Thursday, December 31, 2020

Disney on fire

Castle amid a storm of light
Orlando, FL
January 2020
This photo originally shared on Instagram


This morning’s photo of a patch of ice beside a nearby driveway was one of the final photos I took this year. The fireworks photo in this entry, shot just after midnight last January 1st, represents one of the first.

And they couldn’t be further apart.

Today’s photo was taken on a nearly deserted, frozen suburban street. The other was shot in a hot, humid Disney park, packed into crowds so dense I literally could not move my feet without bumping into a stranger.

No one’s vacationing this year. And if they are, they’re probably not sharing the experience on social media. Which makes the bookended pics that much more stark when I place them side-by-side.

I’ll never complain about losing a trip to a warmer place. We can fly again when this is all over, and I know legions of people who wish all they lost this year was a vacation. 3,800 people in the U.S. alone died from COVID yesterday. One life every 22.7 seconds. Last week, one of them was my cousin.

Whatever kind of year we’ve had, memories matter. In the end, memories represent the only tangible things that those left behind have to hold onto.

If we commit to anything as 2021 dawns, I’d like to humbly suggest that we try to make better memories for ourselves, and for those who matter most to us.

Nothing else matters, and nothing else represents a better use of the time we've been given. However much time that turns out to be.

Now, what memories will YOU be making in the year ahead? Let’s start the year with light, shall we?

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Related:
Burn the sky down, January 2020

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