Bum in the air Like you Just don’t Care – Or ignoring the Pandemic!

I have spent the last 3 and a half weeks with my head firmly buried in the sand not wanting to look at the truth of where this Corona Virus /  Covid 19 thing (not even sure what the distinctions are) is taking us. Its been so bad that I have made exactly 0 changes to payments, looked at financial aid offerings for exactly 0.1 seconds and have somehow convinced myself that after 3 weeks (that was then extended by a further 2 weeks) , everything is going to go back to normal. Having raged against the injustices, the reductions of civil liberties and other petty squabbles, I have now made peace with the notion that actually we have no frigging idea whats up with this thing and when we will be back to normal. September??

Also isolated as we are in our separate universes we have no idea of the scope of human suffering that this is causing. I’m not even just talking about the actual disease and the unprecedented death toll. “Its’ nothing” we were told at first – “like a mild flu – you may not even know you have it unless you are 65 and older!” Ha!! Well whose laughing now? No one!  Precisely NO ONE is laughing. Unless Corona can laugh? Can he?  Oh sorry, and also Jakob Zuma but we’re not even sure what he’s laughing about. Infact, we’re not sure if HE knows what he’s laughing about.

I Digress. in our little isolation bubbles we are cut off from seeing a big picture, except through the lens of Huffpost, FB, Twitter and (name your media poison of choice…)  And that picture is largely a first world Euro US-centric picture. What is going to be the global human fallout from this in terms of poverty, homelessness, displacement? And how do we do anything to help? I feel terribly frustrated that I have the time, I have the will but I am unable to do anything to help those tens of thousands that require help. I’m ruling out much in the way of financial support here since i haven’t had a salary since March and have no idea when i will again (the joys of self employed SMME)

Our first priority needs to be our own families and our small circles and keeping those people safe and protecting them from infection – I know that but…. hell man! what is raging beyond our walls and ivory towers ? My concerns are more acute than someone from a first world country because, in Africa, the divide between haves and have nots continues to grow and distort and this will only make it worse. Currently at 40% unemployment in South Africa (which is conservative at best) this Pandemic threatens to push that figure to 50% – again I’m sure a tame estimation based on wishful thinking and duct tape.

Not only that but our government is anticipating a massive spike in infection rates and is in the process of setting up field hospitals all over the country –  so they know something that we do not. And when that infection rate spikes? Where the hell are we? Are we still hiding at home? The future is virtual – that is clear as day, but you can’t create a virtual soup kitchen….can you? you can’t create virtual shelters or tend to sick people virtually. That Is in the trenches stuff with masks on and head most certainly retracted from sand.

What I would like To see is a trusted source (grass roots?)  that lets us know and keeps us updated with what the initiatives are in our areas and how we can help them – not only with money but with time, expertise, something, anything.

That is something that would be so much more valuable than giving a single second more attention to the orange cretten and his stupid small hands misdirecting the free world.

A Letter To Our Corona kids

Hello my darling child,

This is me, your parent. I know you dislike me a lot of the time right now. for keeping you cooped up, for the fact that you cant see your friends, for the fact that I am trying to get you to do your school work. I know you are having a hard time. I know that you are scared but also bored, that you cannot possibly understand what is going on and yet I are trying to make it seem like everything is going to be okay. I know that you cannot understand why 20 hours of ipad a day is such a terrible thing when there seems nothing else to do. Why you cant just stay in pyjamas for 5 weeks. I know that you cant see the point of hair brushing and showering right now. Why does a tidy bedroom and a beautifully made bed mean anything in this place? Why would exercise be important in this suspended upended life?

I just want you to know that I, we, parents all over this country are  having a pretty hard time too. Don’t mistake our upbeat demeanor and our exhausting game plan for each day for us being okay. We are not okay.  we are falling apart in closed bathrooms, over kitchen sinks, behind computer screens late at night. Our rage over tiny misdemeanors masks a panic and an anger about our circumstance. We are not okay. We are lonely and we are afraid. We miss our friends, we miss walking our dogs, exercising, just walking in the street. we miss our colleagues, we miss the constructs of a life with which we are familiar. We know that this will end, that we have just to hold on and that we will get through this. We know that this is not the apocalypse. This is not the end of days. That is not why we are not okay. We are not okay because our civil liberties have been taken from us and now there is nothing that we can do but sit with ourselves and that is an uncomfortable thing to have to do. In this space that we have been forced to sit, we discover the true measure of ourselves. In a place of uncertainty and fear the outer niceties of our persona are stripped away and what is left is something way more raw and elemental, and there will be a lot there that we will not like – that we have not looked at full frontal before.  In this mad place we are looking into the looking glass and what does it say? “Mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of us all? Is it me as I am when the world is good and life is easy? or is it me when there is only uncertainty and fear?”

