The internet is exploding right now with information (true and false) regarding the Coronavirus. I am not a physician, an economist, politician or scientist. I have worked in education over 20 years. I have also experienced many challenges that have taught me resiliency and resourcefulness in times of stress.
Meanwhile, this past week I have felt panicky, sad, desperate, depressed, afraid, incredulous, angry and stupefied. I have found myself in the grocery market searching frantically for toilet paper and potatoes and jumping for joy when I nabbed the last box of Emergen-C on the shelf. I have become a shell of my former self. Here I am in line with the masses:
This morning I got to the market a half an hour before it opened. I spoke with a young man who had three children at home — he was worried about essentials for his family. Another man, a construction worker, was concerned about his elderly mother. He also requires masks for his work and can’t find any! As we were talking a rainbow appeared in the sky. Seeing the rainbow briefly alleviated our stress.
According to Google, “The expression ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’ is believed to have originated with a saying coined by the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates. In his work Amorphisms, he wrote: ‘For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable.'” Hipoocrates was ahead of his time, for sure. Downright prophetic.
There are many different ideas and theories surrounding this pandemic. Some people think it is a type of “warfare”, others think it is necessary to build our immunities for evolutionary reasons. I have no answers. Anyway, always in a search for a different opinion, here is an interesting video my son shared with me:
For the time being I am staying as socially distant as possible. I have been to above mentioned market a few times, and a fireplace store to get the necessary equipment to convert my wood-burning fireplace into a gas fireplace. Fortunately, my husband was able to do the hard labor, and now I have an amazingly cozy addition to my home:
All I can say is that I plan to use this time to write more, clean my house (!), catch up on reading and Netflix (Sherlock is in my que), and take walks with my dog when the rain stops. My three cats are going to get sick of me being around. You might get sick of me, too, because I plan to blog more.
Please take care and we will get through this! I tell myself, “this too shall pass.” I have told myself this before in tough times, and it has always come to pass.
Cheryl Thatt-Burbank 