Avoiding Pandemic Panic? Reach Out and Lift Up

Pull up a chair.

This past week has been a blur of "what next?!?"  One thing after another in the national and international news, horrible medical statistics and news being flung around, personal stories of tragedy and isolation coming in from friends in infection clusters and cancellations everywhere I look.  It's been the most difficult and emotional last few weeks for everyone I know, and it won't be getting any better on that front any time soon if the medical numbers we have all been seeing continue to grow.

So what are we to do?

As I told my students yesterday as we were packing up textbooks and school work to most likely complete the school year from home, we keep moving forward.  We show up for work.  We make good choices.  Most of all, we find ways to reach out, to lift up, and to be the light -- for our family, for our friends, for someone in need that we meet along the way.

Because that is what decent people do.

We are desperately in need of decency in this time of chaos and crisis.  When I started this blog, it was on the back end of my work in politics what feels like eons ago at this point.  I wanted a respite from the constant chaos and anger of our nation's political fray, and a place to continue to celebrate the little things in life that I think are truly the big things we most need for each other and with each other at the end of the day.

As my teaching schedule has gotten broader and more jam packed, this little blog has gotten a little lost int he weeds of my day to day.  But it feels like the right thing to do to revive it, as a way for me to share how we are coping and thriving in spite of the pandemic and to help in some small way with how all my friends and family to get through this mess together.

Two things have sprung to mind that I plan to begin this week:

1) A pandemic book club.  Not reading books about pandemics and infectious diseases -- no thanks, I can get that in the news every day.  What I mean is reading some good books as a diversionary escape from the pandemic, and then discussing them as we go in the comments once a week.


This idea came to me while reading my friend Tracy's facebook post from Florence, Italy, where their very strict quarantine has been dragging onward for multiple weeks and being shut in and isolated has begun to get to everyone.  It seemed like a fun way to connect, albeit electronically, that was allowable under their very strict rules.  (Waves to Tracy:  love you!)

2)  A recipe share.  If we can't all travel to exotic places, we can at least try out some new recipes that allow us to travel a bit while we are penned in for the foreseeable future.  Given my medical history -- lupus, and a 3-time cancer survivor, so I'm a walking target for this bug -- we're trying to limit how often I'm out and about where we can.  But I love to cook, and it occurred to me that some folks might not have a skillset taught to them by their Granny and Mama that can make a packet of dried beans and some assorted veggies into a divine feast.

So what I'm going to try to do is share some of the recipes I'm making with our shelf-stable, frozen or occasionally fresh items that I happen to have in my pantry, and which you now probably have in your pantry, unless you are stuck in some interminable line at Sam's Club just trying to jam your way in the door.

We can share recipes with each other in the comments of any given post, and if you have some ingredients and are stumped on what to do with them to make them into a meal, feel free to throw the problem out to me and anyone else who is here, and I'm sure we can come up with something yummy.

Kind of a community pot luck, just over the internet.  What's not to love?

As an aside, please choose to be kind and reach out to elderly shoppers or folks with disabilities.  The panic that has ensued in this health emergency is downright embarrassing.  Please choose kindness where you can -- be the light, not the problem.  We all need to be more conscious of that.

I helped a poor little old man with horribly arthritic hands get a case of water into his shopping cart the other day, and I thought he was going to cry on the spot.  When I went to check out, he was two carts behind me, and I asked the bag boy to please help him out to the car when he came through because I knew he wasn't going to be able to get the water out of the cart and into the car on his own.  It took me no more than 2 minutes of my time to help him out.  Please choose kindness -- we all desperately need it right now.

PS -- Thought a link to this older post on dealing with an extended snow day period might also be helpful for folks with little ones who are shut-in for a while.  The "I'm Bored" jar and our craft closet have saved the day more times than I can count, when The Peanut was little.

(Photo by Christy Hardin Smith, taken several years ago at the bulb show in the greenhouse at Smith College.  Thought we could all use a little spring today.)