Some days i am afraid my darling child that I am not capable of being the mother I want to be in this weird world. Some mornings I awake with a fear that my own demons will bring forth something that is irreparable beyond this time. There are moments when I am afraid that I don’t know how to parent when i am so full of fear and rage. I am afraid for what you will remember of me during this time. Was I full of love, comfort and compassion or was I irrational, angry and mean? Will you judge me harshly when I fell short of my own expectations? Will you see that I was struggling too? That I didn’t have all the answers, that I had none of the solutions. Will you see that your parent is someones child too, that we are all children somewhere and that none of us are perfect? Will you forgive me when i got it wrong, when I did not give you everything that you needed and understand that it was not because i didn’t want to, but because I was not capable of it at that time?

You, my dear child will not understand this yet. i wish that i could wave a magic wand and make this time disappear but i cannot so we need to search for the gift within the pain and the discomfort. For both of us are holding back the demons that isolation brings. Both you and I, your friends and their parents everywhere are struggling side by side to make it through this time. Our greatest triumph will be to learn a big heartedness that many of us have forgotten, to bring a new level of compassion and self compassion to this planet that needs it so badly. Can we learn this lesson in these weeks? Can we look at ourselves in our own magic mirrors and forgive ourselves our failings and our shortcomings? – Can we learn to look at ourselves with love and with compassion and learn to love the struggling reflection that we see there?

Let me, your mom promise to try harder and to do better. Let me promise to keep striving for that vision I have of how I am as your perfect parent.  I hope that you will forgive me when I fall short and when I come undone…

Etiquette In A Pandemic – Or why Corona brings out the asshole in us…..

Etiquette as defined by Wikipedia is  “the set of conventional rules of personal behaviour in polite society, usually in the form of an ethical code that delineates the expected and accepted social behaviors that accord with the conventions and norms observed by a society, a social class, or a social group.”

Don’t know about you but as far as I see it the expected and accepted social behaviours went out the window a few weeks ago and as lockdown and fear has intensified, etiquette has (forever?) shifted.

Apart from the new accepted greeting of Namaste prayer hands as sported by politicians worldwide there is also an accepted face mask fashion which I can’t yet embrace. These are however not really the issues that I have come up against in these last few weeks.

For me the issues that I have discovered in myself as I fight back a rising fear for the future – for my family’s health, for an end to this pandemic and a way forward for my business – is an unsettling rudeness. A shortness and downright rudeness with people like shop store assistants. I am angry and resentful about sharply rising costs of foods and wonder out loud whether there is rampant profiteering going on within the Woolworths and Pick n Pays of this country. I am annoyed by people in facemasks and latex gloves. I am angry at the stupidity and blanket restrictions that are being placed on us.   I snap at my mum, at my daughter and I find small issues building to vocal crescendos that surprise even me, as they erupt.

I am being an asshole. I know it. I see it and I hate it. However, I am trying not to condemn myself just yet – understanding that we are living in unprecedented times and despite the constant stream of jokes and feel good gumph being forwarded – I am afraid. We all are and when we are afraid we behave badly. That does not mean it should be acceptable but that it should be understood and pardoned as long as we (read “I” here) try to do better and craft a new etiquette for myself.

I guess this starts with understanding that we are all afraid. We are all on this sinking ship together sailing into an unknown future. We are all likely to be behaving badly right now. We’re all edgy as hell. Rather than the indifference of life as usual where we sleep walk through our interactions with people in shopping malls and supermarkets, I find that I am now hyper aware and with this hyper awareness comes a subconscious suspicion, defensiveness even aggressiveness at times. Is this person looking ill? Are they closer to me than they should be? Did they wipe their trolley with disinfectant enough times? did they use the hand sanitizer? Why don’t they stay at home if there is a lone cough? Could the shop assistant please ring up my items faster so I can get the hell out of here? Why has it been decided that hair bands are non essential items and therefore may not be sold in a supermarket? Are people judging me because I am taking a call in public and am standing outside a store chatting in the open air… Is that even legal?

So much for all the pulling together and all the feel good bravado. I am not seeing it and I am not feeling it either. I feel for the trolley assistants in the parking lots – but even as I do I wont let them help with my parcels as I am afraid of getting too close, afraid of others touching my bags and transmitting God knows what. Now I find I am giving them money NOT to help me. A new normal?!!!!

I feel for my friends who are waiters and waitresses, I miss them, I worry about them – who will support them? Where are they? I worry about Jackson the amputee and my friend who has been religiously on my corner since I moved into this area – who makes his living from the handouts of motorists at the traffic light. Where is he now? How is he staying alive? Does he have enough to eat?

