EMERGE- Ramble One

Welcome to the Emerge Project!

Today’s Ramble is the first of six monthly conversations. (If you are new to my Rambles, click here). I don’t know what this extended conversation is going to look like, but I do know I can’t have it without you. I am looking for people to join me on the next six Rambles to chart and document our individual and shared experiences as we tenuously and tentatively emerge from COVID. Here’s why.

I am concerned that we will get swept up in the relief. I mean, we are human after all. I imagine that the return to the fundamental elements of our lives; reuniting with loved ones, travel, and the simplicity of sitting with friends in a restaurant, will have the pull a powerful drug. I cannot wait to see my besties over brunch, to entertain friends in my kitchen, and most of all, to visit my family in England. The anticipation of the relief is palpable. But. The term ‘back to normal’ is bounced around amidst a flurry of qualifiers. It means different things to different people. Many reject the idea that we could return to ‘normal’ even if we wanted to, and some (I am one of them) believe strongly that we should not.  Others long for a return to the way things were.

Each of the six rambles will pose a powerful question to encourage you to explore and monitor your emerging experience as it evolves. I will gather, curate and collate your contributions, and distribute them back to you the following month via my newsletter, along with the next Ramble and its attendant question. You don’t have to contribute every month, but it would be wonderful to have you along for the entire journey. Hopefully, at the end of the six months, you will have felt the support of other contributors through the sharing of their stories, and have taken steps to translate your COVID 2020-2021 learnings into lasting change.

One note, I really do want you to focus your thinking and responses on you. We find that hard, and for good reason. One of the seemingly universal takeaways from living through COVID is that human connection is essential. Technology is king in the modern age, but as it turns out, it is not enough. If you have children, close relatives, dependents, spouses, friends, colleagues, it is hard to consider your emergence separate from the interdependent relationships that greatly impact your daily life. And yet we are the sun in our solar system, the planets orbiting around us. Eleanor Roosevelt summed this fundamental truth up so succinctly when she said, “Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are, and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your own child’s.”

To join the EMERGE conversation, please fill out the google form by clicking on the button at the end of this blog. In addition to your name, email, and a question about confidentiality, there will be space to respond to the Ramble One question, which focuses on recovery. Before we can move forward, it feels necessary to examine what has been lost over the past 12 months, what has laid dormant, or even atrophied. The definition for the word atrophied took my breath away... Ready?

Atrophied - having lost effectiveness or vigor due to underuse or neglect.

Yup. So, as we begin our conversation, my first question to you is:

In what ways are you experiencing a loss in effectiveness or vigor? And, what concerns and/or interests you most about these losses?

Ready to emerge? Just fill out the form, lace up your walking shoes, and let’s Ramble!