Tag: #wearethesolution

Masks are Tyranny???

Masks are Tyranny???

Meg

Some people really and truly think that masks are tyranny. Really and truly. Despite EVERYTHING, there continues to be (really strong) opposition to wearing a mask.

I was initially all geared up to rant about it. I wanted to rant, but I am not going to. That’s the easy thing to do, but it isn’t helpful. It’s what everyone is doing these days. Who wants more of it?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I looked up the definition of tyranny just to sanity check my gut reaction to that phrase and, yep, tyranny is a pretty extreme word for a face covering:

Tyranny (noun): “cruel and oppressive government or rule.

“people who survive war and escape tyranny” · 

Synonyms: despotism · absolutism · absolute power · autocracy · dictatorship · undemocratic rule · reign of terror · totalitarianism · Fascism · oppression · suppression · repression ·

  • a nation under cruel and oppressive government.
  • cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control.

    “the tyranny of the nine-to-five day” · 

  • (especially in ancient Greece) rule by one who has absolute power without legal right.”
close up of face masks
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I admit that after reading that definition I was even more pissed off for a while. Wearing a piece of cloth over your nose and mouth to stem a scientifically-proven public health crisis isn’t anywhere near the ballpark of being subjected to cruelty, oppression, or a reign of terror. It’s just not.

Of course there is plenty about this pandemic situation that is definitely cruel and unreasonable. Dying alone in a hospital comes to mind. Perpetuating this shit show and elongating everyone’s suffering by ignoring public health mandates gets a nod. Setting up the most vulnerable people in our society to be taken out by a virus that, at this point, we know exists and, honestly, we know how to contain, reigns pretty high too. But wearing a mask?

In the face of racial protests, clear inequality, food insecurity, massive unemployment, and pretty much many much bigger issues, calling a mask tyranny – wasting your breath complaining about it at all, really – seems pretty damn tone deaf.

But this blog isn’t Ranting and Raving.com for a reason. Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First is about providing a hopeful viewpoint to counterbalance the pervasive negative we are ever more perpetually steeped in. It’s about changing the narrative, looking more deeply at the universality of human suffering (how much more universal could you get than a pandemic?), and striving to take a new look at our challenges and to uncover the threads of hope.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. – Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

So, here we are, deep in struggle, and this is what I got for ya.

It’s been a really hard time.

People are BURNT OUT and worried. In the U.S., we left school in March with the promise that fall would be better. And it’s not. We are still vulnerable, still uncertain. And now, all these months later, the cure is perceived to be worse than the curse. There is virus fatigue, isolation fatigue, fear fatigue, economic fatigue, uncertainty fatigue, cheering-myself-up-and-looking-on-the-bright-side fatigue, fatigue fatigue. Kids are climbing the walls and so are parents. What’s so sad is that if everyone would just wear a mask, keep some distance, and wash their hands, we wouldn’t be having this problem.

mona lisa protection protect virus
Photo by Yaroslav Danylchenko on Pexels.com

So here’s the short of it: we can do this. We HAVE to do this.

Care about the economy and want it to open back up completely? Wear a mask.

Want the kids to go back to school? Yep, wear a mask.

You say Black Lives Matter? Wear the mask (otherwise that is 100% NOT how you are living. Black and brown people have been disproportionately impacted by this virus. So, mask it).

There are a bevy of excuses for disliking the mask: it’s hot, it fogs my glasses, I don’t know anyone who has had the virus, I want my kids to have a normal childhood. My short response: rip the band-aid off, wear the mask, and we can all move on. The long version is:

  1. It’s hot: that’s true, it’s damn hot and the mask is extra uncomfortable when it’s hot. I am pretty sure a ventilator is uncomfortable, too, so a mask seems like not that much to ask, relatively speaking;
  2. Glasses fog: I wear glasses, too. I wipe them off or lift them up when they start to fog up. Ink smudges when I write with certain pens, too. I deal;
  3. Don’t know anyone personally who’s had the virus? – well, I do. The conservatively estimated 165,000 people who have died in the U.S. to date all knew someone. You will, too – eventually. Would that really make you feel better?!?!? The fact that the majority who have died were old doesn’t make me feel better about them getting bumped off. It’s a horrible way to die. When did we get so callous?
  4. Kids having a normal childhood: I get the worry about the kids, trust me, I really do. But adversity can be a great teacher. Besides, does anyone remember their own childhood in great detail? Like year over year detail? My summer memories are a blur of the odd family vacation, the odd sports or all around camp. Mostly we made our own fun and spent A LOT of time being totally bored (my mom’s solution: “I have plenty of things you can help me with around the house,” which effectively sent me into hiding and back to figuring out how to entertain myself). There is no timeline or dates or ages associated with any of it, just a vague pool of memories. School years also blur together. I am sure bad stuff happened in there, but I don’t remember most of it. And I turned out okay. Maybe better than okay. Completely pandemic-ready okay. Resilient, flexible, able to make my own fun.
person with a face mask and latex gloves holding a globe
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

