Hope Writer Challenge - Reconnect

For the sixth day of @hopewriters writing challenge (#hopewriterlife) the prompt was Reconnect.

I Reconnect is an incredibly important theme this year. As we reimagine how our 2020 will look in the future or what it may have been in a different version of itself, reconnecting is at the core of it.

As we all entered lockdown, with very different flavors and inflections based on where we lived, we all had to reimagine connection.  In isolation connection is more important than ever.  But we had to reimagine it and how to reconnect.

I have personally found myself reconnecting with old friends that live far away.  I love them dearly, but the distance often keeps our lives rather separate.  Now that all communication and connection is digital it seems easier to reconnect with friends from out of state.  It's just as easy to get an out of town friend on zoom as it is to get your close neighbor on a zoom call.

With less outside activities demanding our time, there is less competition for our focus, and more time to schedule for friends.  Time zones seem to matter less when you're in all day.  And while I don't want or expect my friends to keep their schedules open indefinitely, it has been a lovely change to reconnect with good old friends at this time.

Some of our built up rhythm will carry with us into the rest of the year even as restrictions lift.  In part because we have reimagined how we connect with one another already.  My friends and I have started a quarantine book club.  When we go back to our outside activities we may not be able to zoom call each other all the time as we have been regularly.  But we will keep up our digital bookclub.

Sometimes all you need for reconnection is a start.  As we strive to reclaim a sense of normalcy we find ourselves not just imagining, but also reinventing the way we connect.  And I think that having put so much time into reconnecting we have enriched the days and months to come, whatever they may hold.

So, find ways to reconnect in a positive way.  Call someone you care about, tell someone how special they are to you.  Have a phone or zoom call with people you miss.  Enrich the rest of your 2020 with positive and meaningful reconnections. 

Hope Writer Challenge - Reimagine 2020 - Rewrite

Hope Writer's hosted an Instagram writing challenge to reimagine 2020.  The challenge had a different topic every day for a week. And the first day's topic was Rewrite.  I wrote about all of this on Instagram on my profile @madderhattery, but I'd like to repost the writing here because I think we need more words of hope these days.

Reimagine 2020 - Rewrites

Spring Blossoms in Chicago - photo by The Madder Hatter

As part of the Hope Writer's challenge I'm talking about Rewrites today.

As much as we may wish to change the things that have already happened, we cannot.  What we can do is take this unprecedented turn of affairs, this global pandemic, and use it to rewrite our lives.

Everywhere I look I see neighbors meeting and growing closer during this new distance.  Being stuck at home has forced us to look closer at our communities and see the very real things going on in our own backyards.

Sometimes, we get so caught up in the rhythm of our daily lives that we don't ask ourselves if it's the right rhythm.  This forced pause has caused us to look inward.  We can't run from our thoughts and doubts when they are the only company we keep.  So I think it's time we face them.

It's time to take the giant blank slate of our future and reimagine it.  How often have you heard someone shout down your dreams because they couldn't ever be?  It's just the way the world is.  Yet, here we are living in a world nobody had imagined.  It tells you something; some of the largest most unavoidable things about modern life are entirely arbitrary.  And not only can we change them, we can change a lot of them all at once in the course of a few weeks.

So take up your life and examine it.  Listen in the quiet for what you've always known you wanted and use this pause to start fighting for it.  The future can be rewritten, no matter what course it was on before.  Take a moment to learn from your fear and anger what it is your heart really wants.

Don't put off that project, career change, or dream.  Start down that path today.  Nobody can say what the future will bring, but it certainly won't hold the things you didn't bother to fight for.

You are the author of your future.  Pick up your pen today and remember that coming together (even when that means staying apart), is what makes us stronger.  Remember that there is always something you can do to help both yourself and someone else.  And remember that every single one of us will help shape the future.   So make it a good one.   Make it a beautiful one.  Make it a loving, accepting and hopeful one.  Join me and rewrite a better future for all of us.

