“Hope has never trickled down, it has always sprung up.” ~Naomi Klein
Last night, after reading frightening coverage about this country’s abysmal preparation for Covid-19, with potential death tolls estimated to reach 1 to 1.5 million Americans, I dreamed about a family member just outside my window who couldn’t hear or see me calling him. Even in my dream I wondered which one of us wasn’t alive. I also dreamed about rotting food that grew into a malevolent presence. (And I dreamed about pastel-colored baby llamas…)
I woke up to cancel and respond to cancellation notices for all sorts of workshops, events, and get-togethers. Tentatively my classes for April are still a go-status, but I realize that may change. So much is changing.
Like nearly everyone else, I’m taking in more news than I normally do. I’ve heard experts say this pandemic is the event of a century. I’ve heard experts say this will be generation-defining. And of course there are people like conservative columnist David Brooks whose piece in the NYT is titled “Pandemics Kill Compassion, Too” with the subtitle “You may not like who you’re about to become.” He writes about the ugly history of epidemics, where people blame and refuse to help one another. Of course there aren’t many accounts of how neighbors and faith communities actually helped one another in those times; history rarely tracks the experiences of ordinary people. Rebecca Solnit’s book, A Paradise Built in Hell, describes how ordinary people DO react. Here’s part of my post about this.
Author Rebecca Solnit takes a close look at disasters including earthquakes, floods, and explosions. She finds tragedy and grief, but something else too, something rarely noticed. During and after these horrific crises there shines from the wreckage something extraordinary.
People rise up as if liberated, regardless of their differences, to act out of deep regard for one another. They improvise, coordinate, create new social ties, and pour themselves into work that has no personal gain other than a sense of meaning. Such people express strangely transcendent feelings of joy, envisioning a greater and more altruistic community in the making. Even those suffering the most horrific misfortune often turn around to aid others and later remember it as the defining moment of their lives. This is a testament to the human spirit, as if disaster cracks us open to our better selves. As Solnit says, “The possibility of paradise is already within us as a default setting.”
Solnit wasn’t writing specifically about global pandemics, but already this greater human spirit is happening all around us. In my own networks I know of:
- employees offering to handle a heavier workload so that co-workers with health problems can stay at home
- healthcare workers taking on more shifts to deal with a massively increased workload
- families looking after other people’s children due to school and daycare closures
- nursing mothers vowing to share breastmilk if fellow mothers are too sick to nurse
- neighbors offering to do errands and yard chores for elderly and/or sick neighbors
- faith communities matching volunteers with people requesting help
And community members are getting together online to organize all sorts of mutual aid well beyond their own close networks. Here’s what my friend Mark, activist and generally awesome person, posted yesterday.
And here’s an example from an apartment dweller:
The next few months will likely test us, maybe test us severely. Through whatever we suffer, this pandemic may help us see we are interconnected beyond our own fingertips, beyond our own borders. May we rise to our best selves, creative and caring, no matter what. May we keep up one another’s spirits as the people of Siena, Italy do — singing from their homes and apartments during the mandated quarantine.
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” ~Howard Zinn
We have been fortunate in Australia. Apart from ludicrous and embarrassing outbreaks of inappropriate panic buying, which still continue unabated, the government appears to be dealing proactively and competently with the health crisis. This week, our universities have welcomed back around 31,000 Chinese students who completed their required self-isolation period. While there are still ugly incidents of morons who avoid and abuse anyone of remotely Asian appearance, for the most part everyone is just getting on with their lives as normally as possible. Employers are not penalising sick staff. Neighbours are delivering food and assistance to sick neighbours. Tom Hanks and his wife have not been vilified for possibly passing Covid-19 to the hundreds of people they encountered here up to the point of their diagnosis, but have received expressions of sympathy and a taste of our excellent hospital cuisine…. OK, that last bit might be gallows-humour, but having emerged from a vision of hell in our recent bushfire season, Australians are not letting a bit of pestilence get them down. I wish you and yours health and safety.
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Australia has had enough. I wish you freedom from all global pandemics and as much freedom from US celebrities as you’d like.
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Amen to that, but of the celebs out there, Tom Hanks is happily pretty normal and sensible.
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Your comments are sincerely felt. Phyllis
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Here in the Twin Cities, I noticed that there were people in our on-line NextDoor social network offering to run errands for the elderly and others who can’t get out right now and that gave me hope. That particular network is so often a source of bickering that this bit of compassion was a lovely surprise. And I hope that spreads, as kindness tends to do. Thanks for this post, Laura.
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That’s wonderful to hear, thanks Kathleen.
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So, so very beautiful dear Laura. Thank you for your clarity and wisdom, your sense of groundedness to a place that observes the facts and responds with love. I’m so glad you’re in my life.
Hugs, Jessica
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Thank you Jessica! And thank you for all the good you do and the wisdom you share. Time for light to shine ever brighter.
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Crises always bring out both the best and the worst in human nature, If we’re lucky, the best outnumber the worst.
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I’m seeing so much good happening around me. News, of course, will focus on the worst but kindness is everywhere.
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Yes, I’ve seen some. It’s heartening.
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Here’s a tweet from Mariann Sullivan @marisul
“RIght now is such a great time to foster or adopt a dog or cat. Not only are the shelters overcrowded, but, if you are forced to stay home all the time anyway, it’s the perfect time for acclimating. Plus, nothing is a better distraction from the woes of the world.”
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From San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, whose city is at the epicenter of the
viral outbreak in the Bay Area of California: “This is our generation’s
great test, our moment to stand tougher as a community. Amid our
collective fears, we will find our uncommon courage.”
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There is no practice run on this pandemic but we do have plenty of history to look back upon. My oh my, this is one whopper of a test, my darling friend.
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