Basically, kids will respond to all of this okay, maybe even with some positive memories, if the adults in their world present it well. I don’t mean to fake it. I mean to listen and be present, but to work with it instead of against it. Resisting it or fighting it doesn’t make it better, it just makes it harder to live with this reality. This is 2020. This is just it. We don’t know the end date, but this isn’t forever. Take a deep breath.

Remember that many people are facing MAJOR, earth and life-shattering issues right now. If you aren’t food or shelter insecure, if you are safe in your home and not struggling with addiction or mental health issues, then it’s time to put your oxygen mask on, take a big deep breath, and then assist the person next to you.

Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. – Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

Just because we wish it so will not make this all go away. Until we all tow the line in a unified way, the U.S. will continue to trundle along with its ineffective whack-a-mole approach to dealing with this. More and more people will suffer and die, the school year will be in a constant state of upheaval, and the economy will not be able to fully re-open. Instead of the fast, difficult, unified approach, to date we have taken the long, slow, extended suffering approach. All the loss plus a clear view into our broken health care/insurance system (that would sooner bankrupt people for needed care than cover them); the inability of many to skip work despite the risk (because there is no financial safety net whatsoever); food tied to schools/food insecurity in one of the wealthiest countries in the world; and a government that treats its most vulnerable citizens as expendable, well, I think I just described tyranny. If masks and tyranny belong in a sentence together, it would be more accurate to say “masks are liberators from tyranny.”

Wear a mask.

Unite. Be strong. This too shall pass. If we work together, it will pass all the more quickly.

We are the solution.

You will be alright.

Back to School options

 

 

Strong Core

Strong Core

Meg

Swimming is one of my favorite things. I used to swim 2 to 3 times per week with a Masters swim program (don’t be impressed, it just means I am old). I was in super swim shape this year right up until, oh, March 10. And then it all stopped.

Let’s face it. During a global health crisis, many things we might love – and even things we didn’t know we loved but suddenly now miss (I am thinking of my kids and how they unexpectedly longed to go to school) – just aren’t a priority. So we shift gears and adapt. Personally, I did more crossfit, and I tried kickboxing and yoga (all on zoom). I made stuff up on my own, rode my bike, went running (sorry, joints, desperate times call for desperate measures). I just kept moving. The school thing is still a conundrum I have not yet solved so I am not going to dive into that one.

Anyhow, it’s summer now, our case count is low, and the ponds are no longer freezing or frozen, so I can swim again. And it feels SO good because I missed it (a lot) and my hamstrings were really, really sore (too many squats? I have no idea, but, as usual, swimming fixed it.)

As I paddle along, I have these moments of philosophical inspiration (oxygen deprivation can do that, apparently). Not only is swimming great exercise, but it has a lot of important life lessons to teach.

When I first got in the water, it felt familiar but my body was like, wait, what the what? Oh, we are doing this again suddenly four months later? And my mind was like, oh my gosh, was that a turtle? It was chaotic and ugly and, at times, terrifying (I prefer my swims wildlife-free). Yet it was also divine to bask in the soothing weightlessness of water again.

Life lesson #1 – It doesn’t have to be pretty; if you love it just get out there and do it (turtles welcome, ideally from a distance).

And then my lower back started to hurt. And I thought, huh, that’s odd. It’s a low-impact sport, after all, which is the whole point in my case. What the heck? So I mentioned it to the friend who I swim with and he said, “Are you tightening your core?”

