Tag: coronavirus

Thank You, Health Workers, Thank You

Fortune for the day – “Anticipate the good so you may enjoy it.” – Ethiopian proverb

Sometimes it takes something monumentally jarring, to shake us out of our unconscious fog, our dull routines, our smug righteousness, and our unhealthy patterns. On an individual basis that can mean an accident, a job loss, a health scare, a broken relationship, or a death of a loved one, among other things. There is nothing like a crisis to bring our most important priorities into sharp, clear focus. That is the good that comes out of all crises. We quickly remember what we are most grateful for, when whatever that is, is threatened to be taken from us. I pray that we all now realize that our biggest priorities are not our political leanings, the size of our bank accounts, the championships of our favorite teams, or where we are going on vacation this summer. Our biggest priority, clearly, is our collective health, our common humanity, and how we all respond to this health crisis, together, on a global basis. Without good global health, we cannot live life as we know it. Everything we love about living, the everyday experiences, the daily freedoms and joys, quickly get eroded away, until we are all isolated, alone and afraid to do anything. Does it take something this extreme for us to realize how much of living comfortably and easily, we take for granted?

A lot of people who I know, have been comparing the scenes lately in the grocery stores, in the neighborhoods, and on the news channels, to science fiction movies, where we inhabitants of Earth, have one common enemy, that we must come together, in order to defeat it. I always feel so excited and energized and proud, when all of the actors in these sci-fi movies, from every background, every nation, come together, pool their resources and make mince meat out of the “evil” invaders. I hope beyond hope that we have a glorious, reality-TV moment, in the near future, where we muster all of our greatest strength, and all of our collective brilliance, and all of our deepest compassion, from every corner of this globe, and we put this COVID-19 thing behind us, triumphantly, and unitedly.

Most importantly, I want to say thank you, especially to all of the VERY brave health workers out there, all over the globe. Your bravery and sacrifice and calm countenance, is awe-striking. You are showing all of us what is the very best about our humanity. Thank you for that much-needed reminder. You are true, selfless leaders. Thank you for everything. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Image
Think Smarter (twitter)

We are definitely going through one hell of a collective experience, right now, aren’t we? When the dust settles on all of this, there will be a lot of good that comes out of the experience. There will hopefully be a lot of “growth”, for individuals, for entities and institutions, and for society, as a whole. We will have learned a lot about ourselves and where we can improve, in all areas of our lives, and in our worldly, global, collective lives. Witnessing that growth, will likely give us some satisfaction and with that satisfaction and understanding and wisdom gleaned, the byproduct of happiness, will naturally be felt. Just hang on and stay well, readers and friends. Look for the good that will come out of all this. It is there. The good is always there. And when we notice the good, we feel happy. Naturally.

Fortune for the Day – “Before enlightenment: Chop wood. Carry water. After enlightenment: Chop wood. Carry water.” – Zen saying

Needs More Stress-bell

I am not sure why, or even if it is healthy, but lately, to deal with the stress that I am feeling, concerning this whole coronavirus situation, and therefore feeling ancillary anxiety about every and all of the other situations, which are also affected by the coronavirus, I have found great comfort in reading books or watching movies about people who are experiencing a great deal more stress (we are talking EXTREME stress) than I am currently feeling. It is said that “comparison is the thief of happiness”, but not necessarily, if you aren’t at all enchanted with someone else’s mess of a life. The movie, which I just watched last night with my family, and the fiction book that I am currently reading, are excellent, engrossing, and have allowed me to discharge and to channel all of that excess fearful, worry-mongering energy into fictional lives. I wonder, perhaps, if this is my way to process the jittery, intensifying energy, safely and comfortably in my own, disinfected home. Granted, it might be a better choice for me, to read about gardens or unicorns or to watch G-rated Disney movies/musicals, or even to just try to gaze at my belly button while counting my breaths, but honestly, I wouldn’t be able to sit still for any of that right now. It is much better for me, to hold tightly to my frenetic energy, in my stiffened joints, while sitting on the edge of my seat, lost in the make-believe world of someone else’s “living on the edge” experiences, and then to be able to release all of that uptight stress, with a sigh of relief, “Oh, relax. That movie wasn’t real. This is a fiction book. It’s all ‘pretend.’ ” If you want to deal with the coronavirus stress with more stress, like I am doing, watch Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems and read American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. Adam Sandler plays a crazy jeweler/gambling addict whose life is spiraling out of control, and American Dirt tells the tale of a mother and child in Mexico, who are trying to escape the drug cartels, by becoming migrants, and trying to make their way, safely from Mexico to Denver. Both experiences are so thrilling and packed with twists and turns, that you will, in no way, be able to move your mind to the scary COVID maps on the computer, or to the cashier who coughed all over your receipt at the grocery store. Who knew that the remedy to dealing with stress is to add more stress? You’re welcome.

