Tag: pandemic

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Music and Memory

As the online music rocked, Missy partied like it was 2020.

By itself, the scene could have come from a hundred different nights. Missy, our disabled relative who’s physically in her 40s but much younger in heart and soul, has never met a dancing moment she didn’t like. Crank up her bedroom stereo or a YouTube video and she’ll move and sway as only she can, her smile beaming like a lighthouse.

But this night? Call it “Recent Retro.”  For the first time in several months, her favorite group – the Face Vocal Band – was livestreaming a basement concert. No crowds, no driving, just the joy of good a cappella rock on the doorstep.

“Yeah!!”

If you’re feeling a flashback, I get it. Two years ago, this was the music of lockdown. With masks everywhere and a vaccine nowhere in sight, live concerts became one of the biggest potential super-spreaders out there. So instead, musician after musician recorded quarantine videos and livestreamed concerts from their homes, keeping the music alive in the only way they could.

And in an off-balance world, they became a source of light. That not-so-simple act said “We care. We’re in this, too. And we want to make it better however we can.”

Since then, of course, many restrictions have eased or been put to rest entirely. People mix and mingle and even attend live concerts again. On the surface, things look – well, similar, if not the same.

 But when we look closer, we know it’s not really over. Not yet.

Not while so many are still so vulnerable.

I’ve written here before about my wife Heather, a wonderful woman with WAY too many autoimmune conditions for one human being. Even with the COVID curve so much lower than it was, it’s still totaling about 400 to 500 deaths a day in the U.S. That’s way too much virus for her to safely go out unless she has to.

She’s not alone. There are many others – more than most realize – for whom the pandemic is still a reality and a threat. For whom “normal,” or even this current fun-house mirror of it, is still a long way away.

And so I want to thank Face and others like them. Because once again, a not-so-simple concert said something special.

And this time, the message is “We remember.”

Easy to say. Powerful to feel.

And even without an uploaded video and a really kickin’ backbeat, it’s a message all of us can and should echo.

We remember that not everybody can come out and play yet. That post-pandemic is still mid-pandemic for a lot of us.

We remember that caution and courtesy are not just artifacts of 2020, but remain vital for everyone. That it’s not just about ourselves, but about those around us.

And yes, we remember that even in the midst of stressful times, we can still bring light to someone else’s world by seeing them and reaching out to where they are.

When we remember, we lift all of us up. And together, we become stronger. Maybe even strong enough to carry all of us to a better place.

That’s a pandemic attitude worth keeping.

And when it finally helps us break through to the other side – that will truly be a moment to dance.

I’ll bring Missy.

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Living Upside-Down

Some things just have to be mentioned in the same breath. Like Beethoven and the Ninth Symphony. Or Sean Connery and James Bond. Or John Elway and “The Drive.”

So now that my friend Brie Timms has taken her final bows, it’s only right that someone brings up “Noises Off.”

If you don’t know the show, “Noises Off” takes every nightmare an actor’s ever had about the stage and blends it into a smoothie. It’s a comedy – no, an outright farce – where backstage jealousies lead to onstage chaos, with stalled entrances, sabotaged props, and an increasingly bedraggled cast. It’s also a notoriously difficult show to do, including a stretch where the story has NO dialogue for several minutes, relying on perfectly-timed action to get the laughs.

Brie came back to that show again. And again. And again.

No surprise. It fit her so well.

Let me back up: I’m not calling her a soap opera on wheels. Quite the opposite. Brie didn’t have time for unnecessary drama. Anything that distracted from the show didn’t belong. It’s the kind of focus that made her such a terrifying Nurse Ratched – a role quite opposite her real-life personality – and that built fantastic loyalty in her casts whenever she directed.

But she understood the paradox behind the best comedies. It’s an upside-down world where the golden rules are as follows:

  1. Silly is funniest when it’s taken seriously.
  2. It takes great acting to portray “bad acting.”
  3. Division onstage requires tight teamwork backstage.
  4. And most of all, if you want chaos, you have to plan for it.

