Renewal

It is hard to look around and see so many things closed. Every restaurant, knitting store, butcher - all someone's dream, and all at risk of closing if the shut down continues much longer and the government doesn't step in to provide substantial assistance.


The same is true for so many opportunities lost for my family. I was supposed to have lunch with Ruth Bader Ginsburg last Sunday, arranged by women I'm cohosting a conference with (which has been delayed until 2021). Connor was supposed to be in New York last weekend and Helen had an orchestra field trip overnight that included an amusement park. Lots of fun time lost.


But I'm trying to view life from a perspective of growth and opportunity, rather than loss.


Last year, when my family was in Hawaii, we took a small plane over an area where a volcano had erupted the previous year. For miles and miles, all you could see was lava that had leveled neighborhoods. A road that you could previously drive through a park had collapsed and dropped many feet. It was incredible.


But when we asked about how people responded, we heard stories of resiliency. Rather than talk of a home being mowed down, people talked about the opportunity for the island to grow and be made new.


That's a touch lesson, and one I don't understand well, but in the last week, my children have heard talks from two astronauts, watched a program with climate scientists, and there are several other lectures planned. These are new opportunities, brought about by this pandemic.


So...what will we build when we wake from this paused economy? Will it be more fair? Will it capture a new imagination? Will we learn there are fewer boundaries than we previously thought?