Fortune for the Day – “To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.” – Confucius

A Great Wind

Fortune for the Day – “With our thoughts we make the world.” – Buddha

I am getting sort of fatigued from feeling this fear, frustration and worry about the coronavirus and other troubling headlines. I think that this is a good sign. I think that I am slowly climbing out of my “lowlies” into, perhaps, anger. Of course, part of this anger is because we were supposed to have new garage doors installed today and the doors did not make it on to the truck, for reasons unbeknownst to seemingly anyone. I am sure that my surge of anger is probably related to that event, as well, but I still think that there is more to it.

I once worked for a woman, who sadly lost her brother to cancer. She sunk into a deep depression for which she basically sat on the couch and stared into nothingness, for months on end. Every day she would call me and she would casually mention that she would not be coming into the office, like this was a novel, unusual surprise. Then one day, after many, many weeks, my employer popped into the office with a swirling energy that was an exponential of her already high powered, energetic nature. She was full of ideas, and visions for the future. She was radiant. She was back to herself, and then some. We quickly got back into the groove of her business. A few weeks later after her return to work, we got to talking about her “come back” and she told me that she just got sick of feeling miserable. She got sick of herself. She got sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. Her plain disgust with her misery, propelled her off of her couch. My boss all of the sudden realized that she could not spend even one more day sitting on her couch. Now, my employer had every right in the world to feel her deep pain and she never once lamented about any wasted time on the couch. She needed to process her great sadness, in just the way she did it and in just the amount of time that it took for her. Then, my boss took all of that stored energy that had gotten recharged into her body and her being, as she sat stoically and quietly and patiently on her couch, and she put that stored energy towards sideline businesses that honored her brother’s memory and made her feel passionate about life again. She also used that time on the couch to reflect on things that weren’t working in her life and she then made those changes, even moving from a home that she had lived in, for decades.

This is an extreme example of something that I think we all do, throughout our lives, at different levels. Our energy levels spike and wane, according to how we are feeling and thinking and reacting and doing. We are not static by nature, as individuals or even as a whole humanity. I think a big part of any major victory or healthy change for anybody or any society, is that we get tired and bored of ourselves when we are in a standstill. We can only wallow so much before something has to give. I think that we are at a crescendo point here, as a whole. And I think that we are all about to rise up from our couches, and to target and funnel that still, but charged energy to a rising up of feeling good, feeling energetic, feeling passionate, feeling positive and feeling whole again, despite of all of the seemingly negative events happening all over the world.

I noticed this morning, when I took my dogs out, that the birds were singing their symphonies, the wind was gently blowing my chimes, the water was flowing steadily in the lake, and there were the usual, beautiful groups of deer quietly chewing on grass, on the way to school today. Nature was just doing its every day thing, oblivious to news and fears and politics and disappointments and sadnesses. We sometimes (strike that), we often forget that we are part of nature, too. Our minds are amazing, but sometimes it may be best to shut off the minds, sit on the couch and gaze out of the window, at nature doing its thing. That may be the best thing that we can do for ourselves, until the energy builds and aims itself towards the passions, the interests, and the miracles, that make us feel good again.

“Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while,

a great wind carries me across the sky.”

— Ojibwe saying

Side Window

Despite my proclamations in my blog post yesterday, yes, I did check the news and yes, I did touch my face. A lot.

I typically consider myself a person who feels anxiety more than the average Joe. So when average Joe starts showing signs of his easy-going facade cracking and crumbling, I really start to wig. I hate collective anxiety. I usually consider anxiety, an annoying quirk of my own creation (I sometimes see myself as a prettier, younger, non-pervy, but totally neurotic female version of Woody Allen), so when I see anxiety in every one whom I come in contact with these days (despite my best efforts to be a hermit, and to remain in my own little hole), it really is a bit disconcerting. I saw this quote on the internet a while back:

“Drama does not just walk into your life. Either you create it, invite it, or associate with it.”

I did not create the coronavirus. I am not that diabolical. So far, I have not come down with the coronavirus, nor has anyone in my family and friends circle. We are all washing our hands a lot. We have not invited the coronavirus into our inner circle. However, I am associating with the coronavirus, a hell of a lot more than I should. Checking the news continuously, being on hyper alert for every sneeze and cough, watching the hourly fluctuations of our stocks, rationing our toilet paper, are all activities that are not at all helpful to my mental health and thus the mental health of those around me. Drama is not good for me. I must own the part that I am playing in associating with the drama of the coronavirus. I cannot control where this coronavirus situation leads to, in the future. But I can control taking care of the health of my body, taking necessary precautions, and then doing my best to let the rest go. My mental health is a big part of my overall health. I need to walk the talk of my faith. I can let this coronavirus situation be a dramatic over-the-top, punctuated, highlighted lesson of how I sometimes allow other situations (political/interpersonal/social, etc.) grow and bloom and take a life of its own, in my own mind, until my mind is stuck on a 24/7 channel of a ridiculous, overly dramatic soap opera or news feed. And then I’m stuck in that situation where, although I can’t stand the show that I am fixated on, I can’t seem to find the fortitude to turn it off.

