When mapping out new changes, as we are encountering during this pandemic, I imagine how we can learn from the future. How can we imagine many futures and be prepared for anything to happen? Could it be an adventure in imagining and accepting?
One future may be: our lives never resume the way they have been, yet, by focusing on our good fortune in health and interests, we progressively find a sort of enlightenment in connecting to our families, teaching and learning new skills. Or we could begin to read again or listen to old records. We invent a better way. Perhaps our patience is maxed to the limit, and we want to crawl out of our anxious skin and into the old ways. So we go way back. We bring Grandma’s old Singer sewing machine down from the attic and introduce our children to sewing. We reminisce about how Granny's hands looked threading a needle. Or we slip on a pair of gloves, and using fine steel wool on our old tools, we remember our father’s care of his. We pick up a quill pen, dip it into an ink bottle and write some letters, and then maybe dripping hot wax on the back of an envelope for the first time in thirty years. We indulge in sweet futures, that may never look the same, but bring us home again.
Carolyn Robbins
Author