Intermezzo 2: Fire

One of the odd things about time (like creative flow) is that it accumulates in ways that don’t feel like accretion until hindsight puts them altogether. The year 2020 will go down in global history as a pivotal year, but like all watershed moments or periods, it does not have shape while it’s happening. While it’s happening we just focus on surviving, planning, trying to make sense from one jarring event to the next, pacing, adapting, and the million other cognitive, affective, emotional, and interpersonal demands of a sudden rupture. I remember when 9/11 happened and I knew it was bad, but couldn’t imagine the kind of magnitude of ‘things will never be the same’. In fact, I remember people saying that at the time, and me scoffing: of course, things will be the same again! Don’t be so apocalyptic! And of course, they never were the same again.