By Zita Cambra
Whenever something bad happens it always makes me focus on the positive. I don’t know why. Admittedly I’ve had my share of hard times and for me, so possibly it’s a coping mechanism. It’s always resulted in me thinking how could this be worse? Or What is the message? What was I supposed to learn from this?
This thinking got me through surviving a less than ideal childhood as well as cancer, so it serves me well. So I’m sitting here wondering, what is the why? Why is this happening, what is this supposed to teach us?
I’m reflecting on the group of kids that I saw on bikes just having fun and how it made me think of the movie “The Sandlot.” I am reflecting on the beautiful afternoon that I had with my daughter playing tennis as our new beautiful puppy played monkey in the middle. I am thinking of the two lemon cakes that my daughter experimented with and that we have joyfully shared and mostly devoured! I’m thinking of all the painting and the projects that we’ve done together and how fun that’s been. And I am thinking of how it’s made me want to be connected and productive and present.
I’m hoping that somehow that’s the lesson for all of us, to not take for granted the day-to-day routine, to not take for granted what can sometimes seem mundane. But mostly please to not take for granted the time we have to be together. Being really together, is after all, a privilege and the most precious gift we are given.
I want to believe, no I choose to believe, that this can be an opportunity for us to find new ways to connect, to find ways to interact, because I truly believe with my whole heart that we have become much too engrossed in our electronics and much too engrossed in our headphones and in blocking people out.
So the irony is not lost on me that while we need to stay 6 feet apart, we are learning how to be truly closer.