Brie loved that. Especially the last one. And because of it, whenever she took on “Noises Off,” it ran like a Swiss watch. But a lot funnier.

And now that she’s gone, it feels like a gear in the watch is missing.

But even as the show goes on without her, I think there’s still something to be said for living an upside-down life.

Unlike comedies, life doesn’t give most of us the luxury of planning our chaos, which may explain why it’s often more tiring than funny. But it does tend to send us situations that work best when we flip the script. Where paradoxes make sense.

And the biggest one is that in a world ruled by isolation, we need each other more than ever.

Over nearly two years, we’ve all learned the pandemic litany. Cover your face. Wash your hands. Get your shots. And keep your distance. But we don’t always talk about the why. Maybe it just seems too obvious – in virus times, a person’s got to protect themselves, right?

But it’s not about each of us. It’s about each other. It’s about making ourselves living breakpoints so that the virus doesn’t wreak further havoc among all of us, especially among the old, the sick and the vulnerable.

When we think of our neighbors first, we win.

Teamwork matters. In comedy. In disasters. In life. And when it’s a teamwork born of compassion, one where we each give a little of our strength to help another, that makes all of us stronger.

I wish the team still had Brie in it. We need her. We need all our loving storytellers. But if we keep up that best paradox of all – to help yourself, help another – then I think we’ve kept one of the best parts of her, too.

And that’s a showstopper even “Noises Off” can’t beat.

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Laboring in Vrain

On the first day of the Big Flood, a photographer and I covered southern Longmont like a blanket. We watched Missouri Street turn into the “Missouri river”. We saw washed-out train tracks and rising streams and people dangerously trying to wade a flooded-over Hover Street.

And when it came time to return to the Times-Call newsroom, we saw one other thing. Namely, that getting back home was going to be a lot harder than we thought.

If you were there in 2013, you probably remember. The rising St. Vrain Creek had cut Longmont in two. Within town, there was exactly one north-south connection left – from Ken Pratt to Third – and that was being reserved for emergency vehicles.

And so began the Journey of Exploration.

The photographer knew the area well. He had to. As he drove east, we picked our way between small county roads  like a child’s pencil through a maze, trying to find just one clear route that would let us outflank the St. Vrain.

It took about an hour. It might have been the first time that anyone had gone from Hover Street to the downtown by way of Mead. Wings would have been great to have, or maybe sails.

But we made it.

True, it had required much more work, persistence and time than anyone had expected. Much too much.

But at journey’s end, we were just glad to be home.

**

Eight years later, it sometimes feels like we’re back in the flood.

Once again, we have a people divided by disaster. Some are trying to help. Some are already hit hard. Some are desperate enough to try anything that offers a way out. Most are simply trying to survive until it’s all over … whenever that might be.

And just like that drive home on those rain-swept roads, the journey back is turning out to be a lot longer than we thought.

Maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised. Pandemics don’t end as quickly and neatly as a Hollywood movie. Or if they do take their cue from Hollywood, it’s from all those interminable sequels where the old threat keeps getting recycled with new abilities and special effects.

We wouldn’t survive as a species if we couldn’t hope. And so we keep crossing our fingers that this time we’ve turned the corner, that this wave will be the last, that things can finally start to subside and normalize again.

And when we turn the corner and find another corner, it’s draining. Frustrating. Even crushing.

But we have to keep driving.

We need to remember the things that got us through the flood – helping neighbors, staying alert, doing what’s needed to stay safe.

It hasn’t been easy. It won’t be easy. Like outmaneuvering a river, it’s taking more time and effort than anyone thought.

But with persistence, with awareness, with careful attention to the road … we can move forward. And we will make it home.

True, home might look different than we expect. Like rivers, “normal” doesn’t stand still. Sometimes it transforms, like the St. Vrain changing its course. Sometimes it needs to transform, like the efforts to widen and deepen the river channel to make a second flood less likely.

But we still have a destination to reach. The way may be long and the vision ahead may be unclear, but we know where we want to be and it isn’t here.

So we keep on. Together. Eyes on the road.

