Corona Virus – Something From Everything

Tag: Corona Virus

A Narrow Space

Come caving with Matt, as we explore the role of language in shaping our world.

There are nearly 500 explorable caves at Lava Beds National Monument. On a recent visit, my family managed to see six of them.

The caves are helpfully divided up into categories based on the caver’s experience and comfort with risk and narrow spaces:

Category A) You can stand and walk fully upright at all times.

Category B) You have to duck your head or bend your body around occasionally low ceilings.

Category C) You will have to crawl or ‘slither’ on your stomach for considerable sections.

Category D) There is no category D. There is no category C for me either.

Lava Beds National Monument is located just across the Oregon/California border, a National Park of nearly 47000 acres of rolling hills and desolate plains. On the long winding drive into the park, you can see fields littered with igneous rock from the eruption of nearby Medicine Lake volcano thousands of years ago. Beneath the ground, lava tubes created most of these hidden caverns, including Valentine Cave.

“Valentine Cave is a must see” said the very passionate, uniformed Ranger as he handed us a map and our massive, indestructible and un-pocketable flashlights. There was no deposit taken, only our solemn promise to return them at the end of day.

The entrance into Valentine was a short winding path with a handful of switchback stairs leading to its gaping mouth. Immediately the passage splits into two arching tunnels which later join together as the cavern narrows, descending deeper into the earth. You might imagine that the cave’s heart-like shape with bifurcating arching paths and slowly narrowing corridor might be the reason for its naming. But the cave was simply discovered on Valentine’s Day in the 1930s, it’s heart-like shape completely serendipitous.

Nearly a century later, It certainly had my heart beating faster.

As the corridor continued to turn and descend, the darkness became unfathomably hungry, completely devouring the light of both our dollar store headlamps and the flash of our phones. Only our loaned lanterns were able to shine a thin beam that reached the narrowing walls.

Our family of five walked forward slowly, shoulder to shoulder. Out of necessity we focused one flashlight beam above our heads, and one at the ground directly in front of our feet. The slow uneven drip of water gathered at the end of stalactites, and occasionally would drip onto our outstretched arm or down our neck. In sections the stalactites hung low enough to threaten to comb our hair, or strike a careless forehead. Below our feet the ground was wet, uneven, and littered with piles of rock from where sections of the roof had given way.

The cave walls continued to narrow as we delved deeper still, until the walls beside us were nearly in reach. We stared unseeingly into the distance ahead, and the sloping floor and impenetrable darkness made it appear as if we stood on the edge of a chasm. As if just ahead of us, the ground simply dropped away. Perhaps it did. We never found out. One of our children asked to turn around, and I gratefully conceded to their request.

While each step into the cave had been apprehensive and cautious, our return steps were markedly lighter, buoyed with the security of a known and previously explored path. Soon enough we could see the faint glow of reflected sunlight illuminating the edges of the narrow cave walls.

As we exited the cave, our eyes blinking blindly in the daylight, I breathed in deeply, stretched my arms wide, and sunk into the deep relief of a wide open space.

The whole road trip had been a stretch, a long slow exhale after months of holding our breath. Despite the hours spent in a cramped minivan, despite the five of us tripping over each other in hotel and motel rooms in different locations each night, it felt expansive, luxurious. It felt wide open, after a long time living in a narrow space.

Along the considerable journey we brought along Brene Brown’s newest (audio)book, “Atlas of the Heart”. I have been a fan of Brene’s research, presentations and writings for a long time now, and this might be my favorite work of her’s yet. Through mountain passes and desert plains we listened to Brene compare and contrast 87 distinct and common emotions, and the context in which we experience them. The work is thoroughly researched and easy to understand and relate to. But for me, the most interesting aspect of the book remains the ‘why’. Why write a compendium of 87 distinct emotions? Because most can only identify and reach for three: Happy, Sad, and Angry.

It doesn’t take long for Brown to argue her case. If we can only identify three emotions, it limits not only our vocabulary, but our experiences as well. In my last post I related Jonathan Merritt’s concern that ‘sacred words’ were disappearing from our common vocabulary. His concern is the same as Brown’s, that a diminished vocabulary results in a diminished life. That even if we are not religious, we need words like ‘forgiveness’ on our tongues, or we forget the very human need to regularly forgive each other. The way we think and speak changes us, and our world. Language is not only descriptive, but prescriptive as well.

