It’s Sunday, a week since we returned from our first visit to Australia. A friend texted me a couple of days ago saying, “You must have whiplash leaving sunny Australia to come home to this weather!”
“Whiplash” is the word I come back to today. Not just because we are hunkered down in a snow and ice storm in northern Virginia. This weekend has entailed emotional whiplash for me as well.
A Joyful Weekend Opener
Yesterday started joyfully, when I picked up a 12-year-old Afghan girl to take her to her soccer teammate’s Bat Mitzvah ceremony. Just typing those words out stops me in my tracks.
That simple sentence is built on trust earned slowly over the past four years since our Afghan friends arrived in northern Virginia. I was overjoyed that she was invited to participate and that her parents gave her permission to attend.
As I sat in the synagogue watching this thoughtful, whip-smart Muslim girl observing her Jewish friend’s coming-of-age ceremony, I was filled with a sense of optimism. Hope has a palpable feel, and I now have a memory that generates that feeling when I need a reminder.
Whiplash
While my phone was off for the ceremony, news came in that ICE had killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. As I scanned the early reports, my heart sank. My phone was blowing up with texts from my activist friends. Shock, horror, grief, sorrow, anger, and a sense of helplessness hijacked me.
But I didn’t have time to stay paralyzed in that place. Directly after the Bat Mitzvah, we picked up five more Afghan kids for a pizza and movie party at our house to celebrate the birthdays of 6- and 8-year-old cousins.
The kids filled our house with laughter and happiness for the next several hours. Joy, optimism, and absolute gratitude to be able to witness their flourishing shifted my body chemistry from despair to inspired resilience.
Same Story, Set In Australia’s Flinders Chase National Park
This wasn’t the blog post I had intended to write today. My plan was to begin to share some of my photos from Australia. But guess what? It’s all part of the same story.
As I looked through the images of what drew my attention, what came into focus again and again was nature’s astonishing resilience even through the darkest of times.
Nowhere was this theme more front and center than on Kangaroo Island, just off the tip of South Australia. In late 2019 and early 2020, brush fires burned an estimated 96% of Flinders Chase National Park. The fires destroyed almost all infrastructure and the visitor center.
This sign in the park gives you a sense of the landscape after the fires six years ago…
Our hike in Flinders Chase filled me with awe. Nature’s crazy ability to literally regenerate from the ashes was just what I needed to see that very week, when it felt like my own country was on fire.
My words can’t do justice to what I’m trying to convey with respect to the power of nature. I’ll let the photos make the case…
Here’s what the road to Flinders Chase looked like in February 2020 (source: ABC News)…
Here’s the photo I took from roughly the same spot on January 13, 2026…
Six years from scorched earth to lush landscape. This is the power of nature.
We ARE nature, folks. Stay strong. Growth continues. Keep your eyes open for it. Live into it.
And if you could use some tools to boost your resilience for the journey ahead, I’d love to support you. Contact me here.