BOOM! Right then I had this huge a-ha moment. I’ve been told to tighten my core many times before, but then I forget and need a reminder again. Sure enough, as soon as I tightened my core, my stroke became more efficient and less chaotic. I felt stronger, more whole, less floppy. And I realized that having a strong core matters more broadly as well. Sometimes I forget to engage my core in life – too often, really. When that happens I feel blown about by the shifting sands of time and public opinion. I am so non-confrontational that I will adapt like a chameleon so I don’t attract attention or get attacked. It’s a survival strategy (classic, in fact, if you’ve been bullied), just like it is for a chameleon. But in those situations, deep in my unengaged core, I am filled with misgiving, chaos, and confusion. When I remember to engage my core, I immediately feel stronger and more empowered.

Life lesson #2 – Engage your core! Live your values. Find your voice and speak it!

Once my core is engaged, I remember that I am supposed to stretch my body long with each stroke (or as a good friend told me when I got back into swimming several years ago – “You are not tall enough for this sport. You need every inch you can get” 🙂 – which means that the Olympic dreams of my childhood were pure fantasy, it turns out. Glad no one told me that then!). When I consciously stretch my body long, I suddenly realize that I tend to spend much of my life sort of shrunk. There’s a cool inch or two gained if I just stand up straight, or stretch all the way through all of my muscles, especially in my hips and spine. It feels so good to open those joints that mostly spend their time being compressed by my slouch, or by my lack of awareness that I am not reaching, stretching, extending, growing, lengthening. Like in life, a reach doesn’t necessarily feel good at first. And it requires conscious thought to make it happen. But once you start doing it, once you find that groove and stretch yourself, your stroke becomes much more efficient and so much more beautiful. You begin to glide across the water instead of battling against it.

Life lesson #3 – Stretch. Reach. Grow. Stand tall. Glide with the water, don’t fight it.

I can’t talk about swimming without talking about gratitude. Swimming is what brought me back to life after several years mired in emotional and physical pain with my RA diagnosis and my mom’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. When it was taken away, as with so much else during the height of our state’s efforts to curb the pandemic, I could have been angry or sad. And maybe I was those things a little bit. But mostly I accepted that that’s what needed to be done for the greater good, adjusted my stroke, and found some other way to channel my energy. Now that I am back in the water, I am filled with gratitude – for an accessible pond nearby, for a break in coronavirus infections, for summer, for my health, for the ability to swim. I know this time in the water is fleeting because summer is fleeting and indoor isn’t an option for me until the coronavirus takes its leave of us. So I am conscious of this gift and I cherish this time while it lasts. Which leads me to:

Life lesson #4 – Gratitude is powerful. Live and love consciously.

So many of us spend so much of our lives on auto-pilot, unconsciously moving through the world. We miss so much of the nuance, so much of the good in the simple things this way. The coronavirus has created a unique moment in history (and I am definitely looking forward to it being history!). If we take the time to be conscious and reflective about what’s going on in our world, in our communities, in our lives, it can be an opportunity. This period has pulled back the veil of what we have accepted as normal and revealed so clearly how abnormal, unjust and inequitable “normal” was. I think a lot about the notion that “if you win the rat race you’re still a rat.” Where are we racing to? Is it somewhere we actually want to be? A life we actually want to have lived? And at what cost?

finding-dory-movie

WE ARE THE SOLUTION.

Wear a mask.

BREATHE.

Stay well.

You will be alright.

Reasons for Hope (and I am Still Here)

Reasons for Hope (and I am Still Here)

Meg

Remember back when this whole Coronavirus thing started (see Don’t Freak Out. But Also Don’t Be Cavalier) and I was, well, freaked out, and for whatever reason it made me feel better to look at puppies? Welp, let my silence here be an indicator (warning?) that we went next level. Not only did I look at puppies, but we decided to actually get one. He has arrived and has fully absconded with our hearts as well as my erstwhile writing time (which was carved out in the wee hours of the morning from my erstwhile sleeping time)! It’s all good – he’s worth it – just a shift.

Puppy

So I sit here today finally trying to parse through all of my thoughts from the past, oh, three weeks and maybe even a little bit of these past four months. Distance and time are always good for reflection, so, thanks, puppy, for providing me with both. I was initially feeling like a good rant, given everything, but have redirected my bubbling (boiling?) passion toward a more positive direction (for now – the rant is still percolating, but ranting isn’t terribly productive, is it?).

