When Everything Changes

It began with a child's dress - a tiny red and green affair covered in coins to deflect evil spirits; embroidery and tassels to entice the good.  At Ibu, we translated this timeless inspiration into a piece for our time, and for an enthusiastic group of women in Pakistan who wanted the challenge. Many samples and iterations later, many months of work down the road, we are proud to introduce a dress that sings with history, pride, color, life. We're in love with everything about it. 

I'm staying put, of course, having been deemed non-essential. But, like all of us used to a breakneck speed, coming to a standstill is hard.  I work from home, still churning, burning, running in place, even when it's impossible to plan around the next corner.

I read the news as you read the news and together, separately, we grieve our unbelievable losses.  So much is already gone. Jobs, security, lives.  And so much cannot yet be known about next week, month, year - no matter what the predictions.  We are living in the in-between. What's known is gone. What's not yet isn't imaginable.  We're in the blind curve of the road. 

We're in the bend of time.

All I know to do is to be here with every ounce of attention I can bring to this vague, suspended moment and hold it, unknowing, curious, and as much as possible, unafraid.  For those in the fray - hovering over ICU beds, say - there isn't room to hold much more than what is demanded of each moment and we owe it to those amazing front-liners to stand back and pay attention to what they cannot.  

So, I pull my head away from the laptop to notice, really notice, the pink moon that grazed closer to our planet last night than any other night in this year, astonishing the trees with their white shadows on the lawn.  I notice (and keep noticing) the motionless patience of the frog on my handrail. The plundering king tide.  The bristle of my husband's 5 day old silverback beard.  The silence holding everything.

I do this because in these crises moments, when the world we know is falling apart, I sense that something utterly new may emerge - up through the cracks in our tight, scheduled lives.  And I want to be ready for it.  

The more closely and honestly I can inhabit this moment, this bend in time, the more useful I think I may be around the corner when we emerge and remake our lives. Because maybe, just maybe, I will have caught a whiff of something new. Me and you both, and the many tending this suprising moment.  And that new thing is exactly what we will need.

with a patient hope,

Susan Hull Walker