I know it’s glammed up a bit since last time you saw it, but I think we’ve earned it, don’t you? We’ve all been through a lot and whether we thought we had it in us or not, we’ve had to be brave.
Whether you’ve been more concerned about Covid 19, job security, bushfires or toilet paper shortages, I have no doubt that something in 2020 tested your metal and made you dig deep. Whenever I’m in a situation in which I have no choice but to be brave, I think of the lady in this famous photograph taken in Nipomo California by Dorothea Lange in 1936. The Lady’s name is Florence Owens Thompson.
Florence was just 32-years-old when the photo was taken. She had 8 children and was trying to keep them alive during the Great Depression by moving from farm to farm asking for work. Dorothea Lange later recalled that the woman said they survived mostly on vegetables from the surrounding fields and birds the children killed. They were on foot because she’d sold the tyres from her car. She asked no questions of Lange but gave her permission for the photo to be taken.
If Florence could get up every morning and get those kids back on the road to the next farm, I reckon I can get up and get mine to school while they squabble over the ipad and take too long to eat their breakfast and get toothpaste down the front of their last clean school shirt etc etc etc.
The thing about 2020 that I hold on to is that like The Great Depression, the whole planet is experiencing the same thing at the same time for once. Yes, it’s a terrible thing, but for once we can understand so much of each other’s daily challenges. We can empathise with each other about so many things right now. Let’s not waste the opportunity. Let’s be brave and embrace each other.