Disclaimer: This post is not about quilting 🙂
Raise your hand if you are tired of hearing about Covid-19. Raise your hand if you can’t help reading more, listening to more, and stressing more about it than you want to. I’m there with you.
So, what do we do? What do we think? How do we respond?
Well, I can only speak from my own experience. Do you know the saying, “Every cloud has a silver lining”? It’s kind of a motto for life that encourages the philosophy that even in dark times, there is something good. In whatever circumstance I find myself, I try to see the bright side. There are glass half-empty people in the world, and there are glass half-full people. I truly try to be glass half-full. Given the desire to find the good in people and in situations, I am trying to find the “good” right now.
Granted, it’s scary. The way that I deal with the fear is to try to put it into perspective. People have died. However, fewer people worldwide, thus far, have died than died in the U.S. last year from the flu. Projections? They are just that. Projections. I’m sure many books could be filled with projections about all kinds of things that never happened. I operate in facts, only. I know enough to know that statistics, projections, graphs, and tables, etc. can all be manipulated by the person or group presenting them. That is the reason I rarely watch documentaries meant to convince rather than inform. Don’t tell me what you think will happen…tell me what has happened. The reality is that hundreds of thousand of people have survived this disease. The reality is that the vast majority of people who have died had immune deficiencies that could also have caused them to succomb to the flu. I understand this is different than the flu and that it is more dangerous, for those who are vulnerable. For their sakes, we must be diligent at prevention, as much as we can be. The reality is, if you do get Covid-19, unless you are over 60, or have an underlying complicating medical condition, your chances of survical are much, much higher than your chance of death.
So, many of us are in our homes. We are distancing ourselves from others in a physical sense. We are finding ourselves trying to keep up with our children’s or grandchildren’s education. Some are still trying to carry on educating our student’s from home. Some are on the front lines caring for those fighting this illness. Many are in “essential” industries where they must continue to go out in public every day and perform their job, hoping and praying that their hand washing, sanitizing, and make-shift masks will be enough to protect them and their families.
Where is the good?
First, we are pulling together as a nation for the first time in a very long time. We are doing what we can to support those who are on the front lines. The American people have always worked together when we are threatened from without or from within. There has been so much division for the last few years, it is pretty great to see people working together.
Second, we are HOME for a change. For an example, I have lost, or had to reschedule 5 speaking engagements and 2 classes…so far. Will I miss the money? Yes. Will I survive without it? Also yes. The trade off is that I have found my end of March/April schedule suddenly quite empty and open for me to sew at home and to focus on finishing my own projects, as well as quilts for my customers. I’ve cleaned, cooked, and spent time with my hubby, when he is home.
Finally, this quarantine period is forcing many people to slow down, and spend time with their families. Those of us in our 50’s and older remember a much slower time: a time without internet (or computers for that matter), a time without phones and screens dominating our waking moments, a time when kids could ride their bikes around town or play in their front yards without fear, a time when evenings were spent eating supper around the table, doing homework, and then perhaps either watching a family program or playing a board game. That time has been long gone for many years. People being available to others 24/7 has made them less available to their own families. Suddenly, at least some aspects of that time are here again. My hope is that when this is all over, and it will be at some point, a newfound sense of family will remain. I hope that the slower pace many of us are experiencing will catch on a bit. I hope that many of the us who have fallen out of the crazy hamster wheel that we live in won’t get back in, but instead will adopt a slower pace in life.
If this pandemic could make a positive change in our culture going forward, that would truly be a silver lining.