I think a lot of us have been feeling like we have been living in a narrow space for a while now, corralled into these tight spaces by forces completely beyond our control. A pandemic, a threat of war, a climate emergency, an uncertain economic future. No one could fault us for feeling lost in this current darkness. For feeling claustrophobic with those walls closing in around us.

In face of this helplessness, Brown and Merrit’s work reminds me that language is agency, for good, or for ill. It is a double edged sword in each of our hands. Inadequate language and poor mental constructs have the potential to close us in just as much as external realities or a physical space. But thoughtful, precise language can open us up, lead us out of darkness and show us realities that we were previously ignorant to.

Some language makes the world bigger, while some makes it smaller. Some language reduces others into tidy groups of ‘us’ and ‘them’, while some reveals that everyone has a complex and hidden story. Some language peddles certainty, while some invites curiosity. As the Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously wrote, “words create worlds”. We have a crucial role in deciding what type of worlds we are creating.

It’s worth asking what language we are listening to, reading and repeating. Are we smaller or larger for it? Are we confining ourselves or freeing ourselves? Are we staying in any narrow spaces that we don’t have to?

The space we find ourselves in is narrow enough.

Let’s open it up a little.

Bracing For Impact

January 17, 2022 / matr / 2 Comments

In the old world, the winter months were littered with parties.

Not huge, extravagant affairs, mind you. More “get-together” than event, but raucous, chaotic, life-affirming get-togethers. As the evenings grew colder and darker, we welcomed our friends indoors to share appetizers and craft brews, make a few pizzas, and gather around our long farm table. There were no caterers or bartenders but ourselves, no band but the playlist on the living room stereo and no venue but our own sweet home. And we loved it.

We might have a single family over, or as many as six. Children were ushered downstairs, except for the youngest hanging off hips, or those darting between adults to load plates with food, or excitedly interrupt adult conversation for whatever was on their mind in that precise moment. The adults would break into smaller clusters talking above the music, huddled around the couch, fireplace and bay window ledge, or drifting in and out of the kitchen. Invariably, this is where I would be, taking orders for pizzas, and basking in the warmth of the oven and friendship alike.

Then we’d sit down at that long, worn table and talk for hours. Sometimes the conversations centered around a question, subject or quote. Other times there was no form at all. Sometimes the room was filled with raucous laughter, and other times a moment would arise that was so fraught or fragile that you held your breath.

Those evenings were a lot of things. Ordinary and Extraordinary. Chaotic and cathartic. But mostly it was just being surrounded by some of those I know and love the best. And I miss it terribly.

When I think about the old world, I think about those nights, and that space. Sure, I miss travelling, and concerts, and not having my glasses fog up every time I walk indoors while wearing a mask, but mostly I miss those celebrations.

Last October my wife suggested we should plan another party. A celebration, for no reason other than that fact that we could have one. But I was wary the moment she suggested it. It felt like a relic of the old world; too much to hope for, but I couldn’t say why. For a moment, it seemed life was returning to some sense of normality. Plans and trips and events could be entertained once again. Viral cases were down. Vaccinations had been freely available for some time, and the term “Omicron” had little relevance to me or anyone I knew.

Of course, that’s not the case now.

Now, whatever wave we are currently facing (I’ve honestly lost track) is crashing down around us. It has already hit many of us, while the rest of us brace for impact.

I am bracing for impact.

I brace for impact before every shift at the hospital. Where the workload swells amidst continual staff shortages. Where the number of confirmed infections who need treatment keep rising. Where testing delays, higher transmissibility, and inadequate space, make it more and more difficult to adequately protect myself and others.

