Quarantine Diary #59, 5/12/2020 - Blue

Something I read recently - and something someone rhetorically asked me - pursue the same question.

When will this end? How can we live well in the middle of this scary, divisive, devastating pandemic?

I have no precise or particular answer but I do see it through two lenses.

Politics. Story.

Part of the Misery of Now is the Politics of Now. We observe the chaos brought upon all of us by the lack of a plan (even though the Obama team left a plan). If we pay attention to the news the main theme is the divisiveness, the stalemating, the this governor vs Trump, and Trump vs that reporter who was asking a legitimate question, and then the others who are Trump’s backbone stating that the problem is not the paucity of plans or planners, but the media, and on and on it goes. Scientists being second-guessed by politicians who couldn’t figure out how to get out of a locked cardboard box. The politics of money and the politics of power; usually they are about the same thing. Unless one is waiting for money. Then it is about the politics of “Where is the money?”

It is legitimate to pay attention to this. Not paying attention, not knowing some of the names and some of the plays and players reduces us. Power is happening. We don’t put out a fire by turning our back on it to pick the flowers across the street. If you haven’t watch PBS News Hour lately, watch the first 10-15 minutes of it a few times per week. There really are smart people out there who are working hard to talk to smart people.

But there is also a Story going on. Dixie and Michol, Franc and Joyce and others of you have written some really good comments lately. Quarantine is not awful all the time. For some of us, this is a breather in complicated lives. Lessening of income is scary. Losing financial security is scary. Not knowing what will happen to us economically or health-wise is scary.

But buying less, going no place, tipping more to the individuals who help us, seeing the people in our neighborhoods play with their kids – these are powerful differences. Going to bed without worrying about tomorrow’s to-do list because it isn’t critical, this is different. Gaining 4 pounds around our middle while losing 27 pounds of anxiousness about things we can’t fix. Okay. There is a story going on here.

You hear parts of mine. Walking more. Saw a turtle. Visiting nesting ospreys. Reading to my grandchild. (Apparently the Blue Angels were flying over Chicago today. She called them the Blue Aprons. Thus the photos….) My neighbor across the street walks her baby once a day, her dog twice a day, and herself three times a day. People are planting more and bigger gardens. People are adopting dogs and cats! My son works for a bicycle manufacturing company, last weekend they had one of the biggest day of sales in their history. 

There is the politics of this pandemic. There are our stories playing out.

When you can’t stand any more of the political craziness, turn away and look at your story, the story of people in your neighborhood, the ones you see out your window. Len and I made this rule years ago. When you see the same neighborhood dog the second time, you can name it. The dog doesn’t care and you have made your life more whimsical.

When stories get too cloying, pay attention to politics again. One story is a story. When 85,000 people die, those stories become the next wave of politics.

We are in a crisis. Crises are about stories and politics and stories.

…

I haven’t got anything else today. It’s sunny outside and Len is in the yard doing things and in about five minutes, I’m going to be there, too.