The sign for Mead is out there. And when it comes, we’ll be ready to take the turn.

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Game On

It’s an exciting time to be a sports fan in Colorado.

This year, the Denver Nuggets have BLASTED their way through the first round of the NBA playoffs!

This year, the Colorado Avalanche are setting themselves up as the NHL’s TEAM TO BEAT!

And this year, the Colorado Rockies are … are …

Hmm.

Well, they’re showing up. I think.

If you’re a longtime Rockies fan, this is probably a familiar refrain. Most seasons, the Rockies get some April love, a fast start, and then quietly sink into the mire of “Maybe next year.” But this year – ah, this year, the Rockies set out to accomplish something different. And did.

Yes, this year Colorado’s Men In Purple managed to burn their record to the ground before even getting out of April. Woohoo! Go, team!

We could argue about the reasons forever (after all, that’s what the internet is for). It could be the fault of the ownership. Or the space aliens beneath DIA. Or maybe even space aliens in the ownership – it’s been that kind of season.

Whatever the reasons, this is when we see That Fan start to emerge. You know the one.

“Who needs that bandwagon crowd, anyway? This is when you find out who the REAL Rockies fans are! If you can’t stick with the team in the bad years, we don’t want to see you in the good ones!”  

I understand the attitude. Heck, I’ve suffered through some bad Rockies baseball myself. At the same time, this isn’t Valley Forge in the American Revolution, where we’re called on to say who the sunshine soldiers are and who’s ready to fight for life and liberty.

It’s a game. It’s meant to be fun.

For some of us, the fun is in the art of baseball itself, the tactics and psychology that lie behind every pitch and swing. For some, it’s the familiar faces and personalities, the players that have become almost as familiar as next-door neighbors.

And yeah, for some, it’s the excitement of being part of a crowd that’s watching a team of skilled athletes (and even the worst players are a lot more skilled than me and thee) taking the game to another level. Winning. Winning regularly. Feeling the electricity that comes when you KNOW you’re truly seeing the best around.

That’s just as legitimate. And if they fade into the background in the in-between years, it’s not that they’re fake fans … just less intense ones. Ones that demand more than just nine purple suits and a start time.

The priorities are different.

And if we’ve learned about anything over this past year, it’s about priorities.

When your life gets upended by a worldwide crisis, you quickly learn what’s important to you. The things you must do. The things you can’t do that you miss – or that you realize to your shock that you can do just fine without. The things you never had time for before that suddenly become a means of survival.

In particular, we found we needed people. We needed their stories (and streamed an awful lot of them). We needed their faces, their voices, their reminders that they existed at all, even if at a distance. Some of us found we were ok with the distance, while others were straining at the leash for something more.

As this country slowly comes out the other side, I hope we remember those discoveries. I hope we remember what worked in our life and the ways we found joy in a stressful time. Most of all, I hope we remember how important the people around us are, and don’t dismiss them until the next time they’re taken away.

I also hope, someday, that we remember what good baseball looks like in Colorado.

Maybe it’s time to talk with the space aliens.

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Singing Out, Singing In

There’s nothing like a jaunt in a time machine to kick off the weekend right.

No, Doc Brown didn’t park the DeLorean in my driveway. The TARDIS from Doctor Who hasn’t made a pit stop on the Front Range. And while I’d have to clean out the basement to be sure, I’m reasonably confident that there’s no Victorian wonder-machine of gears and wheels waiting in the furnace room courtesy of H.G. Wells.

No worries. I’ve got something better yet.

It’s called Virtuosity.

***

Helplessly hoping, her harlequin hovers

Nearby, awaiting a word …  

Virtuosity, as the name might suggest, is a virtual choir, an online singing group organized by Stephen Ross of the Face Vocal Band. Like many others of its kind, it’s a pandemic creation, born from people who shared two common qualities:

  1. They really wanted to sing together for fun.
  2. They really didn’t want to share a virus-laden airflow.

The result is a musical Rube Goldberg machine, with a lot of moving parts adding up to a surprising result. You basically learn the song (with some online coaching), practice, record yourself at home 37 bazillion times until you’re no longer disgusted with your own performance, send the video to the director and then wait while he merges everybody’s video into one coherent and even compelling performance.

