Day Two: Connect to the Past

Audiobooks are saving our lives over here. Our library has Libby, an online portal that lets us download ebooks and audiobooks for three weeks at a time. We all take our personal space by popping on headphones and letting someone else do the reading.

As for me, I’m listening to Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser. It’s not a happy read, as it follows Laura Ingalls Wilder through her real life, not the child-friendly version she recounted in Little House on The Prairie. It adds context to what was happening to families just like hers. I’m reminded that our individual stories are not so different from the lives of generations just making it through times of upheaval and unpredictability. I’m reminded that even when systems fail and governments make big, big mistakes, us humans have a way of making it work. We build, we connect, we sacrifice and then we get through it. I need that reminder today. Living through history, in Magnolia’s words, sucks. But it’s not like it hasn’t been done before.

So find a book or movie today, whether fiction or non, that celebrates and explores the very ordinary lives of people triumphing over difficulty. Because we will get through this. We really will. And together, we might get through it stronger, more compassionate and more aware of our ability to do hard things.