So, I remember where I was when I heard big news.
Big news is tabloid news. Means more people are interested and more people affected. I was under a dusty bridge in Iran when a local cried to me that Princess Diana was dead. I was in my Brunswick lounge room when my father-in-law called me in hysterics about 2 planes flying into twin towers. I was on the Western ring road when Richard Stubbs told me via 774 that Steve Irwin had coped a sting in his chest. That had hit him in his heart. And that his heart had stopped.
Big news means the world stops to catch it’s breath.
And then takes it’s next breath – just a little different from the breath before.
But sometimes big news for me is small news for the tabloids. I drank midori splices with my Dad in our Army road driveway while the postman watched me open my year 12 results. My sister called me on a hot January afternoon to softly tell me she was with a child she knew I desperately wanted. My youngest lad, after 12 Wednesdays of trying, finally got his Golden words.
Each time I stopped to catch my breath.
And then took my next breath – just a little different from the breath before.
We get our news so many ways now. And with so much news, I sometimes find it hard to notice what I should be noticing. And whether what filters through my internal newsfeed and settles into my personal matrix should have much attention reflected upon it.
Because I kinda reflect a lot.
But yesterday in Army road the kitchen, my dad showed me his FB newsfeed. And asked me, “what do you think this means?”
It made me stop.
And catch my breath.
And take my next breath just a little different than the breath before.
Because the news I saw was was hard to explain. And very, very sad. No reasoning. No logic. Someone was dead. A family torn down like twin towers. I held my chest. I held my heart. And wondered what in fact this did mean.
Think heart openers, inverted twists and antar mouna.
In this information age, we see a lot, we hear a lot, we read a lot. It can sometimes feel like we move from one crisis to the next without any time to stop. Without any time to catch our breath. Without any time to let the internal newsfeed settle into a space from which we as a society can learn and grow.
But with this news, rather than asking why and how, we just stopped. Different coloured jumpers stood arm in arm for a minute. The crowds dropped what they saw, read and heard into a shared silence of wonder. A shared silence of connection A shared silence of sadness.
As we stopped, we caught our breath.
And took our next breath – just a little different to the breath before.
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