It should never work. But it does … brilliantly.

The main trick – well, besides learning to be kind to yourself as you work out the kinks – is that there can be quite a delay between preparation and performance. But even that’s more of a feature than a bug. It means that when you cue up the latest song – in this case, a cover of “Helplessly Hoping” by Crosby, Stills and Nash – you’re not just hearing music. You’re hearing memories.

That’s where the time machine comes in.

On Friday, it took me back to the March blizzard that overlapped our recording dates. For many of us, that added up to a lot of extra takes, thanks to the sudden roar of snow blowers in the background or the THUMP of drifts sliding off the roof and onto the soundtrack.

Months from now, it’ll probably take me back even farther –  not just to piled-up snowstorms, but to the pandemic itself and the weirdness of trying to live apart from the world while being a part of it at the same time.

It’s a memory brought back to life. And that’s powerful.

I know, I know. Most of us feel like we don’t especially want to remember these times. We’ve shredded the 2020 calendar, buried the mask in the just-in-case back pocket, and set about trying to look forward instead of back. I sympathize, I really do.

Some memories are painful. Or uncomfortable. Or even toxic. Every day, we see headlines generated by memories that are years or even centuries old, pain left unredressed, wounds that never found a chance of healing.

But memory can build, too. It can teach, strengthen, reassure. It’s the sudden laugh that lightens the darkness, the glimpse of hope in the midst of insanity. It’s the reminder that “Yes, we’ve made it through before and we can again.”

When those memories are wrapped in an experience – a song, a story, a journey of the mind or the body – they endure. And when it’s a shared experience … well, that’s the sort of memory that builds communities up instead of tears them down.

I hope we all find some memories worth keeping from this. Maybe even worth learning from.

You could even call it note-worthy.

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Worse Than His Bark

WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

Big Blake, the Labrador of Legend, has many qualities that have made him a frequent guest in this column. There’s his loving, devoted heart. His well-meaning but clumsy reflexes. His simple mind, undistracted by anything resembling thought – except, of course, when it comes to eating the inedible, from brand-new crayons to baby wipes.

Usually, his powerful singing voice isn’t part of the epic. But we are living in unusual times.

WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

“Blake, buddy! What is it?”

WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

“OK, we’ve got the message. What’s going on?”

With a bark like that, a reasonable person might expect that Blake had gotten himself caught somewhere. Nope.

A suspicious person might look for burglars or a fearful one for ghosts. Uh-uh.

Injury? Storm? Timmy fallen into the well? No, no and no.

Like much that goes on in the 17 brain cells behind Blake’s eyes, it’s a mystery. But after the 37th time and some careful observation, we think we’ve put together a working theory.

You see, Big Blake is about 15 years old. And while he still has the body of a former athlete (complete with bad knees), his eyes and ears ain’t what they used to be. So when he’s resting in a room, every so often he’ll realize he hasn’t heard us in a while.

Not realizing we have retreated to the far reaches of The Next Room or (heaven forbid) the Great Upstairs, he’ll search his mind and memory and decide that he’s been left alone. At which point, he proceeds to express his heartbreak through the song of his ancestors.

WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

In short, he gets worried. He gets confused. He gets lonely. Most of the time, with help a lot closer at hand than he thinks.

Sound familiar?

These days, I’m sure we’re all sick to death of the phrase “unprecedented times.” We’ve had to adjust to a new normal … and then a newer normal … and then the normal after that one. With vaccines rolling out and masks coming off, we’ve started to allow ourselves to breathe just a little, but we’re still aware of just how fragile “normality” is.

Early in the pandemic, many of us literally howled at dusk to show solidarity.  Since then, the cries have been lonelier and more anguished or frustrated. The reasons are many, varied and all too familiar. Uncertainty. Fear. Stress. Loss. Desperation. Too many things have gone away that were needed or loved, too many have stayed that were unwanted.

