Writer’s Challenge.

What’s the hole in my pants?

A Sherry McGuinn Challenge

“It disturbs me that I no longer care. That a wire inside my brain has come loose and I’m not the person I once was. Like the rest of us, my “sheltering-in-place” has put me in my place. A fucking scary place.” — Sherry McGuinn

I had an Alice through the looking glass moment while reading Sherry’s intriguing article about sheltering in place and the aftermath created. But instead of finding myself falling through the mirror, as Alice did, I fell through the hole in my pants. Metaphorically speaking, that is.

The hole in this case, the one positioned neatly to the rear of my trousers, that has afforded me a rather unique glimpse of the world as I moved through it over the years, suddenly began to shift toward the front. And instead of allowing me to see where I had been and what I had done, it suddenly provided an unfettered view of the future, and what will be there, if I didn’t do something to change it.

A certain malaise has been weaving its way through America’s households. Seeding doubt. Whispering uncertainty into somnambulant ears. Generally creating a universal itch that we’re all having a hard time scratching. A hard time it seems, because the itch always feels slightly out of reach. Slightly around to the other side, and out of sight; and every time we move towards it — it moves a little further out of view.

The itch, also being a metaphor, is all about us. Who we are, what we see, how we think and most importantly, how we assemble all these views together and call it our life.

Apparently, I was not the only one with a hole in the pants. Current reports indicate that nearly 99.9% of everyone who is anyone, also possesses a hole. Slightly to the left or slightly to the right of mine, but effectively limiting our view of the world to what has always been. Shedding very little illumination on the potentials of the future. That place we all regard with high esteem and hope that one day will arrive and lift us all out of the doldrums that stalk over daily lives.

We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them. Albert Einstein

Sorry to burst the bubbles neatly encircling most of us, but what we thought, what we did, and what we figured would work out and be just fine — will not cut it any longer.

The “holes” have revealed that we’re wrong. Yes, the dreaded W-word. And we’ve not only been wrong in the way we think and act, but in the way we think, we act. Which is doubly damning, when you take a closer look at it.

The one saving grace about prolonged isolation, is that we don’t get to infect one another willy nilly. Not just with the Covid-19 virus, but with the equally insidious notions that we’re doing okay and that we can keep on doing it, because, hey, it’s worked so well for us in the past, right?

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. Winston Churchill

Change is not done too impress. It is not done to quiet opposition to the status quo. It is done to move us all forward into a level of thinking that supports the well being of all of us.

One day or day one. You decide. Unknown

And why not?

What would happen if the world; not the earth, as she’s doing her best to sustain us, but the rest of us decided that it was okay to treat each other the same? Seriously, what cataclysmic event would unfold, if every man and woman were treated with respect and dignity and an abiding sense of equality? Kind of like what the founding fathers said in the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution, but somehow managed to fall short in making it truly self-evident.

So, what would happen?

Would you lose your job? Your house? Your place in the world?

If you came upon someone and judged them not by their look but by their words and deeds, would there be a significant seismic shift that would displace you, your friends, the guy running the 7/11 store down the street?

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead

After spending an inordinate amount of time recently, virtually bent in half, blood rushing to my brain, as I weeded the garden, getting an all too intimate look at numerous insects locked in an amorous embrace, I realized that the world and specifically those parts I’ve been personally connected with for decades, were well and truly fucked.

But that was the good news. No, wait, hear me out.

Knowing that something is fucked, that it’s not good, not performing to standard, is the beginning of the end of its hold over you.

The Lockdown imposed on all of us, a game called: Waiting. It’s a game we all played while growing up. We played it at school, at home, at grandma’s and at the birth of our children; the last day of our job and the 16 times we had to go the DMV to get our license renewed. We all did it. We all hated it. We all dreaded the weird and extraneous thoughts that entered our heads while doing it.

But like most things in life, there is a silver lining, if one looks long enough and hard enough for it.

Waiting slows down time. Tick-tock, tick-tock, until the second hand seems to come to a complete halt as your brain starts shutting down functions normally reserved for when life is worth living. And that’s exactly where the magic is. In between tick and tock, when our thoughts reveal their true nature and our habits comes fully into view, like that dance the weird neighbor does in her window, every Thursday night before going to bed.

We get to see the cracks and duct taped parts held together for no other reason, than it’s always been that way. We get to view ideas, so fixed in place, that we thought they were a part of us, only to find out they were adopted way back when, like that one-eared, hopelessly stupid dog we took in while on vacation in Vegas in 1986.

In other words, Isolation is often only really bad, when the thoughts and images it conjures up or allows to come bouncing forth, bother us greatly, because, maybe, we should have tossed them aside years ago and didn’t. Or because the droning uncertainty being broadcast daily is simply antipathetic to life and needs to stop. Now is our chance to clean house and remove those ideas that aren’t working or needed. And tune out the crap being transmitted by those with agendas that are equally antipathetic to what we know to be right.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Maya Angelou

Having been in lockdown for 120 days, has made it impossible to ignore what was once easy to do; that this world needs to change and those who inhabit it are the only ones who can do it.

Tagging once again:

P.G. Barnett, Chris Hedges, Helen Cassidy Page, Caroline de Braganza, Denise Shelton, Kira Dawn, Gurpreet Dhariwal, Tina L. Smith, Charles Roast, Timothy Key, Desiree Driesenaar, Kim McKinney, Roz Warren, Bebe Nicholson, Tree Langdon ♾️, Britni Pepper, Rasheed Hooda

Joe Luca is writer and editor for ILLUMINATION and a published author and writer of children’s stories, short fiction, non-fiction articles, screenplays and poetry. Publications include Child’s Life, Children’s Playmate and others. There are some other articles below — have a read. And thank you for stopping by.