Archive for the ‘destruction’ Tag

I CAN’T MAKE UP MY MIND   4 comments

AM I GLAD I’M ON MY WAY OUT AND ANXIOUS TO GO? OR AM I SO FASCINATED I WANT TO STAY FOR A VERY LONG TIME.

The day is dreary. I need to turn a light on just to read. And I fall asleep to make up for what I lost last night remembering how my family was hurt by a friend who turned on us – an old hurt long handled but insistent on returning with full force every once in a while.

And then I open my favorite magazine, YES, page 11 to be exact, and I find an article whose point is summarized as follows.

“ … The pandemic is a crucible burning away and altering the structures that comprise the old paradigm, remaking who and what we are. When we emerge, we will have crossed a permanent threshold, from which there is no return, because there is simply no more “normal” to which to return. The question before us is this: As we pass through the threshold, will we extinguish everything in our desperation to cling to a past that has run its course? Or will we recover the courage to embrace the strange uncertainty of a different paradigm? …

“Only the choice that considers all and not a few will get us across the threshold into the crucible, and through the portal to the other side. Many of us are already taking that leap. We are stronger when we take it together. I’ll meet you there.”

So here’s the question I ask myself. Do I want to live through the turmoil that’s sure to come? Or do I want to be around to see the world where polluted skies, homelessness, hunger, racism, prejudice, injustice, destruction, and an unfair health system go out of style as we move to a world where children – all children – can grow with joy, health, confidence in the future, and happy success?

I guess my best evidence is my reaction when my Acura was flying through the air on its way to a hard landing back in 2015. I was just plain fascinated with what was happening even though a part of me knew I could well end up dead.

I guess I’ll choose to hang in as long as the cosmos will let me

Posted May 23, 2020 by Mona Gustafson Affinito in Uncategorized

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THINGS I REMEMBER — not an outtake   6 comments

I remember my student tour of Europe in 1951. Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, England, Holland, Belgium. Eveywhere we met people like us. And everywhere except Switzerland we found bombed out buildings. I remember Germany especially, men without arms and legs making their way by new businesses trying to get a foothold in any corner where temporary buildings could be erected. Most of all I remember thinking “all these people are just like us” as we communicated through gestures and what minimal knowledge we had of the language of the country we were visiting. I remember our twenty cent packs of cigarettes were worth 60 cents for just one cigarette. It was our medium of exchange for tipping. Let me repeat. I remember the people we met were just like us.

And I remember the student guide who said to me as we tried to understand what had happened, “This will come to you someday in the United States.” Yes, more than remember that, I have never forgotten it.

I remember an 8-year-old Mona (me) in 1937 thinking Hitler must be a nice man, because I saw a picture of him smilingly accepting a bouquet of flowers from a little girl my age. I remember practicing a speech I would deliver to him explaining why he should be nice to other people.

 

Years later, I remember a client whose family was left behind in a country cruelly dominated by the USSR. In her distress over their situation she wondered, “How did they let this happen to them?”

I love traveling, and everywhere I go I meet people who are just like me – trying to make a good life.

I remember wondering how people could let it happen to them.

How could it happen? Could it happen to us?

I remember, and I wonder.

Posted March 4, 2020 by Mona Gustafson Affinito in Uncategorized

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