No more news; time for Waterfront

September 3rd, 2009 at 05:41pm Linda Grist Cunningham

For four weeks, Rockford has been on hyper-alert. We need to stop, take a deep breath, walk around some and get back to work on Tuesday.

Not for a minute am I diminishing the importance of the news of the past weeks. The city is tense and stressed. Every new headline mires itself in accusations and conclusion-drawing.

The ease with which we can all express our opinions — from rrstar.com comments, interviews and letters to the editor, to radio call-ins and television reports — adds to the hyper-alert sense that things are spinning out of control.

As I have written in earlier posts and in last week’s column, we are a scared people. We are scared for a variety of very real reasons and it causes us to lash out. That fear makes us far less likely to seek consensus and solution.

Today, we are tired, too. Too much news. Too much information. Too many opinions. Too much chaos. Too many headlines that we don’t want to read. Too much to ponder and sort through. We will make bad decisions if we act now.

Instead, now is the time to pull back. To put aside for a few days the finger-pointing and the action-taking. No, it’s not going to go away. Yes, we feel like we must do something, anything, right now. No, it is not easy to slow down and think, when running fast and doing stuff feels so much better.

Go downtown to Waterfront. Listen to some music. Eat a pork chop. Hug your kids. Hold hands with your partner. Sit on the porch and watch the neighborhood kids. Say a prayer. Sing a song. Walk along the bike path. Stare at the moon (it’s full; did you know?). Ponder all these things in your heart and head.

We will make better decisions and find better solutions if we do.

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