SUNNYSIDE UP MOMENT - MAY 18, 2020

DAY SIXTY-THREE OF THE CORONAVIRUS QUARANTINE FOR US AT STACK 'EM HIGH PANCAKES AND SO FORTH

Rainy days and Mondays don’t always get me down, but this one certainly is doing its best.  There is pressure to open the restaurant.  There is pressure to adjust to our new way of life.  There is pressure literally hanging in the air from Tropical Storm Arthur.  You would think after sixty days of battling the virus and its army of woes, we would all be riding around like knights in shining armor.  But that kind of victory only happens in fairy tales. 

Contests in real life are fought with blood, sweat and tears with ordinary people putting one foot in front of the other advancing despite all odds.   Martin Luther King, Jr. told us, “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving.”  Overcoming our obstacles may seem as unfathomable as the deep blue sea.  Riding the ebb and flow of our everyday struggles might take the wind right out of our sails.  Survival in this moment just might require us to stop fighting against the tide and to let the current carry us to calmer seas.  Who said moving forward was always going to be accomplished under our own power?  Yielding to pressure doesn’t imply giving up.  It suggests that instead of conquering every obstacle with brute force, we relinquish a little control, we salvage a little sanity and welcome a little serenity.  Letting our jagged edges be worn down will let the beauty of life flow more freely over us, around us and through us.  Relieving the culminating pressures of this moment might sound a whole lot like taking and releasing a deep, relaxing breath.  And success might look a whole lot like being washed up.  But that might be how we make it to happily ever after, after all.