Silver Linings Playbook

“I am practicing being kind over being right”

– Matthew Quick, Silver Linings Playbook

I was on a trip to visit friends in Northern California two years ago and was walking along a river near their house when a 20-pound rat crawled out of the water in front of me. I quickly ran through the following options:

1. Am I on mushrooms? No. No, that was a lifetime and a very different story ago.
2. Am I hallucinating for some other reason? No, unless the orange juice from that morning had been spiked.
3. Am I terrified, and should I pass out? Yes, and maybe.

Turns out that what I’d stumbled across was a nutria, an animal I’d only heard about from the destruction they have visited upon the waterways of the American South, especially Louisiana and Florida. The specimen I saw wasn’t quite the size of the guys in the Fire Swamp from The Princess Bride above, but she may as well have been. And she surely wasn’t alone, as a female nutria can, by most reports, have dozens to even hundreds of offspring every year. Those babies are ready to make babies of their own in four to six months, and each one eats an amazing amount of plants and roots. The math gets depressing pretty quickly. Nutria have decimated coastlines in America for a very long time now, and have also made one semi-distracted walker pretty near pee himself while screaming like a little girl.

Originally, the nutria were brought to America for their fur, and were thought to be an excellent means of pest control when under control. But the cost they brought to bear was actually worse for their ecosystem than what they’d been brought to contain. You can find a similarly scary outcome if you take a moment looking at the impact the cane toad has had in Australia. Often the unexpected outcomes of a situation are just as important a part of a story as the expected ones.

That may be even more true when the unexpected outcomes are the other way around. When something scary also has the power to have some very unexpectedly silver linings.

After locking the front door a week and a half ago, one of the primary goals for all of us hunkering down is to keep spirits high and stay entertained. That quest has been doubly challenging for the hardcore sports fans out there who saw their primary means of entertainment disappear right as they had all kinds of time to fill. I’m all for binging on whatever show your guilty pleasure of choice is, but there’s nothing to get your mind off of things like the appointment television that live sports offers. I miss a Jokic laser-sighted pass or a Francouz save so much right now I’m going through withdrawals. Watching the Colorado Rockies Opening Day come and go felt like a tumbleweed rolling across my baseball soul. So much of the news these days feels so heavy that it can leave you shifting quickly from nightly news to videos of puppies just to balance out the mood. Check it out:

See? Without fail. But one cannot live on puppies alone, and that drives one to go looking for the silver linings that are finding their way amongst some ominous clouds out there.

On the sporting front, you need look no further than my amazing band of colleagues here at DNVR, who have filled each day with a ton of insights, laughs, and entertainment as they have found ways to look forward, backward, and sideways at Denver sports and a whole lot more. Whether you want to talk your favorite Colorado teams, gaming, or entertainment, the crew has been cranking out gems that will get your mind off the malaise for a moment.

There’s also been a wealth of stories of teams, players, and personnel going out of their way to donate to those in need. From Kevin Love starting a flood of donations for those impacted by the NBA shutdown to the Broncos donating a huge chunk of change to the COVID Impact Fund. The amount of good done by the breadth of professional sports during a time of crisis has been nothing short of inspiring in a moment when their bottom lines are being as deeply impacted as anyone else’s, and it’s inspiring to see them give back to the communities that support them.

And while sports is our usual bond around these parts, the silver linings certainly don’t stop at the stories the sports world provides. Seeing the industrial complex from automotive to technology to makeup find ways to retool their sites to help alleviate the needs of so many right now is an amazingly heartening view into how quickly we can mobilize to attack an issue when we need to.

Everyone staying home is also giving a few natural resources a moment to breathe. Literally. From pictures of dolphins swimming in the crystal-clear Venice canals to clear skies over many typically smoggy cities, there are areas like National Parks to your city streets that seem very happy for a momentary deep breath.

Don’t get me wrong, DNVR Nation. It’s a little scary out there, and there will be some truly trying moments in how all of this shakes out, both near and long term. But list above is truly a tiny smattering of the good that’s going on out there. Families and friends are reconnecting, neighborhoods and cities are rediscovering a little common kindness, and we’re all remembering that we’re a little more flexible than we thought. Though this moment is worrisome, there’s also a million silver linings going on that will bring some sunshine.

If you’ve got a silver lining to share, please drop it into the comments below so everyone can bask in it in a moment of need. Keep being good to each other out there. And just in case it’s been a really bad day, here’s one more dose…