I brace for impact as I read yet another article online telling us to throw away our cloth masks, and highlight the need for N95 particulate respirator, I read this while knowing that those masks should be fit-tested, are impossible to find in stores right now, and that some people still don’t seem to understand that any mask is ineffective if it doesn’t cover your nose…

I brace for impact each day I send my kids to school. As they tell me about another friend who has been away sick for the past week. As they struggle to follow new rules and regulations that make it more difficult to hang out with their friends. They tell me about new desk configurations, increased sanitization schedules, how bell times are now staggered, or how they will now eat lunch in their classroom only. I brace myself as I send them with those same cloth masks that I should be throwing away, but am waiting on replacements for.

I send them knowing they need their teachers. Knowing they need their friends. Knowing that they have been flexible and resilient for the last two years, but that it has come with a high cost. Knowing that many concerned, intelligent, informed minds are working on these laudable and imperfect solutions. And I’m nearly certain that it will not be enough.

I sit my family down. Tell them to brace for impact, too. I tell them that it is likely that someone in our family will probably get sick in the next few weeks. That it will likely be this new variant of Covid, this virus we have tried so long to avoid. And that it will be okay. That the wave that is crashing around us will likely soak us, and maybe even knock us over, but it will not drag us away.

I also tell them that this might be the beginning of the end of this pandemic.

There is a lot of guarded hope being offered lately. Hope that the widespread transmission, milder symptoms and asymptomatic infections might finally lead to a significant herd or group immunity. Hope for antibodies that might neutralize the effects of each new variant. Hope for the pandemic becoming endemic. Hope for the lessening of restrictions. Hope for some return to normality.

But all of this is future hope, and I have braced myself against future hope from the beginning. From the very beginning of this pandemic, there has been plenty of unchecked optimism and fantasies about the near future. I’ve certainly caught myself talking about the “end of the pandemic” more than once, without the first clue or critical thought about how we might actually get there.

But even now, with a roadmap and compelling reasons to hope for the end, I find myself reluctant to embrace any specific and longed for hope. I find myself weary of making another plan that comes undone at the last moment. This pandemic has made many of us both weary, and wary. I find myself bracing against hope.

Hope can seem a dangerous thing when we’ve felt the disappointment of its disappearance, and hope in a particular outcome is invariably the most fragile. Who could blame any of us for feeling nervous, skeptical or cynical? There are so many ways our particular hopes and dreams and plans have had to be adjusted, revised or abandoned altogether over these past two years. It makes sense that we might want to keep our hopes at a distance, at least for now.

But we need those hopes. Those specific hopes, longings and desires pull us forward, they give us the strength to place one foot in front of the other on days like these.

Our hopes are undoubtedly risky, but we need them. Our specific hopes for that reunion, that trip, that surgery to be rescheduled, that table to be filled with friends, food and conversation once again.

If this is the storm before the calm, we brace ourselves for it and endure it by knowing what, specifically, we are hoping for.

So I’m getting my menu ready. I’m picking out the music playlist. I’m cleaning out the downstairs entertainment room. I’m thinking of how to best set up the patio when the weather warms. Because one day, that particular hope will be possible once again.

And there will be such a party.

___

Of Parts and the Whole

December 10, 2020 / matr / 0 Comments

“He’s your friend… he’s your friend… he’s your friend”.

I repeat the phrase to myself like a mantra. Familiar words that have lost all meaning in the present moment. I’m trying to remember them.

It’s late at night, and I’m a few beers in, staring at my phone and the latest graphic my friend has uploaded to his social feed. Something about the ridiculousness of our latest restrictions, or how the virus has a stunningly low mortality rate. About how this is all blown out of proportion.

It’s the third post from him that evening to similar effect. He’s obviously on a tear. And I, like a moth to a flame, like a dog to vomit, keep returning. My hand hovers on the reply button. I’m just uninhibited enough to start a fight. Or rise to one.

My wife takes away my phone.

“You’re drunk. And he’s our friend”.

She’s right of course, on both counts.

The next day I return with clearer eyes, and my mood isn’t much better. In my absence, others (whose partners did not physically remove their phones) had responded to my friends’ assertions. A back and forth had developed, these stats versus those, this infringement of rights versus that benefit, all of it loaded, all of it tense.

