12 minute read
What COVID-19 Story are you Writing?
To Get Off’, and COVID19 stopped the world!” “
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There are stories in your life that stick with you, whether you consciously realize it or not. Lately, I have been thinking of many – The Sword of Damocles; Lord of The Flies; I Am Legend; The Diary of Anne Frank; Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs; and more importantly, the stories of my parents and how they lived through two World Wars and The Great Depression as they grew up in Saskatchewan, were married in 1935 and lived in this last century of rapid change. …. Well, you are getting my train of thought. Because, my train of thoughts are on so many tracks now that I have a picture in my mind of all those confused tracks running into one another in my amygdala, reptilian brain and causing a large crash. Tracy Beairsto
Let me start by also saying that I realize how fortunate my life has been – how privileged, in many ways, how spoiled, as some would say, and in many ways, also how clear it has been on the tracks that my life could follow – and that I also actually had choices about what tracks to take. But, when it comes down to it, as grateful as I am every single second of my life and that I try to live my life that way, I am still confused and amazed as to how I am living with and reacting to COVID-19. And I know that I am not the only one feeling this way about this situation!
I know that COVID-19’s out there. I read the news and try to distill the politics out of it (because that part is only about how we all choose to interpret and frame what we are hearing), trying to understand the facts of COVID-19, trying to understand a situation that I have never really “seen” in my lifetime before on the scale that it is unfolding. I may not be going to the physical funerals of thousands of people who have died to know that this is happening, I may be only connected through TV and the internet; but I am seeing that there are far less real human activities going on as I look outside my window than what I saw only a few short months ago, and I know that the purposes of those activities are derailed for pretty much the entire population where I live. I see the changes in how we are practising social distancing, whether out for a walk or going to the store or the bank. And the most jarring thing is that I don’t see schoolchildren at the school around the corner, I don’t hear laughter or their voices as they play, I hear the birds very clearly now on my walks. I hear the silence very clearly now.
There was a musical many years ago called “Stop the World…. I Want To Get Off”, and COVID-19 stopped the world! Okay, there have been some good effects physically on the earth from that, like less pollution, but that seems to be made up by the proliferation of mind pollution rampaging through the internet. Hopefully, these words aren’t in that category for you, but I am only trying to point out that we are all having to take the time to think about a lot of things now that we really did our best to either avoid thinking about, or just wanted to deny, or, for some of us, wanted to control how and when we did think about it. And of course, there is always a percentage of the population who refuse to think about pretty much anything at all, because well, it’s easier, safer and there is just too much confusion out there anyways. I know there are many that just want it all back the way it was. We are all questioning a lot of things we took for granted and are worried about what we can do about any and all of this. And we look to those we hope can help us make sense of this, whether the provincial health authority, various levels of our elected governments, religious leaders, news outlets, friends and others, as we try to create a frame of reference that helps us cope with a rapidly evolving global pandemic.
And now, most of us are at home (however that can be defined) and our physical sphere of influence and interaction have physically shrunk so that we are faced with feeling more alone and isolated. Our society is shrinking from some larger groups with certain shared goals that we have used to define ourselves individually and collectively – whether that includes the constructs of politics, religion, occupation and financial wealth, abilities (like sports), whatever labels we have adopted in our survival as part of our collective societies – whatever we have, as societies, constructed to try to take some of the mystery out of our existence and deal with the power and creation
of the lives we live everyday. We are now down to that small space we are quarantined in and living more consciously with the only defining factor that truly matters (and if you think the rest of it does, then you are missing the point of this article). We are now down to truly being human. We are now facing our humanity and, unlike the devastation of a nuclear war, we now have the actual time to think about it. And, we are, thanks to the communication systems we have available, actually able to be physically isolated and yet, face this together in meaningful, emotional ways.
Hmmmm. Well, so how do we take responsibility for that humanity as we try to cope today with this change and all the other changes that are coming? And believe me, there are a lot of changes that are coming – the world will not be able to blithely return to how it has been in many ways without recognizing a number of derailments or new tracks of opportunity along the way – at the very least, there will be a focus on ventures that look to help us deal with our physical humanity and, as importantly, our social. That will happen for awhile and like all good exercises that help us overcome our affliction, once that pain and uncertainty goes away, it will be up to us whether or not we continue with the good habits we can form now to deal with that pain, or go back to waiting for this to start all over again.
What stories are we writing and going to write about this time and experience that other generations will learn and remember? What stories are you writing, because whether or not you are thinking about, your life is your story… and it is important to many, especially to those who are now closest in your space seeing you from wake up until bedtime.