Most of all, perhaps, we’ve felt alone. We’ve been keeping the world at arm’s length and then some. At a time when we need our neighbors most, we’ve sometimes struggled to even see the same world, never mind the same response to a crisis.

And so our lives have had a lot of bark. And even some bite, from time to time.

But even in the midst of isolation, we were always closer to each other than we realized. And every time we did realize it, it sparked just a little more hope.

And so we sang. Worked. Cried. Worshipped. Comforted. We reached for the things that make us human. Not easily or comfortably. But inevitably.

Now that things are starting to ease, maybe we can see that connection more easily. I hope so. It doesn’t have to be rebuilt, just rediscovered.

The house isn’t empty. It never was. And once we realize that, it’ll truly be a time to celebrate.

We might even raise the woof.

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Dr. Jekyll, I Presume?

My theatre life is still in semi-hibernation at the moment.  But I suddenly feel like I’ve been drafted into a production of Jekyll & Hyde.

If you’re not familiar with the 1990 musical, it’s another take on the famous Robert Louis Stevenson story about a well-meaning scientist who unleashes his own dark side with an experiment that works far too well. Several of the songs reflect the same divide: that the people and the world around us can have two different natures, and you can’t always be sure which one you’re seeing.

Now, I haven’t started transforming at night into a brutish ogre of a man who’s deadly with a walking stick … well, not unless there are some really strange Pfizer side effects that I haven’t heard about yet. But as we all start to poke around the edges of this thing called “post-pandemic,” I’m noticing the same sort of split.

My household is immunized. Missy and I are starting to resume our lunch outings again. (Outside, of course.) Heather is emerging from the depths of Chez Rochat to get eyeglasses and do other long-postponed errands. Signs of change are popping up everywhere, from careful and joyful get-togethers to the re-opening of the local movie theater.

And yet.

There’s an uncertainty. Not just about the fragility of this beginning-of-normal … by now, I think we all know that we’re at a tipping point where a bit of action or inaction can make all the difference in how this pandemic is resolved. But it goes beyond that.

We’re getting caught up in our own double vision.

We’ve spent more than a year training to handle a paradox. Like any disaster, we’ve had to look to each other for help and support. But with a pandemic, we are the disaster … and so we’ve also had to look at each other as possible dangers, potential plague vectors that could become deadly with a moment’s carelessness.

From that, an odd dance evolved: the world of being “together apart,” being a neighbor while keeping our distance. The steps have changed as we’ve learned more but the basic figure has remained the same.

But now things are changing. A transition has begun. And we still have our well-honed reflexes, perfect for a 2020 world, that may suddenly be out of step.

We’re entering a world with more faces again – or at least, more places where those faces aren’t sitting in a square, looking for the Unmute button. And for many of us, the reflexes are still telling us “Careful! Danger! What are we doing here?”

The heck of it is, we can’t even say yet that we’re wrong. It looks like Henry Jekyll out there – but are we seeing the right face? Even if we are, could it still shift to Edward Hyde without warning?

We’re re-learning. And it’s not going to be comfortable.

The good news is, we’ve been there before.

In 2013, a September flood hit that split Longmont in two. In 2014, the first significant spring rainfalls began to hit … and I know many of us immediately tensed, looking to the filling creeks, mesmerized by the gushing gutters.

We had to get through those next rainfalls to really see rain again. Just rain. To re-learn that while floods can happen and we need to be prepared, not every storm will be a flood. To be ready for the dangerous and the normal.

I think we can get there again.

It’s OK to be uncertain right now. It’s OK to be cautious. And it will reach a point where it’s OK to exhale. It’ll take time and some careful practice, but we will get there. Not forgetting the lessons we’ve gained, but able to judge when and where they’re needed.

After all, you’ve got to watch out for your own Hyde.

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Unexpected Lives

When I found out that my immunization period would end on May 4, I joked that it was perfect for a geek like me.  International Star Wars Day – “May the Fourth Be With You” – what better time to wrap things up?

But lately, it’s not a John Williams theme I’ve been hearing. And that’s appropriate, too.

