3/30 Covid-19 Update: Nothing but community can do this
I was talking to some friends this weekend about how to live within the relentless covid news cycle. It already felt like news was happening at warp speed before the outbreak. I don't know what's faster than warp speed, but that' seems to be what this is. How do you strike the balance (lol - as if anyone is striking a balance with anything right now. If someone tells you they are, they're lying) between being adequately informed/engaged and being overwhelmed/disempowered?
I think it's a similar question a lot of us asked after the 2016 election -- there was this sense of responsibility to know what was happening, to be a good citizen, to recognize that disconnecting was a luxury of deep privilege, but also allowing ourselves the space to admit that engaging with the daily horror show caused a lot of anxiety, and fatigue, and hopelessness. I've tried to be a lot more intentional with the content and frequency of my news consumption over the last few years. I fully opted out of the impeachment proceedings --- I didn't watch a single minute of the trial, or read a single article about it. I unfortunately had a good idea of how it was going to end, and I couldn't think of a single beneficial thing that would come from giving it my attention and time.
Right now my job is to give covid my full attention and time - but if it weren't, I think I'd be asking similar questions. Unlike impeachment, none of us know how this is going to play out, and there's a temptation to follow every development. But I think we're starting to sense the contours and shape of what's coming our wya - a tremendously painful month ahead in which a lot of our fellow citizens are going to die, continued and sustained social distancing for a good while after that, and the poorest and most vulnerable bearing the greatest burden (as always). What is the right amount of information that builds awareness of and solidarity with those suffering, inspires us to take care of our neighbors in a way we never have before, compels us to hold our elected officials to account for what they've allowed to happen, but also leaves us with some joy and hope at the end of the day? Please let me know if you have the answer. :)
xoxo,
Alison
Ways to help:
If you're able to, avoid going grocery shopping the first few days of the month: I saw this somewhere on twitter and it seemed like a really simple, easy thing to do to help. Most people on food stamps receive their payments on the first of the month (that's true in Washington, but you can look it up for your own state). These people are likely in pretty desperate circumstances, and you can make sure they get what they need by avoiding stores at the beginning of the month (and also trying not to buy things with WIC stickers on them if you can help it).
Spare a moment for sorrow: John Dickerson wrote a beautiful article about how to actually be in this together and show up for people whose individual mourning might be overlooked by public debate and global suffering.
Today a woman became a widow. A daughter never got to say goodbye to her father. A son answered his mother’s request for a blanket, the last words she would ever say to him. For many thousands, today will be one of the hinge points of their life; everything will be defined as either “before” or “after.”... Many of us are distracted, enraged, scared, or just doing what we can to manage a full plate of immediate worries. But in this period, we should spare a moment for sorrow and grief. Ideally a public figure would use his platform, as heroic leaders have in the past, to set this tone. In the absence of that, perhaps we can all use our platforms, whether they be Twitter or the family text chain, to say what I have tried to say here: that we feel your loss and sorrow, even if words are too clumsy. And when words fail altogether, a moment of silence can say You’re not alone, even in a moment of deep loneliness. The test of a time like this is that it either drives us toward our common humanity, or it drives us apart. Let it be the former.
Tl;dr -- How to make COVID-19 support pods to help our elderly/sick neighbors and friends: This is the best thread I've seen about how to step in and take care of someone who is truly isolated at home due to age, or being immunocompromised. "If you know folks who are isolated/alone/suffering from contact deprivation, I urge you to feel into your capacity and boundaries and see if you can offer some support with your full heart (half-hearted support often is NOT regulating, but rather more distressing):
Call the person who is struggling and make a list with them of their needs (material and emotional)
Then make a list of 2-6 people who can build a pod around that person to meet those needs (don't push ppl past their boundaries when soliciting support (guilt/good intention often causes people to over commit, leading to resentment and relationship failure)
Ask people in the pod to commit to specific support tasks (video calls, dropping off groceries, etc)
"All the professionals in the world cannot replace an individual's need to be seen, held, spoken to in an organic way by the people around them. People need to be CHOSEN - held as worthy of care & love outside of professional contexts. Nothing but community can do this."
Live the questions: Living the Questions is an occasional On Being segment where Krista muses on questions from our listening community. How can we be present to what's happening in the world without giving in to despair and hopelessness? “However seriously we must take what’s happening in the world and what the headlines are reflecting, it is never the full story of our time. It’s not the last word on what we’re capable of. It’s not the whole story of us.”
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Covid-19 Poem of the Day:
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
-Mary Oliver
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