From my habitual work seat on the sofa, I hear the sound of neighbourhood birds chirping their repeated refrain, their pattern familiar, yet free. The sky overhead is an immaculate azure blue, a colossal canvas painted in broad swathes of cirrostratus clouds. Winter darkness has turned—almost overnight—to light as the lone cherry blossom tree outside our window blooms into radiant pink bulbs of springtime.
And here I sit in my apartment, on my perch of productivity, entering week three of lockdown; confined yet connected, grounded yet grateful, sequestered yet sane, housebound yet hopeful. Over the past two weeks of this paradigm shifting epoch, I have seen the innate creativity that has come pouring out of people. My life has been profoundly enriched by the music, poetry, prose, and paintings that have abundantly flooded our world since our isolation went global. We were designed to express that deep creativity, but we never truly slow down to allow it to surface. Our enforced solitude has stripped away all the extraneous noise that stifles our imagination and kindled our self-inquiry.
In these two weeks I have seen the restoration of families as parents educate their kids in more ways than just schooling. I have seen the restoration of the rights and respect that the elderly generation so richly deserves. I have seen the restoration of marriages as husbands and wives connect on a deeper level.
Yes, we all want to go back to a time when the local supermarket didn't look like CostCo on Black Friday and toilet paper, pasta, and flour weren't worth more than gold bars. But in the future we can either look back on this era as a time when we numbed-out on Netflix, video games, and other forms of escapism to pass the time, or a time filled with grace and creative wonder—a time when our lives were transformed by simply being present.