Day 28: The News
“Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but never our hearts. ” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
It may sound ridiculous to need a day off while on vacation, but today, we did. We were all pretty tired, and it was rainy out there. So we went and saw a movie called ‘Ready Player One’ which was a fantastic Spielberg movie (better than the book!), and went to a park, and Nishiki market again. All in all, a pleasant day.
This day gave me time to reflect on a few things, and my mind kept coming back to ‘news’.
At some point on this trip, I turned on CNN (it was the only thing in English on tv), and was struck by the steady rapid-fire feed of bad news. I turned it off.
A couple of times, we’ve gotten the newspaper, and, feeling pretty dejected by reading about the US president’s attitude and decisions regarding International trade, I found myself putting the papers down, and moving on to something else… anything else (!) to distract me from worrying about all of that hot mess.
We were away for the Ontario election, but we voted in the advanced polls, and care greatly about the outcome. It’s hard to watch as your province-mates elect someone you fear. So again, I’ve been taking the avoidance approach – as best I can given that my facebook feed is literally swamped with people debating both sides of Doug Ford. I am inspired by those who want to resist, but I just don’t see how to effectively do that?
In other news about things I fear: I have greatly feared losing one of the kids somewhere out there while we’ve been on this adventure, and not being able to find them. I’ve had the same nightmare over and over again, but I don’t want them to see that. I don’t want them to think that the world is a scary place, but rather that it is one of wonder, and worthy of exploration. That all people, deep down, are the same.
The thing is, as we were going to Bangkok airport, I read this gem of a story about a woman who was taken hostage at that same airport:
I had to leave Cole and Clara together alone in the airport for a few minutes, and found myself explaining to them what to do if they were approached, bothered, spoken to by literally anyone while I was gone.
And that might sound insane (Derek certainly thought it was when I told him later). If I want them to think the world is safe, why would I give them a list of things to do if things went wrong???
But then, they were approached. By someone under the guise of wanting to take their pictures. And Clara did what I asked her to do and repeatedly said “NO thank you” louder and louder until the person left them alone. Go Clara.
Then last night my parents told me about the following story which had them a little concerned since we left Tokyo on the Shinkansen the same night (though we were bound for Kyoto and not Osaka).
I’m not sure where I’m going with all of this. I’ve just been contemplating how, to those who avoid the news, each day can be a lovely day without worry. But to those who find themselves reading up on politics, each day can be horribly depressing (whether or not they could be having a nice day instead).
But if we all avoid and live in denial, who will be left to debate, resist, and try to help make the world better?
And seriously people, how is it possible that Ford is the best example of a Progressive Conservative to run the province? How did that happen?
With kids, is it better to turn off the news, and live in avoidance? Or how do you let them know what’s going on in the world without creating panic?