It is easy to be charming and gregarious when times are good and life is easy. It is difficult to be so when life is dangerous and uncertain. So why is it important anyway? According to Marion von Adlerstein in her book “the Penguin book of Etiquette”  – “bad behavior generates ill will. But if (a) member of the herd is kind and thoughtful to the others, their attitude and responses should be similarly well mannered. Courtesy is catching.”

When we are afraid we build barriers around ourselves and we stop behaving as people within a society. The rules and the norms fall apart – the rules of engagement cease to exist and society can fall apart and lead to anarchy.  Taken to its absurd extreme we have the Zombie apocalypse. What is the antidote to this?

First antidote is Stay at Home!!!

Then be honest with yourself about how you are feeling and how you are behaving. Not in order to judge yourself – the key here is compassion. Courtesy begins with self, right?! Mindful self compassion always sounded like a load of touchy feely BS to me but I am starting to get it and why it’s so important. We can’t be gentle with others if we are not gentle with ourselves.

Once we acknowledge how we are feeling and how we are acting out, we can make a conscious effort to adjust that behavior with the understanding that we may not always get that right. This may include explaining this to family members – thereby beginning a dialogue about how we are all feeling afraid and uncertain. This should, of course, be age appropriate.

We should remember that laughter is the best medicine and create opportunities for fun together – comedies, tickle fests, games etc.

When we do have to go out to the food store or pharmacy – I suppose playing possible encounters and scenarios through beforehand allows us to “rehearse” for what we will find or at least to set an intention for how we want to show up and what we want our experience to be.

It will be frustrating, you will have to queue outside, there will be people with masks and gloves and weirdness around you. Are you feeling psychically strong enough to deal with that today? No? stay at home. Yes? Okay here we go.

• Smile warmly and thank the gentleman or lady at the shop entrance who is monitoring the amount of people going into the store. Acknowledge that they are on the frontlines risking infection all day everyday and yet they are there offering hand sanitizer for your protection.
• Keep a distance from fellow shoppers but smiling is allowed and guess what?…. it is the best kind of contagion there is.
• Don’t stockpile like a mad person making it impossible for anyone else to get anything. Its ridiculous!
• When paying for your purchases remember again that the cashiers are on the frontline every single day risking their health in order to serve you. Treat them with respect and courtesy. They do not set the prices in store. They are not responsible for your food bills going through the roof. If you take umbrage with that have it out online with the top brass at your supermarket of choice.
• There is no excuse for driving like an asshole.
• There is no reason to wear your facemask in your own car! Get a life people! (that probably wasn’t very courteous – there will be slips – I apologise)

 

I have had to admit to myself  that I am going food shopping when I don’t even need anything – I am spending money I shouldn’t – why? To feel normal. To feel integrated but its having the opposite effect. I come away from these encounters unhappier than when I embarked on them. My lesson is to stop the mindless consumerism and to see what it is really masking. Just like behaving badly, it masks fear, uncertainty, feelings we hate and will do anything to disguise rather than sitting with them and working through them.

Here are some other resources to keep our spirits up during these times:

• Exercise – Number 1 – if you can do a live exercise classes on zoom. Do it- so much fun!! Otherwise awesome resources on FMTV or Down Dog app has fantastic yoga lessons.
• Dance party / House Party type apps. Connecting with people. This is Good!!! Secret Sunrise is doing live dance parties – look at website for details.
• Zoom chats with a group of friends
• Watching comedians – my favourite are Ellen Degeneres, Trevor Noah, Amy schummer
• Getting stuff done and crossing it off your list – instant high!!!
• Learning something new. Investigate wines, the art of negotiation, photography – there could not be more resources or better reasons to use this injection of time to upskill.
• Music! What better mood lifter.
• Audiobooks – listening to them while you do the huge amount of housework that you’re trying to avoid.
• making a visual diary of this unprecedented moment in history. Photos, video, written. something!!!! Our children’s children will want to know.

 

We are living through a defining time in human history. Its up to us to define that time. what will it make of us? Will we be better or worse for it?

Lets be better. Lets be kinder, more considerate, lets upskill our etiquette!!!

Lets upskill our Mindfulness, our self and our general compassion for humanity and the planet in its entirety!!

Lets lead with Love and not with Fear Mongering!

Lets understand that it is Mindfulness and Love that will save us all.

Mindfulness and love of our:

PLANET

ANIMALS

OURSELVES

HUMANITY

COMMUNITIES

WORK

LEGACY

 

Conspiracy theories drive us further and further into hatred, isolation and fear.

It will be love and mindfulness that creates a new world order that is worth living in!

Social distancing etiquette from the ‘Miss Manners’ of germs