news&views Summer 2020 | Page 17

Each of these year-long experiences out of the normal led me to believe that we might change our relationship with water on our return, but old habits die hard. that we might nship with rn, but old fter Japan, I to a full-sized (with a larger loads usually r on tap, and ts in the house. to old habits. xperience, I more frugal n Edmonton, long to revert nsing dishes, ower, throwing . After a year of ambodia (with us brush with again it was an enjoy a glass tap water and getables under the tap run teeth and we ld water that water to the ut I catch e water off boiled eggs or pasta. They say new habits form in a hundred days, but it seems they can be easily forgotten in familiar circumstances. Speaking of old habits reminds me of the mantras I’m hearing these pandemic days: when we ‘get back to normal’ or ‘the new normal.’ We are realizing that ‘normal’ changes with circumstances. To strain a water metaphor, can we irrigate our future with current learnings? We long today for the closeness of friends and family. We acknowledge today the value of exercise. Can we spread these benefits across the field of our lives, forward into our futures, so that in next year’s ‘normal’ and the year after that’s ‘normal,’ we may remember to hold these blessings sacred? ● news&views SUMMER 2020 | 9