We Are All Spiderman or Something


Irrigation systems stretch like skeletal wings sweeping over dried plots. Uneven ridges of dirt sit expectantly, laden with hope for another year of nourishment and harvest. They lie in wait, much like everything else in this time.

Somewhat autonomously the world grows cleaner. Blown tires don't adorn interstate shoulders and chip bags don't catch on the wire barriers. A dilapidated service road now seems no less busy, no less welcome than the highways they pass under, pocketed with rain water. Stranded travelers have become hardier, replacing their own compromised equipment. Home-making skills reach a premium as governments plead their citizens to remain behind lock and key. Pastures overflow with helicopter weeds and birds that didn't use to be there. Gardens are blossoming bountifully. Homes are inclined to grow closer in the forced community. Many have lost jobs but instead fill the spaces with longer bedtime stories. And hard nights budgeting under lamplight. Maybe even more jokes around the dinner table- so that everybody can have something to smile about. CEO's lay down their salaries and companies remember what's really important when all is said and done- people. We're peering out into the frailty of global society and finding that sometimes the superhero in our midst is the grocery baggage boy who lives down the street. Or the nursing student who was pulled straight out of academia into a crisis. A world on fire, yet the streets remains quiet.

There was a line in a Spiderman movie that said the whole point of wearing the mask is that in many ways, it could've been anybody… Or everybody. "We are all Spiderman."

I think now more than ever, we find this to be true.

One boy in particular puts on his mask each time he starts his shift at the grocery store. His sister does every time she hops in yet another blue and white wagon to deliver mail. They are the pulse to a world in hibernation. Commercials do a great job of conveying this.

It's hard to know when this sleep will end, but I have faith that when it does, communities will spring forth with ample dreams yet to become realities and the giddiness to not let them stay that way. I have to have faith. Otherwise, what was any of it for?

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