Dawn Picken: How to find light in these dark times of war and pandemic

Sunrise is a reminder of beauty in our broken world. Photo / Dawn Picken

OPINION

I'm having an affair. She is bright and warm and makes my day. I'm smitten.

The affair results from a need to feel a sense of wonder at the beginning of each day.

My fling is not a person. It's the sunrise. Witnessing this tiny miracle is a balm for the soul in a mad, sad world.

The weight of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the climate crisis, the cost-of-living crisis - too many crises at once. It's as if someone has chucked all our catastrophes into a giant blender, pushed "start", then lobbed a grenade.

Combine that with survivor's guilt following a luxurious whinge about the price of petrol and the exorbitant cost of cheese when millions of people in Ukraine have left their homes after the Russian invasion. The lucky ones fled the country. Many others are living in basements, parking garages, bomb shelters, metros and wherever they can find to try to avoid being blasted by a missile or bullet.

Back home in Pāpāmoa, I told friends that World War III broke out in my house this week after Master 16 ate Miss 18's restaurant pizza leftovers. It was an unfortunate choice of words. War? We don't know war, only bickering (though you would not want to be at my place when these spats erupt).

If you think too much about what's happening in the world, you become paralysed. If you don't think about what's happening, you make yourself vulnerable and irrelevant. It's an awkward balance between overwhelm and naiveté, and we strive for the mid-point of the ruminate/ignore continuum.

I never thought I would internalise the phrase "existential dread" as deeply as I have this year. I'm better served by writing, cooking or even scrubbing the shower than I am by doom scrolling and worrying. Still, the notion that the planet is hurtling towards unbearable awfulness at terminal velocity is hard to shake.

We feel the need to do something, and we have. I donated money to provide humanitarian aid this week and thought about my token gesture as a dribble in the sea. Then I read that NZME's campaign with World Vision to raise money for the people of Ukraine had gathered more than $800,000 in six days. My drop has joined with others to start filling buckets, then bathtubs, then a small sea. We have channelled our collective grief and shock into something useful. And we can do more - accept more Ukrainian refugees, impose more sanctions on Russia, provide more help.

Desmond Tutu, the late South African archbishop said, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." The vast majority of western societies are not neutral, we are anti-Putin, anti-invasion, anti-killing of civilians. We are fortunate in Aotearoa to be able to speak out against despots and violence without fear of being tortured or killed.

I would love to be able to stand with people in my community, shoulder-to-shoulder in a show of solidarity for Ukraine. I imagine us at the beach with candles, then I remember traffic lights and Covid restrictions and the fact so many of my neighbours, friends and colleagues have Covid or are isolating with someone who does. Our vigil is virtual.

We hold opposing emotions at once: disdain and gratitude, joy and sadness. We marvel at the lingering summer experience in our Kiwi autumn while watching innocent people shiver with fear and cold in the Eastern European winter.

The sand makes my feet happy on cool mornings. Yet even the granules between my toes reminded me of sorrow on Thursday as I walked inside tracks left by lifeguard vehicles. They have been patrolling in the pre-dawn hours after a local man last thought to be swimming disappeared a week ago.

The bolus of bad news is too much to digest, which is why I'm watching as many sunrises this season as possible. A short walk from my house, I can see the giant fireball levitate from the sea. It does this every morning though sometimes I need to imagine the sunrise when clouds are thick.

Writer Margaret Atwood once rhetorically asked what broke in daybreak: "Is it the night? Is it the sun, cracked like an egg, spilling out light?"

I want to imagine people in Eastern Europe waking up to a new day with hope. But then I worry whether they've slept at all amongst the blare of air raid sirens, bombing and shelling.

There are an infinite amount of troubles I cannot control. But this morning and hopefully tomorrow, I will still be able to move my feet. With luck and the right weather, I will catch another showing of the cracked, glowing egg.

This affair with daybreak is not a solution to anything, but a reminder that beauty still exists inside our broken world.