You see, while the mainstream world knows this time as the day before Cinco de Mayo and the would-be Jedi flood the internet with Star Wars memes, musicians know that there’s another meaning to 5/4. It’s a rhythm, and  a tricky one for many people to feel. Compared to the steady walk of a 4/4 or the lilting waltz of a 3/4, it sounds offbeat, like there’s a slight hitch in it, even though it’s completely regular.

Only a few 5/4 pieces are well known to the general public. But one of them is very well known indeed.

You know it as the “Mission: Impossible” theme.

“Bum, bum, BUM-BUM; bum, bum, BUM-BUM …”

Heather and I have had a lot of Mission: Impossible on lately – not the Tom Cruise movies, but the old 1960s and ‘70s TV show where a team of sharp-witted agents had to think their way through a sensitive assignment. Instead of the abilities of James Bond, an Impossible Missions Team relied on the skills of the con man: planning, misdirection and an ability to steer an over-eager mark into engineering their own doom.

The structure was completely predictable and easy to parody. The team leader would get the latest assignment, “should you choose to accept it,” on a self-destructing recording. He’d assemble his team of experts – usually the same ones every time, unless a guest star was in store – and then put together an elaborate plot of fake identities, careful timing and a little technological magic.

And every single time – EVERY single time – that careful plot would go off the rails halfway through, if not earlier, requiring the team to improvise.

Does that last part sound familiar?

For more than a year, we’ve been living unexpected lives. OK, it’s fair to say that life is never utterly predictable (John Lennon did say “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”), but most of us aren’t used to the disruptions being quite this relentless. We’ve had to rewrite how we work, how we learn, how we live … not just once, but over and over.

It’s dizzying. Even infuriating to some. Certainly tiring. Constant alertness, constant adaptation can exhaust anyone.

But two realities from the old show are also in play for us.

The first is that survival and success require a team. We’re not in a Hollywood world where one superstar can save the day, no matter how powerful or famous that person might be. It needs all of us, looking out for all of us, doing what we need to do together.

The second? Simple. The team’s success was never based on “Did the plan anticipate everything?” It was “Did we accomplish the mission?”

We’ve learned. We’ve adjusted. Sometimes we’ve failed. And we certainly won’t see quite the same “normal” at the other end of the pandemic as we did at the start. But as long as we reach that other end, still together, still finding a way to do what we must … then we’ve succeeded.

It hasn’t been easy. But it can be done. Like a certain theme, we all feel a little offbeat, but we are moving forward.

You might even say we’re heading Fourth.

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Taking Her Best Shot

In the life of my beloved Heather Rochat, nothing medical is ever simple.

She’s the one juggling such wonderful conditions as multiple sclerosis, ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn’s disease and a couple of others that would drive spell check absolutely insane.

She’s the one with the list of allergies and sensitivities that looks more like the Terms and Conditions for a software purchase.

If this were a comic book, she’d be all set for her superhero origin story. In this world, she’s mostly set for a lot of doctor’s appointments and unexpected Urgent Care trips.

So I don’t know why I was surprised when even her vaccination turned into high drama.

Like most Americans, we’ve been mentally singing “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” since an early stage in the pandemic. Heather has been especially eager –  her immune system has more compromises than a last-minute budget deal, so the sooner that all of Chez Rochat got inoculated, the better.

Finally, the calls and emails started to arrive. One by one, each of us got the first poke. Heather’s appointment came last, on a fine Saturday morning that seemed to project blue skies ahead.

Jab. Wait. Return. Simple, right?

One more time. When we’re talking about Heather, nothing medical is ever simple.

“I don’t feel too good,” she said after pulling up in the driveway.

Alarm bell. Yup. Heather had a lovely rash across her shoulders and along her neck. And a little confusion into the bargain.

Allergic reaction. Again.

Aargh.

At moments like this, it’s easy to feel stuck. We’ve all had a taste of that, right? The light at the end of the tunnel that turns out to be an oncoming semi. The “few more weeks” that keeps stretching on and on. The crisis that keeps popping up its head like a Whac-a-Mole game.