It’s tense for me too. It’s personal. I’ve been witnessing increasing numbers of confirmed cases return to the hospital with shortness of breath. And I had just received an email from my child’s school informing me that a student there is infected. That was our first email, but for many of my friends, this has been occurring regularly. It’s become personal for all of us. The once distant threat is more real than ever. Here now, and revealing itself daily.

So too our anxiety and fear is showing itself daily. Each conversation stubbornly fixated upon this virus, the new governmental restrictions, or the uncertain near future. My online social feeds are shouting. Most of the shouting reinforces my echo chamber. Memes that show what an intubation procedure looks like, in case someone finds a cloth mask uncomfortable. Stories of those who have unexpectedly lost loved ones during this pandemic, and could not be at their beside. Doctors and nurses, pleading with their friends, families and communities to follow the precautions outlined or mandated for their safety.

But occasionally, a break in the echo chamber comes through. And in a world of shouted agreement, these posts are especially abrasive. Posts that imply that all my worry, caution, and potential danger to myself and my family is overblown.

I respond to my friend’s post. As rationally and empathetically as I am able in that moment. A back and forth of our own develops, but after multiple exchanges, we are no closer to agreement. Even with my best arguments, he’s not miraculously converted to my line of thinking.

(Makes you wonder the point of all this shouting and shaming, when we intuitively know it will not change minds and hearts).

I text my friend, “we should go for a walk”. My friend agrees. A little fresh air and sunlight could do us both a world of good.

I’m nervous before going on the walk, but we don’t immediately discuss our views on the virus or his recent posts. That’s not how real life works. It’s been a few months since we’ve seen each other face to face. We talk about our partners and children. We talk about our jobs. We talk about how we miss seeing groups of people. We talk about how it is heartbreaking to find a community to belong to, and suddenly be unable to meet face to face. We talked about how the use of sanitizer in schools causes both of our children to develop sores and inflammation on their hands. We talk about what fear does to a culture, how hard it is to connect with another when you are suspicious that they (or yourself), might have a deadly virus in tow. We talk about how keeping people at a physical distance creates a mental distance as well. We talk about how “hope deferred makes the heart sick”.

We find a great deal that we connect on. Eventually, we discuss his posts, our viewpoints on the virus and our responses to it. In talking with him, I am able to realize how raw and exposed I feel, how personally I took those posts. There is a lot that I disagree with. We come from incompatible starting points, and therefore expect wildly different outcomes. We both place reliance on data that we can not, individually, prove and authenticate. We differ greatly on who we trust and whose data we can rely upon.

We do not come to complete agreement. But the walk was never about that. The walk, I realize, has far less to do with convincing my friend that he is wrong than it does convincing myself that we are still good friends.

And we are still good friends. Because for a bright, sunlit December morning traipsing around the back hills of Mission Creek, I saw my whole friend.

Now, this is obvious, and you probably don’t need me reminding you, but what we see online of each other is not a full person. These are snapshots, curated by creator and platform alike, and removed from the context of real life.

Lots of people more intelligent and articulate than myself have explored this phenomenon. Long before we ever heard of Coronavirus or Covid-19, those who study human behavior have been raising the alarm that social media often creates unrealistic, false, and socially destructive images of each other. That it leaves us feeling more isolated and disconnected, not less.

And in our isolation right now, it can feel like all we have.

Compounding this, we are all desperately focused on a singular, complex and unfolding event. Our newsfeeds and socials are saturated with posts about a virus with unprecedented spread and death toll in our lifetime. We are reading about and discussing new vaccine technologies which the world has never seen. We are debating the credibility of data we have never before considered. We are posting our opinions on how we are collectively incurring deficits in the billions.

Some of us are acting as if we are covertly trained economists, politicians, epidemiologists, virologists, pharmacologists, or health officers. But even those of us who begrudgingly admit our ignorance in these matters are still ready and willing to shout our opinions on social media.

On my long walk with my friend it occurred to me that what we are currently discussing is no less than “life, liberty and the security of person”. The stakes are that high, for me, and for my friend, despite our very different take on this present moment. It is natural that we would all want a say in these matters, even when they are well out of our depth. This can be infuriating when we read opinions and conclusions that are contrary to our own, or discount our own first hand experience. But it is not unexpected.

