The new normal
It’s time for change but how can we embrace a new normal?
Right now in Australia bushfires roar throughout the country in what has been noted (by those trusted to note) as the worst bushfire season on record. And it’s only just begun.
My region in NSW was one of the first to experience the horror of these fires and when a disaster of this level hits a small community everyone is impacted in some way or another. My little community lost over 60 homes and over 100 outhouses, shops sold out of supplies as trucks couldn’t get through the highways and the community went into panic buying mode, important events were canned, public figures were being abused in the streets and the smell, the thick stale smell of smoke lingered in our hair, our clothes, our lungs for weeks.
The volunteers didn’t stop through the peak of the emergency (and many still haven’t as I write). They fight fire around the clock as others provide food and shelter for the now homeless and hope for those otherwise caught in the grip of the catastrophe.
And it is a catastrophe. One that we were not prepared for despite every signal to the contrary.
I don’t know if it’s an indication of my ignorance or perhaps a sign of my optimistic nature but I was not prepared for this, nor the way I’d feel in its’ aftermath.
