Okay so, this might simply be a rant.
Rants are sometimes a good thing.
I hope you have someone who feels safe and trustworthy to you to be able to rant at (“rant at” is the key to a great rant as the other person purely listens and witnesses the person ranting and allows the rant to, in a way, be released out into the world).
Another essential part of rants, working with my definition, are that they let something that’s been festering out in a healthy way for both parties. There is always asking the witness/listener if they have the capacity to take in a rant. There are no character assaults. The person ranting also needs to own their own rant and not push it onto the witness/listener. A rant isn’t about solving a problem, though it can free up space to come to a solution.
If you don’t have someone right now in your life who you can rant at, let me know. I do love listening to a good rant (when I’m centered in my own being).
I wasn’t thinking this note would be about rants, but, it’s a necessary prelude to the actual rant.
So the rant is this:
It’s about particular phrases people have been using over this past year+.
Notably right now, “As the world reopens…”
When I type in “as the world reopens,” As the world reopens, what countries can Americans who are vaccinated travel to?1 is the top search result on Google.
About 26,500,000 results come up.
The other day it clicked as to why I find it so frustrating.
The world has been open this whole time.
It’s (mostly) just us humans who have had to close so much down. And even when the beaches were/have been/might be again closed to humans, the waves still kept their constant ebb and flow. Even when the forests were/have been/might be again closed to humans, the birds kept flapping from tree to tree and shaking flower petals off of branches as they hunted for insects.
I’m not saying something original by any means.
But if it’s one thing that this time has taught me it’s that there is so much of our WORLD that is not controlled by humans and every last beautiful and ugly bit of those uncontrollable realms have remained open.
Now, one in-our-face example of this lack of control we humans have is COVID. But humans are incredibly, incredibly smart creatures (in some ways ;-) ) and scientists figured out pretty darn fast how it spreads. So we have found paths towards controlling what was—and still is, in many ways—quite uncontrollable.
But—rant back on—what I’m really wanting to hone in on is that the world didn’t close down. Fortunately and thankfully for me due to where I live, this whole stretch of time I’ve been able to take walks through new-to-me neighborhoods, to parks (or at least past them), to beaches (or at least views of the waves). What it has shown me is the world is very much open, open to me, this sole human attempting to live a life in deep connection with both humans and more-than-humans alike.
As human-run businesses reopen and human-run schools reopen, I wish you well in your journey. I share my compassion with you as you make your way through many challenging decisions that are difficult in new and different ways than the ones you had to make yesterday and last May.
As human-run capitalism reopens, I wish for you deep connection with what and who you want to be in connection with, rather than what connections (or, rather, transactions) capitalism wants for you.
I offer you the encouragement you need and desire to move as slow, tenderly, tentatively, (un)trusting, and as freely as you require.
I wish for you to let your world reopen at your pace, not at anyone else’s.
Til next week,
Cassandra
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Well, it’s actually “Where can vaccinated Americans travel? Here’s a list of countries as the world reopens” BUT I wrote it that way above because reading “vaccinated Americans” just seems eh. I have my reasons it sounds eh to me. If you want, I can go further into it.