COVID-19 • A Beautiful Day In the Neighborhood of Earth

March 19, 2020

I kind of missed it in all this insanity but – it’s spring!  Seems lucky that we are not buried in one of those nasty New England winters; and sick.  We can actually spend time with the outdoors and watch life emerge from winter’s hibernation.

And COVID-19 just turned the great outdoors into the cleanest space in the world.  The virus is not likely to survive on dirt, mud, tree bark, plants, or most outdoor natural surfaces.  Finally a place we can put our hands – into a nice pile of loam.

If you had some soil, you might find that gardening is a pretty useful activity in stressful times.  Growing plants really is a sign of hope – optimism for future harvests and bounty.  No matter if that bounty is in flowers or food, the bringing of life is simply beautiful.

You know what else would do the same? ….. Get a dog or a cat from the shelter; or chickens – probably not chickens at the shelter but easily available elsewhere.  Animals have a view on the world we could all take lessons from right now.  Live today.  Be happy.  Eat; and well if you can. 

Raising animals is good.  It increases your stock of common compassion and love.  Caring for animals and pets can be the right distraction for the amorphous, lurking stress of a disease pandemic.  It gives stress purpose and meaning and focuses it on the present.  In doing so, distress can morph to eustress; healing helps the healer and those in need.   Of course, raising animals is a serious job and a commitment.  But there is no better place to rest your head or your tears.

The world beyond humanity also just got a huge break. Now, with a truly stunning reduction in air pollution, spring life will be stronger, the stars will be brighter and life on earth is much healthier.  And given that we all live here – you know, Earth – we are all going to be somewhat healthier for the global reduction in air pollution.  All of us; in the whole world.  That is pretty cool.

Our world of hyperactive capitalistic competitiveness has not made us very nice to each other.  It is the nature of hyperactive capitalistic competitiveness to create millions of islands of wealth connected by broken streets.  It also does a crap job of building communities.

But in just a few days of lockdown, Bostonians are serenading each other with ‘Sweet Caroline’.  So, maybe everybody is a bit cooler than we thought.  Maybe we are not all hyperactive competitors but we are actually friends and neighbors and community.

Perhaps this crisis will reunite us with that sentiment.

We are all changed by this pandemic. It is difficult to see all the hope that is rising around us.  Hard to see the spring.

It is there.  I see solutions to problems I never dreamed of just last week; friends sewing masks for coworkers.  I see the world grouped together, heads bent to this task; making strides faster than I could have hoped during the H1N1 pandemic.  I see every part of the global health care family, working together to find novel solutions; drug trials already beginning for treatments and vaccines.  I see a global passion to kick the un-living hell out of this virus.

I like spring.  There is hope in this season.