sure.
Partly, a genuinely good-hearted impulse to help people out of a rattan finger-trap. "Hey––if you move toward the tension, you'll be released.")

I said, "How about, you could travel closer to home."

Eye rolling. Shoulder shrugging.
"That's not interesting." 
"We've already gone camping."

"You know," I said, "we live at the intersection of THREE fascinating ecosytems.
There's the prairie. We have BISON!

"And the woodlands. One of the major rivers of the world [the Mississippi] is 5 miles away! Huck Finn!

"And up north, it's whatever that ecosystem it is with pine trees and birches. You have to go to Russia to find a bigger body of freshwater than Lake Superior. Cities up there post warnings that you to keep your dog on a leash or it could get eaten by a WOLF!"

"Or, you could just stay here, right in town, and look at the mosses. There are, I don't know... a billion kinds of mosses? 
Or beetles. Some scientist said that if God exists, the creator sure loves beetles because there are half a million kinds."

And then I pulled out a couple Big Guns:
a misquoted refrigerator-magnet saying, and a quote from a commencement speech.

"Who was it," I said, "Picasso or someone, who said,

'Seeing doesn't consist of going new places but of seeing the place where you are with new eyes'?"*

Ah, there.
That got nods.

And, for my finale, I said, "I just heard this guy at a commencement speech on youTube say,

"Learn to love what you have,
before you learn that you loved what you've lost."

Is that profound, or is it gibberish?
I don't even know. (Both?)

I don't know what the two people thought of what I said either.
They made noises of general agreement, "Hm, yeah..."

Maybe they went home and thought, "Mosses? Beetles? Who IS that crazy lady?"

I wonder myself!
I don't even recognize myself lately.
I seem to have turned into some hybrid hostage negotiator + motivational speaker.

 

 [P.S. UPDATE: A few months later, Big Boss told me, "You're a preacher."
So that's what I am!]

__________________


* It was Proust. "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes." 

(Don't you wonder what all these dead people who are now popular on refrigerator magnets around the USA would think about that?)

That quote sounds so trite, so pretty.
But we are in a global situation that invites, or even demands, this change of vision.

And maybe that's my biggest problem---
I want other people to help me! To inspire me!
Not to trot out a vision so old it has cataracts.

I keep thinking, Guys, guys: THIS IS IT.
Not just the virus and what it exposed about health and health care, but the heating-up climate crisis, and the opportunities to revision the way we police and care for ourselves, one another, and the world.

This is the moment we were waiting for, when we read Lord of the Rings or about heroes of the French Resistance, or, uh, whatever adventure story caught your imagination---and we wondered, 
When will our turn come?

Our turn is now! (It always has been now, but now it really is!)

Our turn to launch into being our own flawed hero.
Our turn to be stretched painfully--to risk danger (even the discomfort of finding new answers) for things that matter.

To see anew. 

We can do it right here, where we're sitting. 
We can do it alone, and we can do it together.

I don't even know what this means, but I want to say,

Show me your new eyes. And I will show you mine.