“Fear and control is a Lincoln Log. We cannot give up our need to control (illusion of control) unless we are willing to relinquish our fear; we cannot give up our fear unless we stop trying to control. The two are inextricably linked. Where we are fearful, we try to control. When we try to control and invariably fail, we become more fearful.” – Anne Wilson Schaef

“Trusting the process of life isn’t about taking your hands off the wheel. It’s more a matter of holding on to the wheel and just the wheel – controlling what you can and letting the rest soften and blur in the side window as you pass.” – Holiday Mathis

I am going to create the “Fortune for the Day” from things I cut out and taped to the cover page of my 2020 calendar:

Have You Heard the News Today?

Fortune for the day – “Tend to your vital heart, and all you worry about will be solved.” – Rumi

I will not look at the news today.

I will not look at the news today.

I will not look at the news today.

I will not touch my face today.

I will not touch my face today. (You have no idea about how much you touch your face, until some entity tells you not to do it. I was literally resting my head in my hands, reading the warnings about not touching your face, due to this %$#^&**^ coronavirus.)

I will not touch my face today.

Today, I will do my best to heed Rumi’s above-mentioned advice. My two middle sons are home for their spring break from college. Due to studying needs and lack of money issues, home for spring break became their best option for this year. Staycation, home sweet home. Can I get a whoop, whoop?

“What can I do to make this break at home for you guys, “special?”, I asked them yesterday, as I took a brief pause from Twitter’s CoronavirusFlorida2020 and threw a frozen pizza into the oven.

“Oh don’t worry about it, Mom,” my second son said, earnestly. “I already knew that it was going to suck.”

Now, in all fairness, this son has spent this break, so far, taking practice MCATs, which are eight hour long tests, a pop. That does suck. This is the same child who once told me that he didn’t like to have get-togethers with his soccer team at our house, because I act too “homely.” He doesn’t mince words. In drawing that conversation out a little bit more, while trying not to get hysterical, it seems he meant that I behaved a bit too down-home friendly and welcoming to the soccer boys, not ugly. From then on, I knew to be much bitchier when his soccer mates came around. Ha!

I will end today’s ridiculous, pointless blog post (give me a break, I spent all day yesterday obsessing about the coronavirus and had little time to read or to watch anything actually more interesting and worthwhile, than every three minute coronavirus updates) with an idea my friend texted earlier. We middle-aged women should really be renamed, “Queenagers.” I love it! My Queenager-ness trumps all teenagers, living at the house and otherwise. Today I am a Queenager who will not watch the news nor touch my queenly (not homely) face.

Going to Extremes

If you want a clean looking coronavirus map, with the numbers readily available to you, I have found this Johns Hopkins version to be the one to be very reliable and easy to understand, as I check it up to 183 times a day:

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

I have turned this whole coronavirus thing into an interesting self study on my multi-faceted personality. I realize that I am sort of “flip/floppy.” I go from opportunist zeal of “let’s buy downtrodden stocks!”, to wanting to run to the bank, pull out all of our money and stuff it in our mattress. We made plans in a couple of weeks to celebrate my daughter’s birthday at one of the Orlando theme parks. I go from, “Oh awesome! We won’t have to wait in line for anything!” to giving my daughter mature mommy lectures on life’s disappointments, and the realization that we can’t always get what we want, and we will likely have to cancel, if Mickey doesn’t cancel on us first, as I stuff yet another Vitamin C in her mouth before dropping her off at school, while desperately looking for anyone who is coughing, and not into their elbows. I admittedly have a couple of boxes of things that I have ordered online with “Made In China” stamped on the boxes. Despite having sprayed the boxes heavily with Lysol, and leaving them out on the back porch for days, I haven’t found the need to open them up just yet. I tell myself that this is a good lesson in delayed gratification, which I think is important lesson to exercise, in these days of being spoiled by Amazon Prime. I have also kept the shipment of our favorite Illy coffee (made in Italy) in our garage, as I have driven to Starbucks for my daily caffeine hit, the last couple of days. But my face burns in shame, when my kids tell me I’m being xenophobic. But then I get uplifted in pride, thinking, “At least this health scare is teaching my kids big words – words that aren’t slang words! The upside of all of this, is an expanded vocabulary.”

I’m a mess. I’m an out of control see-saw. If I don’t get myself back to center, I’m going to fall hard on my butt. I know this too shall pass. I know that most people who get the coronavirus experience it as nothing more than a bad cold or a flu. I pray for a quick and easy recovery, for anyone who is unfortunately, infected. At this point, my own body is probably mostly made out of Zinc, Vitamin C and echinacea, with an outer layer of Purell coating. Even though I am not a crafty person, I’ve learned from Pinterest, and with much practice, I am now an expert on how to make homemade surgical masks out of paper towels and rubber bands. And I have always purchased expensive, thick paper towels. (Viva – the ones that are like washcloth material – worthy to be a Friday Favorite) I’m iron clad. The logical side of me says, “Lady, you’ve taken all of the necessary precautions. Keep calm and carry on. No more excuses to not do bills and laundry.” The hysterical side of me says, “Quit writing, fool, and check the Johns Hopkins page again – NOW!” Here’s the link again (I’ll see you there):

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Fortune for the day – “A wise man seeks wisdom. A madman thinks that he has found it.” – Persian proverb