So many of the critiques of policy I have come across highlight a perceived failure of balance. A focus on a particular part, at the expense of the whole: Small businessnesses that are shuttered while big box stores continue to operate, resulting in a future economy further monopolized by the biggest players; Restrictions and reductions on elective surgeries allow redeployment of resources, but come at the cost of personal pain and complications from the delay; A government offers emergency funds, but saddles billions of dollars of debt with our children and grandchildren (and so on).

“It’s difficult to convey the whole of a thing online. We don’t tend to I haven’t seen a whole lot of memes that convey the difficulty of balancing both life and liberty. The whole is less about shouting, more about dialogue. I can agree with these restrictions, and still be aware of the overall cost of them. In fact, I should. We should all be able to live with some complexity and nuance. The whole of a thing is always messy, complicated, and full of contradictions and compromises.

But so are we. And in a moment where we are only seeing a part of each other, it’s easy to mistake it for the whole. We are not our most recent Facebook post or Instagram story. Those that we have invited into our lives, we have invited for a reason. Their whole person is important to us, as we are to them.

Remembering a person’s wholeness does not mean that truth matters less, or that boundaries are not important. It is simply the refusal to reduce someone to their sharpest edges. It is the generous humility of remembering our common struggles. It is being gracious with another as to allow disagreement and complexity.

And humility, generosity and grace are exactly what we need right now.

The Problem, Over There

July 23, 2020 / matr / 1 Comment

You’ve got laundry to fold, dishes to do or some thumbs to twiddle… click above and let Matt read you this one.

For weeks I’ve been frowning at red licence plates.

This would likely be true at the beginning of any summer season. I live in British Columbia, in a popular vacation spot close to lakes, beaches, and (usually) long, hot, sun saturated summer days. Each spring we have an influx of neighbouring Albertans. Albertan vehicles (with their red lettered license plates) surround in suddenly congested highways, beach parking lots and campsites. Glowering at Alberta licence plates seems to be a favorite seasonal pastime among many Okanagan residents. And I have to admit, despite coming from the land of red plates myself… I’m scowling too.

This year, we might have good reason to scowl.

While British Columbia might have started with a significant outbreak of COVID-19 cases, it is Alberta that has been the black sheep of Western provinces for a while now. As British Columbia’s numbers of new infections continued to steady or decline, Alberta continued to report multiple exposures in care homes in Calgary, multiple meat processing plants in southern Alberta, and most recently a significant outbreak at a hospital in Edmonton. Despite similar populations, Alberta’s infection numbers are more than double that of BC’s.

It has been easy to feel a little smug about those numbers, especially if you live in the interior of British Columbia. For weeks, we sat at a comfortable one to two active cases between the entire region, exact location of infections unknown. Those paltry numbers, and the wide region they existed within, were just enough to feel that our communities were once again safe. For us to regain some security in seeing our friends again, sitting down on a sunny restaurant patio again, and beginning to return to a normal life.

In those weeks, (if we were talking about it at all) we were talking about the virus elsewhere. Either in the future (the dreaded phase 2), or the problem “over there”. For those in Vancouver or the Lower Mainland. For those in Alberta. For those in Ontario and Quebec. For those in the United States.

All of that was shattered a few days ago when it was revealed that a number of private Canada Parties had resulted in new and spreading outbreaks within my home city of Kelowna. Suddenly the problem “over there” came here. Future problems became present. Someone else’ problem became ours. And when 6 of the 8 people first identified as infected turned out to be non Okanagan residents (including those from the Lower Mainland and Alberta), we knew exactly who to scowl at.

But that’s not entirely correct, is it?

Our current outbreak is not due entirely to foreign, malicious forces descending on our sleepy, Covid-free town and region, is it? Careless intruders that come to our region, spread their virus and leave? Certainly much has been said about the conditions where these outbreaks occurred: large groups of people indoors, mixed groups of friends and strangers, people moving between tables in restaurants, inadequate physical distancing and mask use. But these conditions existed elsewhere before Canada Day, and on plenty of days before and since. It continues even now in the midst of our local outbreak.

