The last month and a half has been a little crazy. Do you agree? It is like we have moved to a new country where the language and the customs are very different from our own. If you watch “The Flash“, it is like we have vibed to Earth 10, where all the people we know from Earth 1 are here, they have the same name, but they aren’t the same person. They cover their face with masks, wash their hands incessantly and stand 6 feet apart from everyone. They do not touch others nor spend time with people. Even my blog posts are different, with titles like “A Report From The Field” and “My World Got Crazy” and “These Are Not Normal Times”. These don’t sound like the pursuit of health, wealth and happiness.
Words like pandemic, COVID, death count, social distancing, quarantine and PPE have crept into our daily conversations. Seeing people out walking with faces covered by masks or bandanas and crossing the street to avoid each other is common. We wipe down shopping carts before using them and leave everything that doesn’t require refrigeration on the porch for 3 days before bringing them into the house. All other shopping has been suspended or well planned out to avoid touching anything or anyone that could be contaminated. Normally busy streets are empty and I can complete my morning walk without seeing a single person.
People are either working from home, not working or working under a tremendous amount of pressure. Here in New York State as in many parts of the country, the number of people filing for unemployment has skyrocketed over the last few weeks.
According to the Albany Business Review, 825,000 initial unemployment claims were filed in all of 2019. In the first few weeks after NY State implemented quarantine orders to fight COVID19 over 440,000 initial claims were filed. According to CNBC, over 22 million people have filed for unemployment over the last four weeks. That is a lot of people out of work and struggling to make ends meet. Many businesses will not recouperate from having to shut their doors for weeks on end. This means even more people will be out of work and struggling to pay bills and to keep a roof over their head.
Personally I think our world will never be the same as it was before this pandemic. These change we are experiencing are not simply on the surface of life, they run deep. We need to pay attention as we “flatten the curve” of COVID19 that we hold on to the changes that will help us avoid or lessen future outbreaks. We should also hold on to the changes that have had an unexpected and positive effect on our world.
Image by Anja🤗#helpinghands#stayathome #solidarity#stays healthy🙏 from Pixabay
For instance:
- Improved quality and frequency of hand washing
- Wiping down the gas pump and the grocery cart before using
- Keeping hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes in the car and using whenever needed
- Not simply texting family and friends but picking up the phone to call
- Eating at home more often saves money, improves health (when done right) and gives us family time
- Engaging in inexpensive forms of entertainment like puzzles, games, card playing, hiking, and biking (back to my childhood)
- More people working remotely means less cars on the road which results in less traffic, less road rage and less pollution
- People spending less money, time and resources on the accumulation of more stuff and more time with the people who truly matter to them, leads to improved quality of key relationships
For those of us out of work; this pandemic has forced us to slow down, to spend more time with the people we live with, to take part in simple pleasures. It has forced us to spend less time shopping, spending and engaged in the pursuit of the accumulation of material things. Personally, I think these are positive changes and worth keeping.
This pandemic has not allowed us to spend time with family and friends that we do not live with. It has kept us from hugging, from entertaining, from playing our favorite sports. For many of us, it has kept us sitting on the couch watching television, checking death statistics, and complaining. It has led to unemployment, poverty, sickness and death. These are changes should be ditched as soon as possible!
I hope we all learn some lessons from this crazy time period. Lessons like the importance of family, loved ones and close friends. I hope we learn to appreciate the people in our lives that bring us joy and make us happy to be alive.
When I wrote this on 4/25/20; the Center for Disease Control reported a total of 865, 585 cases of COVID19 in the United States and 48,816 deaths. As I publish this post on 4/26/20; the CDC reports a total of 895,766 case and 50,439 deaths. The magnitude of this crisis is tremendous and the numbers are increasing daily. If you are reading this on 4/27 or beyond – see how these numbers keep growing here.
I am grateful for the men and women who risk their lives to take care of the sick and dying. This includes all of the staff at hospitals, nursing homes, and health clinics. I am thankful for the people who keep the grocery stores open and the food being grown and delivered. That feeling of gratitude that I am feeling; well I hope to keep that as well.
What positive changes will you keep after this crisis is over?
Lake Girl
