Tomorrow Never Knows

Someone once told me tomorrow is the inevitable result of every action and decision we've made every day up to, and including, today. We've spent much of our recent weeks rarely looking beyond the end of whatever shift we're scheduled to work or whatever errand we're engaged in, for the most part, looking at life the way a horse runs, one footfall ahead of where we are and no further.

We've started saying 'when things loosen up' rather than 'if' so while we're still social distancing and self-quarantining, we're starting to lean forward which is the direction we should be heading but I think one of the lessons we must learn from the challenges we've faced throughout this pandemic is for all of us to have better tomorrows we need  to assess and improve the tools today we hope to use if we’re to succeed.

The trouble, however, often is that so much of what we've said and done today (as well as left unsaid and undone) gets in the way as we work towards tomorrow. The key to any success we hope to have in getting from where we are to where we want to go means building a coalition of  pragmatists, visionaries, discouraged experts, enthusiastic beginners, and everyone in between, because we need (just about) all of us and all the talents we can offer.  

It was hard watching the City Council conduct the second public hearing on the proposed 2020-2021 municipal budget Monday night (and probably not a picnic being a Council member either) because the technology we have to allow each of us to participate and voice opinions on where our city should expend and invest our tax dollars may not be especially comfortable for many to use.

The hearing lasted a little more than twenty minutes (and that included the time devoted to explaining how to call in) with what sounded to me like less than a half dozen citizens commenting.

Admittedly, you can also phone members of the City Council, or write pen and ink letters, and I understood from Mayor Nystrom's comments that there were also some, but not many emails received. So perhaps that means the rest of us were just fine with the proposed budget, but perhaps not.   

One of the callers Monday night offered the Board of Education's budget request was 'insane' while another called it 'out of control.' Neither offered any suggestions about what either 'sane' or 'in control' looked like so I'm not sure how helpful those insights were especially since about 35% of the Board of Education's budget is for Norwich Free Academy's tuition and services for our children.

I've eavesdropped on all the meetings of the City Council and Board of Education AdHoc Committee who've worked tirelessly to find common ground and a consensus on dollars to fund the education budget and I all I can think of is Hughes Mearns' poem, Antigonish.
    
When all we do is talk about change all we get is hoarse. We can't afford to continue until tomorrow changing how we pay for all the government we want and need. Talk is cheap; action is the only hard currency that counts because tomorrow never knows. 
-bill kenny