My friend, Tim Rondeau, called me this morning. Normally, we talk about tomatoes and gardening while occasionally jabbing each other, good-naturedly, over politics.
Today, he asked me a serious open-ended question: How do I think COVID-19 will affect our society?
It's a question I've been thinking about a lot recently. This morning, SWSNBNOFB and I ran out to Walmart for some essentials (we already have a full pantry of loo paper under lock and key). People were flitting around in some sort of stupored-panic, hovering around the eggs, milk, bread, meat, cleaning products and toilet paper (empty) aisles. We wedged our way in and snatched a fifty pound log of ground chuck (80-20%) before elbowing our way out.
After check-out, I saw my good friend, Bill Taylor, busy at work in the Woodforest Bank inside the store. I ran over, interrupted, and gave him a quick fist-bump greeting. As I walked out, I felt better just knowing that, like The Dude, Bill abides.
Yesterday, another friend of mine (I won't use his name here for fear that people will stampede his house) put out on FB that his wife and he are willing to take care of some kids at their home free of charge (help with snacks, etc) for parents who are stuck working with no childcare now that schools are closed. This is such a fabulous and generous gesture.
I was having another conversation with a friend yesterday when news began leaking out that schools were going to be closing for an extended period. She was immediately concerned with how all of those kids who get breakfast and lunch at school are going to get their meals. She wants to get our group together to help out in any way we can.
These simple illustrations highlight what I believe are the real human beings that exist within ourselves. During natural tragedies like hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes in the past, we've pulled together. 9-11 united us in grief. WWII brought our country together with people pitching in to help save the world.
This, our latest crisis, has the potential to snap us out of our toxic divisiveness and place in proper perspective our relative individual fragility and dependence on each other.
My answer to Tim was that I view this crisis as a real opportunity to reconnect as a society, to realize that our disputes in the political realm are so very trivial. We have a unique opportunity to be more human.
Check in on your friends. Help your neighbors. Be present and thoughtful. Hoard toilet paper.
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