From the Secretary: Reclaiming normal
Look away from this screen. Find a moment to get outdoors, watch the changing leaves, and share a smile with a neighbor. Maybe even put a pumpkin out by your door. Take a deep breath and find joy.
Last month, my daughter sent me two pictures of my granddaughter on her first day headed back to school. In the first she’s standing outside the school, a big backpack slung across her back, a big grin plastered across her face. In the second, she’s heading into the building, same big backpack and a big mask hiding the smile I know was underneath.
Those photos hit hard. For a moment, I had felt the specter of normalcy; my granddaughter, about to start a new year of school. That mask jolted me back to reality. That’s just way that she will experience school this year: partial openings, distanced classrooms, uncertainty about what the next week will hold. And as many school districts around the country either put on hold or depart from in-person learning entirely, we know that not even this can be taken for granted.
We have now spent the better part of a year in pandemic, with an end date still uncertain. When the Smithsonian closed our facilities to the public, it was hard to imagine our doors would remain closed for so long. We had no idea what toll the pandemic would take on our country, our communities, or our Institution. In the past several months, we’ve built new routines, taken up new hobbies, and adjusted to Microsoft Teams meetings. We’ve been carefully reopening our buildings to the public, cautiously re-engaging in in-person activities. But still, none of this feels normal.
This month, I find myself reflecting on the passage of time. I think of how we mark our seasons by communal events – a back-to-school ritual, a fall baseball game, dressing up the family for Halloween. The pandemic has put many of these beloved communal rituals on hold, just as it has drastically altered the rhythms of our daily life.
As the air mellows and the leaves burst into color, I celebrate our resilience and our will to move forward. We have further to go before this pandemic is behind us, and we don’t know for how long. But the hard work of folks across the Smithsonian has kept us serving and kept us safe. We all need to extend that same care and thoughtfulness toward ourselves, too.
So here is my suggestion to you: look away from this screen. Find a moment to get outdoors, watch the changing leaves, and share a smile with a neighbor. Maybe even put a pumpkin out by your door. Take a deep breath.
No, it’s not normal. But we can still celebrate the small moments that anchor us in our communities. We can cherish the people around us. And we can find joy, as we do every year, in the changing of the season.
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Posted: 16 October 2020
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