2020

I’m leaving my laptop in a draw, hiding this screen for the next two weeks, for these final weeks of this year.

So here’s to 2020,

The year none of us dreamed up,

Where we learnt we could collectively stop, press the pause button and take our fingers from our ears, and stop.

We learnt to stop for the lives that matter, the black lives that matter, the key workers that matter,

We learnt too late, hundreds of years after we should, but still the world moved forward maybe an inch on two;

Towards a better humanity, a kinder world for those who were born into isolated homes and who missed out on their early socialisation.

A year that bent and almost broke me more than any other,

In ways I thought were a long distance past.

A year where no dreams were fulfilled but life still held the moments of pure joy in bubbles, and where words like ‘social distanced’ became our vernacular.

I got used to walking instead of coffee, and screens instead of trains to meet those I love.

We learnt we could collectively stop, press the pause button and take out our fingers from our ears, and stop.

We learnt to lift our voices for the things that mattered, to turn our eyes to the needs of our neighbours,

I pray this year remains in our minds, not for the pain or the suffering or the trauma its caused,

but for the lessons we’ve learnt, for the rhythms we’ve come to know, for the ability to stop, the ability to be aware and awake to the unified planet we live on.

I hope we are the voices that tell the story of 2020 for generation to come, who work through it all and then tell the story of moments of unity, of this terrible thing that unified the world once more, that made us aware how connected we are all.

I hope our voices share the wisdom that inevitably grows from pain and we never tire of speaking of what we learnt.

R/

Listen to this - it’s just great