A Whole Tree of Spring Blossoms in Chicago photo by the Madder Hatter 

I wrote those words about the global pandemic just a few weeks ago, but I think they take on new relevance now considering the racism and injustice we've all seen this last week.  Even reconsidering it all I want to leave you with the same words.  

Join me and rewrite a better future for all of us.

Little Things that Surprise me Most during this Covid-19 Outbreak: Elastic Shortage and Pigeons

Everywhere you look the world has changed.  It almost feels weird when you find an aspect of your life that hasn't.  Almost nobody goes to work anymore, working from home and trying to find unique ways to do your job or keep up with your friends is now the norm.  Schools are doing distance learning.  People are cooped up indoors.  All over the world there are empty squares and streets.  And little things that nobody ever thought of are now big.  And somehow the big things we all worried about three weeks ago seem small.

My mother and I were both feeling a bit like we were useless trapped inside.  But now we are coordinating through the phone and email with a neighbor who runs a local food bank in need of masks.  Mom and I are now busily looking up patterns and sewing fabric masks to help volunteers hand out food to the people who need it.  The numbers showing up at this local food bank have swelled from 160 a day to 400.

People have lost jobs and income.  People are in need and frightened.  And we are all doing our best.  Making masks from home with scraps of fabric piled in the attic.  There is an elastic shortage.  We used all of ours and now there seems to be none anywhere.  People across the country trying to sew masks to help first-responders are using hair ties and headbands for elastic.  An elastic shortage.  I would never have guessed.

And it's the little things that keep surprising me.  I saw a post on Instagram of the pigeons in Spain flocking to the only person on the street.  Nobody is out so they have no food to scavenge.  I have never felt sorry for pigeons the way I did when I saw them desperately following this lone human, begging for food.

A small piece of my heart broke for them.  Not even the pigeons, a seeming constant in every city, are unaffected by the global pandemic that is bringing our world to a halt.

Everywhere I look I find another thing that surprises me about the way our world has changed.  It makes sense, the way that streets being empty brings the wild animals out into the cities.  But it doesn't make the world any less surprising as every day seems to bring tiny revelations of our newly altered world.

We are all doing our best.  Fashion houses in NYC as well as individuals with sewing machines are churning out masks.  We know they aren't as good as N95 and surgical masks, but they're all we have now.  And we are doing all we can.  The fact that everyone is coming together, online, through tutorials on YouTube and through Facebook's Covid-19 Support page Community Help is a bright ray of hope.

The news is now almost entirely fact driven informative pieces relaying the situation on the ground to those who need to know.  I don't see the judgemental and hateful partisan things I once did.  Legitimate problems, calls for aid, and the way that people are trying to lift one another up are in the news now.  And for the first time in years I read the news with hope.  Hope that I'll find real information.  Hope that I'll find answers to questions I have.  Hope that I'll see humanity fighting it's hardest to become better.  Because faced with a global crisis we are more than ever all connected even as we sit in our houses all alone.

Stay home.  Stay well.  Stay connected.  Continue hoping and helping.

Hope and Helpers in the Darkest Hours of Covid-19

It is hard sometimes when we live in such uncertain times to not find ourselves bogged down emotionally by the ever present threat of overwhelmingly bad news.  It is not possible to stay unaware of the threat, nor would it be wise to be totally ignorant of the coming dangers.  But how does one stay positive in such an environment?  As we watch with concern the risks our healthcare professionals are subjected to as they fight unprecedented hospitalization rates with dwindling supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) and come to dread the daily death toll it is hard to keep from feeling anxious.

I am personally in a vulnerable category, or rather two of them.  At the moment my body is busy fighting off Lyme Disease, a battle I've been fighting for over a year now, and my immune system is already over taxed from that effort.  I am also someone with what I call weak lungs, I have asthma, and all my colds and illnesses attack my lungs and linger there far longer than other people's trifling colds.  All this makes me genuinely nervous about my ability to recover should I get Covid-19.  So, I stay home, limit my contact with the outside world and sanitize everything.  But sometimes I still stay up at night wondering about the future.

