Coronablog Three: Keeping it Together

doves and jackdaws happening along to see if the feeder’s full (but it’s often not, for two reasons: I don’t want them relying on it, and now that everybody’s home I also don’t want to attract the attention of the ubiquitous nay-sayers who might hassle me over feeding them). I’ll let you know that my cats are relaxing in the streams of liquid sunlight even now splashing off my screen rendering this act of writing nigh-on impossible, that flowers are blooming and bees (like the golden bumblebee I illustrated this entry with; she turned up in the garden yesterday and made me very happy) humming and in many a way, all is right with the world.

     But of course, as we all know, all is not right with the world. The semi-parasitic hominid crust covering this rock in space is ill. Our loved ones are in danger. Not just from this virus itself, but from the tides of ignorance and foot-dragging greed plunging us all much farther into nightmare than we have any need to be. But I wax dramatic. Let’s just hit up some facts for starters.

     They update the numbers once a day, in a few hours, but as of yesterday there were here in the Netherlands 5,560 confirmed cases of Novel Coronavirus COVID-19. Actual numbers must be much, much higher because, just like most of the rest of the world, the response here has been very much too little, too late and testing is restricted to people in actual distress. A friend of mine is pretty sure she had it – she works in an international setting, greeting people from all over the world every day. She developed the characteristic dry cough, the fever. It all followed the listed symptoms in straightforward, textbook fashion. Her doctor, however, explained that his hands were tied: protocol is protocol, and there be no leeway therein. This was weeks ago, before we were much admitting, as a nation, that it had even got here. She hadn’t traveled, herself, to one of the affected areas; there would be no test. And it’s worse now. Only people with hospital-admission-level symptoms get tested. I’m sure you’re familiar with this in your area as well.

     I’m still horrified by how many people don’t seem to grasp the importance of the quarantine rules. People are being forcibly turned away from playgrounds and beaches – just… don’t gather, people! It’s not hard! But no, there they are holding neighborhood barbecues or hanging around street corners clapping each other on the back and jovially spraying viral particles willy-nilly. My husband reported that yesterday, when he had to secure our sustenance and necessities, the supermarket itself was not adhering to the new rules (only a few allowed in at a time, enforced personal distance, and so on) but I cannot find information on where and how to report this. It puts all of us in danger. I wish people could understand that. I do know, however, never to underestimate the willingness of human beings to wholeheartedly embrace an erroneous conclusion: when Bird Flu was all the rage a while back, a woman I knew wouldn’t eat bread because “birds lay eggs and you use eggs to make bread”. I eventually gave up trying to talk this one out. The way people are acting right now, we’ll have a full-on, papers-to-be-outside lockdown on us in no time… if our government can get its spine together and actually do something.

     Hospitals are overwhelmed. In several areas emergency rooms are only open to corona patients. A friend of mine has a potentially life-threatening condition; his surgery has been canceled with absolutely no indication of when it will again be possible. He can't travel to have it done; everywhere is similarly swamped. A close family member of mine has been on a waiting list for a very important, life-changing medical program for more than a year… and it now seems very likely that we won’t be getting that started in September after all. Even if our populace manages to stick to the rules long enough and well enough to prevent a total collapse of all medical services, it’s going to be a very long time before anything resembling business as usual can start to return. Years. And that’s already so, here at what I still see as the going-into-it end of all this. Despite the protestations of people who don’t understand how this all works, this is all just getting started. We’re nowhere near the peak yet – the peak of the virus, the peak of the deprivations, the peak of the civil and international unrest, the recriminations. This roller coaster’s only just out the gate.

     I want to make a couple of suggestions about how to behave for the good of all. First of all, don’t panic. That’s really, really essential. If you haven’t yet, give Derren Brown’s book “Happy: Why more or less everything is absolutely fine” a read. It has some excellent advice about how to apply stoic thinking to getting through stuff sanely, to keep your head against all the odds. If you’ve already read up on your stoics and your history and so on, there’ll be a lot of factual stuff you’re already familiar with but don't let that stop you, it’s about the perspectives and how to apply them in your own way, to your own life. I found a great deal I could take away from it even though I already mostly think that way anyway -- although where his mantra is “it’s fine”, I find that I cannot go that far with some things and instead say, “so what?” And that's the point: it's a primer to help you think up your own exercises, not an instruction manual. You’ll find something that works for you, for now. Anyway, this is the best possible time to read this book.

     Secondly, let’s leave other people alone, shall we? I have a friend and a family member whose life’s work revolves around sewing and the crafts of the cloth. Both of them are just struggling along like everyone else, trying to make a living and keep families going and deal with being shut in. Both of them are being harassed pretty much unceasingly to dump everything they’ve built and go over to making masks. Yes, it is great if someone who knows how to do that decides to, and helps out. No, the volume wouldn’t be enough to warrant turning everything else in their lives upside down just to do what YOU think they “should” be doing. Look to yourself. Are you going to walk out of your house and away from your family and start volunteering at a hospital or soup kitchen or help the police keep your neighborhood protocol-compliant? Pick up litter? Take in abandoned pets? No? Then leave your neighbor, your friend, your family member alone about what they could be doing instead of what they are doing. We’re all in this together and it takes all kinds; do not start dictating what everyone else “should” be doing. This is a time to police yourself, possibly as hard as you ever have, because we live now in times of uncertainty and panic. Plant your feet in reality, keep your head in the clouds, and help each other stand up, don’t tear each other down.

     And third, be reigned by logic. Don’t let the panic-suffused atmosphere of seething confusion drag you down to its level, and don’t let anyone else tell you how you “should” be thinking, dealing with things, coping, helping, sheltering. This world is about to come out of the initial panic into a state of terrible gloom and we will need to be strong to prevent ourselves, our loved ones, everyone around us from succumbing to grief and angst and loneliness and feelings of futility. Be vigilant, but be at ease so that if the winds of circumstance show you a way to go, to be, to help, to become stronger, to survive, to lift someone else up, to send a beacon into the void or to perceive one there and travel toward it, you’ll be ready, and won’t panic and miss it.

     Well, I guess I’ll knock this off for the day, except to add today’s numbers later when they’re released [and here they are: 6,412 cases in the Netherlands of which 41 are in the city in which I live]. You need to go do something, I should clean up the living room, and it’s time to think about something else. Me, I have a box of rocks on the way which I hope will arrive today: soapstone, from which I make things I call fiddlestones, which are for tactile distraction, and stuff like in the picture below.

     Stay safe, everyone, and look to each other. We’ll come out of this; let’s be the best we can when we do.