2020 : We Are All One

'We Are All One', 24x36, Acrylic on Canvas, 2020. www.shannonlester.com

This is a personal blog. Shit is gonna get real personal. For me, 2020 has been a remarkable year. I learned so much about myself, humanity, and the natural world that we’ve all been neglecting. I still have so much to learn but my eyes have been opened in many ways.

The main thing I have learned is that even in the darkest times, maybe especially during these times, we human beings have an incredible ability to have hope. Before the pandemic, late 2019 and very early January I was deeply depressed. It was mainly because of a boy and poor choices I made; the usual source of my struggles in the past. This time was really bad because I made the wrong choices with my heart when I definitely knew better. I had reached a point where I had learned my lessons but I still went against my instincts and better judgements and made choices that ended up hurting my mental health very badly. I lost my job, and I lost a friend.

2020 came around after a very difficult end to 2019 and I started to get my second wind. I threw myself into my drag and my art. At the beginning of the year I had an incredible drive to keep going. My drag alter-ego Sasha was very busy with gigs, private birthday parties, producing Embodiment V at UBC-O, and the opening of Friends of Dorothy where I started performing fairly regularly. Unfortunately prior to this I was also struggling with some severe back problems and it only got worse after a few months of dancing around Kelowna in heels.

Fortunately for me the world shut down around the same time that my body did. I had been booked for our ten year anniversary show in Tokyo and planned an exciting Japan reunion trip, but as Covid hit that was very quickly cancelled and so was everything else. At the same time my back had gotten so bad that I could barely walk. I had suffered from a slipped disc years before and it was obviously very severely out again. It was very likely herniated. Though I was in excruciating pain, this made lock down easy. It felt like we were all in this together and I was almost relieved to have everyone in the world take a little break with me too. In my mind, I thought maybe Mother Nature would get a break from us and our constant abuse as well.

It felt comforting to slow down in a way and the idea of isolating and focusing entirely on my art from home pleased me quite a bit. I dove into my painting full-time and I started SASHA TV, my drag YouTube variety show that included my original music, painting, quarantine cooking and comedy bits. I had a lot of time on my hands and I wasn’t willing to stop doing drag even if I couldn’t dance in heels anymore.

This made the first lock down quite good. I made so much art, ate a lot of good food and I had a lot of fun making ten full episodes of SASHA TV. This led to some great opportunities for me including art sales, commissions and even an acting gig (details on that later- coming next year).

During 2020 I suffered from a lot of physical pain but I also took it as a time to heal my mind and my heart. It took me a year to feel fully emotionally good again and my body is now almost back on track. I also started performing again a bit in the Fall before the recent winter lock down which was really, really nice. It was especially nice to interact with people on the mic and work on my comedy and hosting skills.

I also dove deep into my own personal spirituality (something which I’ve always pursued privately) and started to become more self-aware of my responsibility as a privileged person living in Canada, a safe, wealthy country in the world. I no longer took little things for granted and because I started to learn so much more about nature, especially the ocean, I started to see how much impact my own personal choices make on the environment as well. I started to look very closely at my habits and in particular my diet.

I was reminded that much of the food that I eat is not only unethical, (comes from extremely corrupt companies) but it is also very unsustainable and causes a lot of damage to the natural world. This is primarily the meat and fishing industries I’m referring to. Both industries are very much alive with corruption to make a profit at any means. Human greed and the increasing demand for meat and seafood has put capitalism at the forefront worldwide. Unfortunately the world is severely overpopulated by humans and our eating habits have caused a lot of damage to the natural world that is almost irreversible at this point. For example, over-fishing and the general corruption of the fishing industry (bycatch and continuously fishing endangered species), industrial pollution, global warming (still heavy reliance on fossil fuels), clear cutting of rain forests to raise cattle for meat and grow palm oil (still happening and still contributing to global warming) etc, etc. The list of environmental atrocities is very long right now. We have most definitely turned a blind eye.

The biggest thing I learned this year in 2020 is that we are now experiencing the worst environmental crisis of human history. We have devastated the natural world to the point where there is very little left and the oceans are severely polluted with plastic, human garbage, and toxic waste. Global warming has caused so many coral reefs to die, and polar bears and many other species to be pushed to the brink of extinction. The entire balance of nature has been thrown off entirely because of recent human activity. I wasn’t fully aware of these facts. I wasn’t aware of how many creatures are endangered, how much of the ocean is in danger, and how we are actually in danger as a race in the very near future unless we change the way we live drastically.

But now let’s get back to the topic of hope. Because it’s a powerful one.

We all know the answers: recycle, reuse, re-purpose, compost, support sustainable companies, don’t use disposable items, don’t use plastic, don’t support companies that pollute, stop polluting ourselves, stop being so wasteful, choose sustainable living, ethical, environmentally friendly food (mostly vegetarian or vegan), be vocal, sign petitions, write letters, educate ourselves. There are so many things we can all do that we don’t do. It’s not because we’re ignorant and it’s not because we don’t care; it’s because it’s a lot to process I think. Literally the amount of garbage one human being creates in a day/in a month/in a year is a lot to process. It’s a really heavy burden to carry to think that Mother Nature is dying because of us.

Some people believe that Mother Nature will never die but that she will in fact kill us first. The only problem with that theory is that humans are very resourceful. We are like cockroaches and there are many of us who would stop at nothing to find ways to survive without any concern for honouring and preserving the beauty and wonder that is mother nature; the main source of life on this planet. The privileged few continue to find ways to live their decadent lives without any concern for the world around them, and like it or not, many of us in Canada and North America are relatively very privileged in the larger picture. If you are able to stay in the comfort of your own home and have luxury goods shipped to your doorstep during a pandemic then you are most likely just as privileged as the billionaires that your money supports; it doesn’t matter whether you live in a condo or a mansion.

This is not the way forward. The thing that is a lot more exciting to me personally than the possibility of merely surviving despite environmental crisis is the possibility of reversing the damage and thriving in harmony with nature. Science tells us that we can change and that this dream is possible. It requires dramatic, drastic change from everyone on the planet but one thing we have all learned this year is that drastic change is coming whether we like it or not.

In 2020, we also learned that the world can act as one. The entire world shut down this year. The entire world. That means if we all decide to come together and put nature first, to heal our lands, to heal our oceans, to stop putting human greed and comfort above the environment, that means that we can actually move forward into a green and healthy future. We are very capable of creating a hell on earth (we’ve already done a pretty good job at that). We have a lot of power. More than we even realize. We can also create a Utopia where we actually live in harmony with nature once again, and no matter how impractical it may seem that is what I am choosing. I urge my friends and loved ones to start making small changes in your life a well, as inconvenient as they may seem. Little things all add up and once we prioritize positive change it only becomes second nature.

So, as much as we would like to blame 2020 for all our problems, the truth is this was our opportunity to take a closer look at ourselves. It is entirely up to us how we move forward in 2021. I really hope that we all choose to start caring because the alternative doesn’t look very pretty at this point. We are neither separate from nor above Mother Nature. We Are All One.