We shouldn’t be surprised that outsiders would be a focus of this outbreak (or any outbreak). Our freedom, our security and our health is once again threatened, and that fear and anger has to go somewhere. That’s how blame works. It allows a release valve, but at the cost of only giving us a part of the picture. Can we pretend, even for a moment, to be faultless in these infections? Mask use in enclosed spaces still remains surprisingly low. Physical distancing and small social bubbles are still being ignored. Why? Perhaps because we have believed it a problem “over there”. Someone else’s problem.

A great illustration of this idea is our view of the current spread of the Coronavirus in the United States. Like so many of us, I have been watching the explosive spread with a detached and morbid fascination. As I write this, Florida is surpassing more than 11,000 new cases per day. Texas is not far behind that. The United States added over 71,000 new cases (and that number will certainly be outdated by the time you read these words. These numbers should terrify me. Do terrify me. But too often I look at them as if they are happening to some far away, disconnected place. As if I didn’t live a mere two hours away from Washington State. As if the Canada/ US border would never reopen.

One Twitter user, @ericonederful suggested that “The rest of the world is watching America like America watched Tiger King”, but I prefer @stevieoakley’s take: “I bet Canada feels like they live in the Apartment above a Meth Lab right about now”.

The truth is, whether we are talking about the exponential rise of cases in the United States, or local outbreaks in the lower mainland, Calgary, or Edmonton, we are all far too interconnected for us to think of this as a problem “over there”. To think of this as someone else’s problem.

I understand the function of compartmentalizing our threats, I really do. It’s hard to live in the shadow of an ever present threat. But thinking of this virus as someone else’s problem, or a problem for “over there” is both lazy and dangerous. We are more intelligent than that. At best, we have always been a short drive, a plane’s landing, a private indoor party away from a new outbreak in our region. It doesn’t mean we need to attempt to cut all ties and live in fearful isolation. But it does mean that we need to live with a constant awareness of the fragility of our community’s health.

One of the many lessons this pandemic is teaching us is that there is no such thing as a disconnected world. Even with many restrictions and recommendations in place, we are still in partnership with so many. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, we are all connected. These may not have been the vows we have taken with people we have never met, living provinces, states, or countries away, but it is no less true.

The problem can never really be just “over there”. Someone else’ problem.

It is our problem now.

Really, it always was.

No Longer Winning

March 28, 2020 / matr / 6 Comments

No Longer Winning.

Listen. Those snacks in your isolation bunker aren’t going to eat themselves. Let Matt read you this one, and save the crumbs on the keyboard.

I’m not sleeping well, friends.

All this past week I’ve been receiving thoughtful messages from friends asking how I’m doing. And honestly? I feel like I’m losing. I’m embarrassed how afraid I am, how anxious I feel.

There has been a tightness in my chest for over a week. It’s become harder than ever to take a deep, slow, breath. But this shortness of breath is not the pandemic COVID-19. This is the fear of it, the fear of all that’s coming.

For months now I’ve been following the growth and spread of the novel Coronavirus. Not surprisingly each new development has prompted more investigation of the virus, the responses, and the fallout. For weeks, I’ve felt informed and level headed. I watched as people stated that the likeliness of a wide scale spread of infection was low for those of us in North America. I was skeptical, but optimistic. And I was sleeping at night.

At the hospital I work at, we began preparing for the possibility of cases trickling down to us as people heeded the call to return to Canada from all around the globe. As people began emptying store shelves of toilet paper, sanitizer and non-perishables, I have remained calm, knowing that restocking would eventually come. I looked at the supply of dried and canned goods already in our cupboards, and swallowed hard. But I was still sleeping at night.

When spring break began, our family headed to a remote cabin to self isolate for a few days in style. On a quiet piece of land beside the sea, with limited cell phone reception, we were sheltered from the madness that was the news cycle between March 14th and 20th, receiving only sporadic updates from one corner of the property. I was feeling the tension rise inside of me. But I was still sleeping at night.

When we had internet, we posted pictures of hikes by the sea, of firepits and wood stoves. And from all accounts, it looked like we were winning.