When it’s all dragged on so long, it’s oh-so-tempting to give up. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem to matter if the news is good or bad. Some folks throw off precautions too soon, believing the worst is clearly over. Some simply quit out of fatigue and despair.

But it’s still about all of us. And we’re still in the fight.

And when you stay the course, hope has a chance to pay off.

In Heather’s case, she won on the long odds.

We talked to an allergist a couple of days later. Yes, he said, it had been an allergic response. But based on 4,000 similar cases he’d seen, it wasn’t severe enough to prevent dose no. 2 from going ahead. Just keep the appointment and stay a full hour afterward in case of trouble.

But that was it. No having to seek out Johnson & Johnson single-shot clinics. No need to encase Heather in a protective bubble for the rest of her days. Just a brief setback that didn’t have to be permanent or severe.

For now, we could exhale.

For today, we’d won after all.

Sure, we’re still crossing our fingers a little bit. The unexpected could still happen on the second poke. But that’s the way of it for all of us, right? The unexpected can always arrive. All you can do is do the right thing, give yourself the best odds possible, and then pray that you’re ready for whatever happens next.

I think we are. As a family. As a nation. So long as we hold together.

We know what we need to do. We just need to keep doing it until we’re in the clear.

And in a complicated world, maybe that’s pretty simple after all.

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Digging In

Everyone has their own way of pushing their limits. Some run marathons. Some climb mountains. Some adopt intense exercise routines that would make Captain America gasp for breath.  

Me? Shoveling out a Colorado spring will do just fine, thank you.

I know I’ve got a lot of company here. If you didn’t have a blower, a service or an ally last week, you got to have your own personal encounter with Nature’s own concrete. The sort of wet, dense, heavy stuff that has to be cleared out in layers, testing your spinal column with every scoop.

“GrrrrAAAAA!”

And of course, Colorado’s snow fights back. If you tried to get a jump on the situation last Sunday, you may have had the joy of turning around at the end of a fervent shoveling session to discover your path had been covered over again. Multiple times.

In my case, my brain and heart love snow but my back and knees beg to differ. So with a big storm, I shovel the way some people read “War and Peace” – many short quick bursts rather than one long stretch. (I also have the blessings of helpful neighbors doing their own part and then some, which I’m pretty sure you don’t get with Russian novels.)

It’s tedious. It’s exhausting. More often than not, you feel like you’re making no progress at all. But you keep going because you have to.

That seems to apply to a lot of life, lately.

For some, it’s a year of pandemic existence hitting the mind all at once as a vaccine starts to come into view. So much has been endured, and with a light in the distance the last laps suddenly feel so agonizingly slow.

For some, it’s yet one more shooting in one more city with one more burst of racial hate that shakes the soul with its vehemence. A cycle we seem to keep running like a murderous version of Groundhog Day, a little more fatigued and desperate for each repetition.

For some, it’s not the global but the personal. A stubborn health situation. A broken family relationship. A life that seems to keep pounding the same streets and hitting the same blocked alleys.

Maybe there’s progress, somewhere. Maybe you can even see it, if barely. But it just … seems … oh … so … slow.

You’re not wrong. You’re not crazy.

But you’re not hopeless either.

You’re still in the fight.

And even if it feels like carving Mount Rushmore with a toothpick, every scratch is something. Simply not falling off the mountain is something.

A 10-minute burst against the snow never looks like much. Especially when it keeps coming down. But if we keep finding another 10 minutes … however far apart … things can start to change.

 And when a friend or a neighbor starts to lend their own shovel (or even their blower), that next 10 minutes starts to look more possible.

Sooner or later, snow melts on its own. Most other problems aren’t quite as obliging. But if we persist – if we lend each other the strength to persist – we can make a difference. To ourselves. To our neighbors. Maybe even to the world.

It won’t be easy. It often hurts. But if we pick up the shovel at all, we’re saying it can be done. That even if we can’t do all of it, we can do our piece.

That’s hope.

And that’s an exercise that will make all of us stronger.