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It’s not that we all haven’t been writing, i.e. living, our stories. I have also been thinking about the Zombie Apocalypse movies – how do we stop the zombie apocalypse of the mind – oh, some of us are truly going to be physically changed – there are antibodies that are now parts of the biological systems of hundreds of thousands of people. That I know is happening and will happen. But are we going to be zombies, so to speak, in our lives now and going forward? Are we going to tune out to the stories of more COVID deaths, are we going to train our minds to have that escape that we are all craving right now, whether that is through movies or internet conspiracy theories? What truth are we going to imagine and write, even if that truth is somehow still only our own? How are we going to write it? What emotion and experience are we going to write about? What is important to you at this time and what is keeping you resilient, hopeful, moving forward when we feel that our movement is lately simply a circle we are walking in the house?
What new dreams and realities are we building today, out of our fear and confusion; what are we building through hope (and hopefully, we are not out of hope)? Can we each be responsible enough to wake up from the almost paralyzing uncertainty (and remember, in a way, we are somewhat paralyzed right now) and find new and good ways to help ourselves and each other? Carry on the meaningful and impactful ways we have learned to live together and build in our co-creation? I do believe that I am only 50% responsible for yours and my relationship (most of the time), but I am 100% responsible for my own behaviour. So, I guess, all I can be concentrating on at this time is my own behavior and my choices to help myself and others, and how I maintain old and co-create new relationships. I have often felt depressed and sad about those who are without jobs, those who are dying without the comforts of their families, those who are dealing with the uncertainty of surviving a disease that will have ravaged their systems and changed their futures, those who are young and whose rites of passage and milestones have been upended, those who don’t know how they are going to find an economic rebound or are thinking about the destitution that may result, those who are part of governments struggling to find the best solutions they can to deal with the short-term and know that the long-term ramifications will be felt by us all for some time. This is not me complaining, that is hard to do when there are people out there doing 14 hour shifts and risking their lives. I am concerned for those health care and front line workers who must be terrified as to what this will mean for themselves personally and those they love, but at the same time are bravely dealing with the unknowns and trying to put their training to good use. I applaud them every night at 7 P.M. loudly with a ladle and a pan. I cry the tears with them when I know that these health care workers are compassionate enough to stand in for the family members who can’t hold the hands of their dying loved ones. I appreciate each and every one of those who understand that their
humanity can make a difference on our souls as well as our bodies, or our community safety, ensuring the delivery of our food, water and other utilities and otherwise are part of the systems that maintain us, or helping to assure and assuage our overall collective states of mind. And I get so overwhelmed sometimes that I zombie down to the despair that we are all thinking and feeling at this time, sometimes for hours on end. Then I remember, I may only have so long to be here. The sword seems a lot closer to the top of my head. But, we do have to acknowledge our emotions in all of this in some way in order to deal with those emotions, we just can’t let them get the better of us.
The point of the story of the Sword of Damocles was that someone (Dionysius) wanted to trade places with Damocles and have his wonderful life in the royal court in which Damocles lived. When he took the place of Damocles, Dionysius saw that for all of those wonderful things available to Damocles, there was still an ever-present danger. A sword hung over the head of Damocles throughout his life, the sword suspended by a slim thread, ready to fall and kill him instantly at any moment. Some say the moral was that it wasn’t easy living with the threat under which a powerful person lives. But, we are ALL powerful and yes, the same sword hangs over all of us, we are just finding this sword harder to ignore at this time. While the collective power of our societies (through education, government, communication and so on), will be chugging ahead in any event, we are on a track together and that is how it goes. But, your life and the choices you make are still all your own – that is your individual human power. comes from those doing nothing anyways), think about who you are and what you care about doing and what you can do. What story are you writing for your children now? You are allowed to have a few chapters where you have to learn, fail, wail, get up and try again until you succeed, and they have to see that so that they can handle their turn. We all need to learn together too. We all have to learn to be resilient together and help each other up from this. Even if it seems trivial, even if others will say, oh, that wasn’t important to the world and that is soooo shallow, well, you are doing way more than those people who are condemnatory right now. We are all worried and frightened at this time. So have compassion now for yourself and others. They have just forgotten that the process of living life through love and compassion is a result all in itself. That’s our humanity.
Find your own ways to take that compassion and hope and turn it into something better for yourselves and all of us as best you can.
That’s our humanity.
What stories are we writing together as a community? Isn’t the process of that community action also providing us with more steadfast hope and resilience in facing COVID-19 together? That’s our humanity.
Even though we write our personal stories by living every day, we will look back at this time and remember those personal and community stories more vividly, they will carry greater weight and have greater meaning to those who remember, including you. That’s
