Leeton writers collective column with Sarah Tiffen

We never know what's going to happen.

What can we do, but conduct ourselves with grace and patience, to be humble and grateful in the face of that uncertainty, and to hold steady for the people we love, and lean in to share both the joys and the griefs?

The unique elements of each story we tell. Last week, it became apparent to us all that COVID has not gone away. I felt enormous sympathy for all those involved in developing and staging our Art Deco Festival.

And for the town. What a bitter blow - to have to cancel a gala event one week out. After months and months of planning.

After cancelling last year's festival as the pandemic spread its tentacles.

After we have had a small, but joyous wave of freedom to hold some wonderful events in Leeton this year.

It seems that, like a metaphor for life itself, COVID is an embodiment of the notion of uncertainty.

As well as faith and hope. With faith and hope we can plan the best party, the brightest, swinging-est festival, the cheeky weekend getaway, the tropical trip, the biggest football game, with no way to anticipate the sudden viral spread, the peppering of lockdowns and unsuspecting carriers inadvertently transporting Delta here and there across the whole country.

IN OTHER NEWS:

This time has felt different to before, wreaking all kinds of big and small havocs, when we are more fatigued, more off guard than we ever were. Everyone in masks.

Seeking connection with one another with our eyes. In the constant presence of our own breath wherever we go inside. Strange times indeed. But festivals can be restaged, postponed and resurrected.

Not so, our precious personal milestones and human rites of passage. These are irreplaceable.

The real fragility and beauty of life itself.

The small intimate moments that become our dearest memories. Love. The thing that keeps us strong and is undeniable and fundamental. Even while the world is churning.

Amid the COVID dramas, the highs and lows of a very ordinary human kind. A very dear companion near the end of his long and incredible life.

My best friend preparing for grief and loss with his typical unerring forbearance and grace, but with its toll written all over his face.

My beautiful, powerful daughter packing up to move out of home for the first time, to live with her boyfriend in their new house, full of excitement. Birthdays, memorials, rituals of grief and love.

The myriad of ways that people every day show courage, grit, and a warrior spirit to face down fear and keep pushing on. The faith we demonstrate through love - the most powerful force there is.

The thing that makes us brave when it seems impossible to be brave, and the connection between people that cannot be shaken, even in the darkest days.

The stories we tell ourselves to make sense of it all.

And gratitude for every single precious moment.

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