So, I've had to ban myself from reading news outside of occasionally checking on California's new measures to prevent spread and a few updates.  I can't read anything about the state of doctors, hospitals or anything else pertaining to our current health crisis at night or I won't sleep.

And I've had to implement this one very simple and seemingly effective rule.  Every time I see something that makes me worry I have to hunt down something about those people who are trying to help their fellow man through this crisis.  I can't prevent my inboxes from filling up with upsetting articles and news from concerned friends.  But I can deliberately hunt down information that restores my hope.

Mister Rogers, apparently learned from his mother to "look for the helpers" in every crisis.  If you haven't seen the new movie with Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers you should.  It's a perfect message for such days as these with darkness pouring into our world and everyone hiding indoors.  Whenever things get rough and scary, anywhere there are bad things happening, in the middle of the darkness, there you will find the helpers.  The doctors and nurses rushing in to help everyone even though they are exposing themselves.

Check out this article in the HuffPost for more on Mr. Rogers.

He advised talking about facts, not letting a child's imagination conjure up even scarier realities.  And that's a good message for those who descend into a news world designed to build hype and scare people into reading further and further with less and less information and facts.  Media often thrives on hype and emotion and facts fade away.  Don't let that become a part of your experience of this crisis.  We are stuck at home in some ways feeling very helpless in the face of a global pandemic.  While we are not all children, the feelings of helplessness and fear are universal and can be combated in much the same way you would soothe a child.  The difference being that you are soothing yourself, your own inner child.  Don't watch sensationalized news.  Remind yourself of the facts.  Tell yourself how you and all your family and neighbors are working to keep each other safe.  All look for those people who are helping in the crisis.  Focus on the hope and find ways to be a helper yourself.

Because the helpers can come in any form.  The helper can and should be you.  You may not be a doctor or nurse.  You may not be able to help in any way that you think is meaningful, but you can always do something.  The researchers at William and Mary pooled all their PPE and sent it to local hospitals to help keep doctors and nurses safe.  My mom is busily sewing fabric face masks that she'll drop on a neighbor's porch to use at the food bank.  The local food bank is overwhelmed with people who need their help, but the volunteers don't have any masks or gloves to use while they work handing out food to the public.

Two ladies who volunteer at the Old Poway Park (now closed for safety of the community) have sent round an email to all the other volunteers saying that if anyone needs help, or knows of anyone who does, they can contact the Poway Neighborhood Emergency Corps.  These two and a team of others from the community are willing to pick up groceries and run to the pharmacy for anyone who cannot, or does not wish to go out and get exposed.

And even if you can do none of those things, sharing your beauty and art with the world is enough.  The tenor Maurizio Marchini, quarantined in Firenze sang Nessun Dorma from his balcony.  And even if he can do nothing else, the fact that he shared his gorgeous voice and this song with the people who cared to listen it was enough.  All over Italy people are trying to bring joy to one another through little things.

The world is actually full of helpers.  And it is important to know the upsetting facts about the dangers we face so that we can respond appropriately by understanding what to do to keep everyone safe.  Learning about senior hours at the local grocery store and telling your elderly loved ones about it.  But as you look up the articles warning of danger also temper that understanding with hope.  Look for the helpers.  Find the hope in the darkness, where people rush in despite risks to their personal safety, where people try to bring each other joy during these hard times.

Find one good thing for every hard one you face.  If you worry about the death toll, cling to the numbers of those who have survived.  If you worry about the elderly, cling to the hope of the 101 year old Italian man who survived Corona.  If you are worried about the safety of your community, remind yourself that everywhere people are trying to help neighbors by staying home to limit infection, by making masks from scraps of fabric in the attic, and getting groceries and medicine for those who cannot risk going out.

Find how you can help make the world better.  

Don't give in to the fear and panic.  Find a way to help someone else through it all.  Be one of the helpers who gives in the fight against the global pandemic.  Maybe you can share you gifts from your balcony or through the internet.  Maybe staying home is your act of helping. 

Join us, and stand with us, as we do all do the one little thing we can to be kind, to be strong, and to survive.