Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

 

 

 

It’s been two years – or more – since most of us first heard about Coronavirus, also known as Covid. Back then, I never imagined that it would be around, still affecting us and almost every facet of our lives in 2022 but it is.  Life, like it or not, has changed since then. In addition to the long list of those I knew who died from this disease, society has changed. After so long, we wonder will we return to what we knew as “normal” or not. In addition to the ongoing pandemic, we have issues here in the U.S. with inflation (out of control and soaring fast), supply issues (can I get the items I need or want at the store? It’s anyone’s guess and there’s no real rhyme or reason to what’s not available), political issues, social and racial divide, and the threat of war in the Ukraine.

 I find myself repeating a few lines from Shakespeare's play Macbeth. "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" begins the well-known speech, words that reflect on the sometimes seemingly mundane aspects of life

Taken from Act 5, Scene 5 of what's known as 'the Scottish play", the full lines brim with a man's frustration,

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing."

Since the words were penned by the Bard, they resonate with poetic grandeur. For those without Will Shakespeare's way with words, Macbeth could be expressing what many feel at present. He is complaining about a string of days, each too much like the other, and rants about the short span of life. In short, Macbeth questions the meaning of life and wonders whether or not life matters.

It does, of course, but I am guilty of moments when I wonder.

Sometimes it's hard not to speculate. After all, we're born, we live and we die.

What matters is what we do during that life, what we build and what we leave behind. So my tomorrows continue to segue into each other and pondering Macbeth's view, it's understandable why he felt as he did - Act V when he speaks the above lines follows Act 4 with the witches and their double, double, toil and trouble.

Another English author, Charles Dickens, once penned the lines “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Which it may be is in part our own perception and interpretation.

Although it seems we're all in for a long haul with today’s issues, hope doesn't die that one day this will be behind us. In the meantime, I move through my tomorrows, one day at a time, in petty pace from day to day.