Friday reflection

Are we there yet?!

Man, I’m tired of this pandemic. It’s hitting me hard this week, and it seems I’m not the only one (see: the top article on The Atlantic this morning is about parents reaching the end of their proverbial ropes, including a story about mothers gathering to share a primal scream)(incidentally, gathering with other mothers to share a primal scream is a thing I have actually done, and I highly recommend it).

If you’re in the same boat, I hope this week’s quotes (yes, “quotes,” plural!) will help.

(Quick announcement: Next week I’m interviewing the amazing Jamia Wilson as my next expert interview, so keep an eye out for that conversation in your inbox! If you don’t know about Jamia, she is the former head of the Feminist Press, currently a VP and executive editor at Random House — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.)

The Quotes

“So far, it’s been a bleak streak over here in America! You know what? It’s a famine of beauty. A famine of beauty, honey! My eyes are starving for beauty!”

- Andre Leon Talley, RIP

“You cannot look into the pit all day. It will hypnotize you, and you will fall in.”

- Austin Kleon

The Questions

What can you look at, today, other than “the pit”?

How can you feed yourself beauty?

The job isn’t to pretend the pit isn’t there. It is. We need to look at it, and we need to feel the pain of it, or it will build up and clog our spirits and keep us from expressing our wild, wonderful selves with the world.

But if all we do is doomscroll, or immerse ourselves in the depressing news cycle, or think about all the ways the pandemic has hurt us and our kids (if we have them) and and and… we forget that we are still alive, and that there is so much life we can still be living, so much beauty to experience, even within the confines of our home — even while the pit sits there, all pit-like (stupid pit).

For me, I may just jump in my car this afternoon and drive myself to the sea. That’s something I can do here in NYC that I don’t take advantage of often enough. I’m hoping that jolt of beauty, that shift in external scenery, will help shift my internal scenery, too.

Let me know what you decide to do? Or let us know, by posting a comment. Or even a picture.

You are a mighty force -

Amanda