First things first, a deep breath. Even a recent article in the Wall Street Journal says deep breathing helps build our mental resilience. I say “even” because, while I respect the WSJ, I would have thought the editors would put deep breathing in the “woo woo” section. I already knew that deep breathing was a good idea, and useful to prevent ranting and other forms of insanity, but I was surprised and glad to see the WSJ sharing this wisdom, too. Surely all of us can use a good dose of resilience right now as well as shifting our focus to positive things (the WSJ notes how we are psychologically pre-wired to fixate on the negative – it’s a survival instinct, but it’s a little outdated since we no longer live in caves, usually, and don’t hunt and gather for food in a need-a-speer-and-I-could-get-killed-by-my-dinner-kind-of-way). So, breathe.

Last week, as I was cruising along holding my breath and all caught up in my thoughts about people only thinking about themselves and their own personal happiness, comfort and satisfaction, and how did we get here, and basically WTF is wrong with people it’s-a-little-piece-of-cloth-for-Christ’s-sake-stop-being-such-a-baby, I happened across an interview on the radio with Jane Goodall. She is one of my environmental (and life) heroes, and she is still out there fighting for environmental justice 60 years on. It is remarkable how little her message has changed over the years, and also how accurate it remains (and how calmly she delivers it – no ranting. Incredible). While there is still so much work to be done, still so many people ignoring science, still so much habitat and species destruction, her message is still one of hope. She doesn’t deny any of those issues, nor our role in this pandemic, and yet she remains hopeful. And sometimes I think, how can this be? And, then I realize her genius. Without hope all is lost. Hopelessness leads to giving up. Jane Goodall is not a giver-upper. And that’s inspiring. In the face of the many engrained, long-term problems we as a society need to face and change, we can’t lose hope and we cannot give up.

art artistic black and white blank
Photo by Lynnelle Richardson on Pexels.com

Over two decades ago, she published her book Reason for Hope. In summary, here are her reasons:

  1. The Human Brain (if we use it (that’s my line, not hers) – “We have at last begun to understand and face up to the problems that threaten us and the survival of life on Earth as we know it. Surely we can use our problem-solving abilities, our brains, to find ways to live in harmony with nature.”
  2. The Indomitable Human Spirit – “My second reason for hope lies in the indomitable nature of the human spirit. There are so many people who have dreamed seemingly unattainable dreams and, because they never gave up, achieved their goals against all the odds, or blazed a path along which others could follow.”
  3. The Resilience of Nature – “My third reason for hope is the incredible resilience of nature. I have visited Nagasaki, site of the second atomic bomb that ended World War II. Scientists had predicted that nothing could grow there for at least 30 years. But, amazingly, greenery grew very quickly. One sapling actually managed to survive the bombing, and today it is a large tree, with great cracks and fissures, all black inside; but that tree still produces leaves. I carry one of those leaves with me as a powerful symbol of hope. I have seen such renewals time and again, including animal species brought back from the brink of extinction.”
  4. The Determination of Young People – “My final reason for hope lies in the tremendous energy, enthusiasm and commitment of young people around the world. Young people, when informed and empowered, when they realize that what they do truly makes a difference, can indeed change the world. We should never underestimate the power of determined young people.”

The most compelling of this list to me back then and now is the indomitable human spirit. I think that’s where hope comes in.

Jimmy Fallon interviewed Jane Goodall on Earth Day in April 2020 if you are interested in hearing her thoughts outloud, including how animal trafficking and other forms of environmental destruction lay the groundwork for this pandemic as well as future ones. Unless, of course, we use our marvelous brains and change!

Finally, if you are still reading this, here’s a quick public service announcement: If you don’t really love dogs (like really, really love them), no matter how bored or lonely you are right now (or ever) don’t get one, especially a puppy. They are a lot of work and they deserve to be loved and taken care of now and in the future when life goes back to some semblance of normal. I know the pull of those cute little faces when you are sitting alone in your house day after day, week after week, and pretty much any other living creature coming to love you and direct your attention elsewhere seems like a really good idea. Puppies do those things, but that comes at a cost as well. I am joyfully but majorly picking and choosing how I spend what was already limited free time. I spend most of my day at the edge of my driveway encouraging my puppy to go to the bathroom. I love it, but it’s not super glamorous and if you can’t see yourself doing that much of the day and even the night, a puppy isn’t a good fit. So, there, PSA delivered and off my soapbox.

BREATHE.

Stay well.

You will be alright.

WE ARE THE SOLUTION.

And just wear a mask. If this is the greatest adversity you have ever faced, you are beyond blessed. It’s not hard. Honestly.

Jane Goodall Quote