Have you ever had a job where you had to sit with someone you either didn’t get on with or had nothing in common with? But you sit right next to them day in day out. Then you get a phone call or a text from someone and you light up. That person might be on the other side of the world, but it makes you feel warm and fuzzy.
Together we build bridges. That concept was at the forefront of my last album. But what does it really mean?
I’ve been thinking about that in the current climate of isolation, shielding and quarantine, and also in respect to #blacklivesmatter and the recent high profile police brutality incidents in the states. I confess I know little about it beyond how it has effected my friends and the snippets I’ve caught on the UK news. I’m afraid I don’t know the details of that specific incident. I do know that the fact that hashtag even exists dismays me.
Of course black lives matter. We shouldn’t have to say that.
But we do.
So what can we do?
Togetherness. Together we build bridges. Love, respect, kindness, compassion. These things are not measurements. We don’t need to be sat in the same room, closer that 6 feet apart, to feel or express these things. Neither do we need to be close together to feel or express shame, disrespect, dispassion, or hatred.
So where does it come from? Where is it born within us? That’s what needs to be nurtured, because I do believe our expressions and communications just follow suit.
We need to find togetherness. By that I do not mean that we should all be doormats and let people treat us badly and abuse us, but as Martin Luther King so wisely said ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hatred cannot drive out hatred, only love can do that.’
Finding new ways to stand shoulder to shoulder in love and compassion and light to drive out the darkness. That is the job right now. That is our work.
I wish you well with it.
Love Dx
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