When a fleeting meme deserves a deeper look.
Poems don’t typically go viral, but I’m sure you’ve seen this gem from Leslie Dwight pass your screen recently:
What if 2020 isn’t cancelled?
What if 2020 is the year we’ve been waiting for?
A year so uncomfortable, so painful, so scary, so raw —
That it finally forces us to grow.
A year that screams so loud, finally awakening us from our ignorant slumber.
A year we finally accept the need for change.
Declare change. Work for change. Become the change.
A year we finally band together, instead of pushing each other further apart.
2020 isn’t canceled, but rather
The most important year of them all
This was first posted three weeks ago, and the winds of the web fanned its flames and it spread quickly through reposts, likes and shares. The algorithm smiled upon it. But then, the wind died and fire spread elsewhere, and we all followed to warm our hands above the heat of the latest blaze.
I’m not typically a fan of poetry, but I am a big fan of optimism. And words like these within the year’s turmoil — global pandemics, civil unrest, climate crises, fricken locusts — are the rainbow in the eye of the storm. We should stop. Admire it. Count the colors and commit it to memory. Because hope is oxygen for the fight.
taylor