Fast forward one week, and a lot has changed. I’ve followed each morning update by our Provincial Health Officer and Prime Minister. I’ve been invited to four separate Coronavirus themed Facebook groups to keep track of community news and needs. Increased knowledge of this virus has not decreased my anxiety. And this week, that anxiety has reached a fever pitch.

And I started having trouble sleeping at night.

And I know that I’m not alone in this anxiety. I know that many are having trouble taking a deep, slow breath. That many are up at night. That many no longer feel like they are winning.

It’s true for the elderly in group homes, hoping that none of the staff coming and going will bring about a virus that many of them will not be able to withstand.

It’s true for the parent at home, looking at their child with asthma and hoping that they can be diligent enough to avoid transmitting the virus.

It’s true for the grocery clerk whose checkout counter forces them to be within 2 meters of their customer.

It’s true for the nurses, radiologists, doctors, and porters working in the hospital who know that protective equipment is in short supply and dwindling. That respirators and those who can operate them are in high demand. And that many more sick and infected patients are coming.

It’s true for each worker who has to go into work and then return home to their loved ones.

And it’s true for each and every person who is already beginning to wonder how long they can live like this.

Because truthfully, unbelievably, it has only been 11 days since British Columbia announced that the virus is a Public Health Emergency. Many of us have only been isolated to our house for a little over a week, two at most. It feels longer.

That’s less than two weeks of markers on the floor showing us how far back to stand from the customer in front of us. Less than two weeks of attempting to set up workplaces from home. Less than two weeks since we could sit down in a restaurant, bar or library. Less than two weeks of feeling like each cold or flu symptom could be something much worse.

In these past two weeks, we’ve seen a lot of responses to this crisis. We’ve seen a lot of brave faces. A lot of positivity. We’ve seen instagram photos of families out hiking, we’ve seen pictures of people’s home office set up, we’ve seen chore lists and ~~bribery~~ reward charts intended to allow parents a few minutes of uninterrupted work time. We’ve seen people’s baking. We’ve seen their new home gym routines and push ups challenges. We’ve seen cars driving by emergency departments with encouraging and thankful notes. We’ve seen nearby residents banging pots and pans in appreciation of front line healthcare workers. And we’ve seen a lot of heartwarming pictures of families cuddling up together reading, or playing board games.

We’ve seen a lot of people who look like they are winning at this new, bizarre way of life.

And if this is an accurate depiction of your life these past week, I’m genuinely happy for you. In my own family we’ve played boardgames and videogames together. We’ve made bread from scratch and enjoyed viciously beating down the risen dough. We’ve even survived a few math lessons together at the dinner table.

And I’ve also had to lock the door to my room and barricade myself away from my kids because I was afraid of yelling at them, again. I’ve read a doctor’s account of the war-like conditions in his hospital in New York State and felt utterly ruined. I’ve wandered my house, lost. Picking up my phone to refresh a feed I just looked at 5 minutes ago. Searching through cupboards and fridges I’m nervous about not being able to restock.

And the truth is, I think many of us are tired and scared. Some of us have given this new life it’s best possible start, and two weeks in, we’re wondering how long we can keep this up. We’ve seen the cracks begin to show in our best intentions of staying positive and productive. We’ve run out of shows to distract ourselves with on Netflix. We’re sick of playing the same board games already. We’re not getting the work done. We’ve seen our lesson plans fail. We’ve seen a 40% increase in alcohol sales. We’ve contributed to these sales. We watch the exponential rise of cases in our province and country. We wait in our homes, watching our phones and computers. Unable to move, unable to escape it. We’ve felt the end of this crisis become more and more elusive.

It’s time for a few of us to admit that we are not winning. Whether we are isolated at home alone, with family, or heading back to work daily, it’s okay if we feel like we are barely getting by. This is not a game we win, this is a crisis we survive.

Many of us are looking for lessons. We’re trying to see this in the best light possible. Hope can be our greatest ally, but it is hard to come by these days. It’s okay if it’s illusive right now.

Perspective is developed in time. In these hardest of moments, these initial weeks, it’s okay to be honest. It’s okay to admit that we are not winning. That we are not okay. That we are tired and afraid.

One day, we will see how this has shaped and taught us. One day, we will be okay.

That day doesn’t have to be today.

________