I was up early today to take my dog to the groomer. Driving through town on a quiet Saturday morning, I watched the slow hum of the day beginning. Businesses preparing to open, lights flickering on, and people being gently woken from the sidewalks where they had settled in the darkness the night before.
The past few weeks have been heavy. There have been too many losses and too much suffering witnessed up close. Faces missing from places they once occupied. Conversations that will never happen again. The kind of weeks that stay with you long after your shift ends.
As I drove, I thought about many of the people who were once fixtures on our streets, people I knew by name, by story, by struggle, and I found myself hoping they have found peace in their passing.
Yes, there was garbage, belongings scattered, and people stretched out in plain view across town, realities that are impossible to ignore when you see this community the way I do. But when I stopped for a moment to sit and write, something else came into focus.
I saw impossibly green grass and mountains standing quietly in the distance. I watched the people of Duncan moving through their mornings, heading to yoga, meeting friends for coffee, making their way to the market. Elderly couples walked side by side, mothers pushed strollers, and birds pulled worms from the ground as if nothing in the world was hurried or broken.
My window was open wide. A cool breeze moved through the car while the sun warmed my face, and for a moment everything felt balanced.
This work asks us to witness suffering every day. It asks us to hold grief, frustration, and heartbreak while continuing to show up with compassion. To keep doing this work well, to keep caring, we have to find balance. We have to notice beauty alongside hardship, hope alongside loss.
Society makes it easy to fixate on what is wrong. People gather online and find community through shared frustration and complaint. But when you step outside and truly take in what exists around you, you are reminded how fortunate we are to live in a place of such beauty, within a community that is still very much alive despite its struggles.
Finding those moments matters. They are what allow us to return tomorrow and do the work again.
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