That being said, it's impossible not to notice the shift around the world. When out on our daily walks (just to get out of the house for a bit and walk the doggies) people don't meet eyes as much. There is a hesitancy, an obvious discomfort and mistrust of those around you. Maybe if it's a pretty day you'll get a timid half-smile from someone walking by. But nobody stops and chats or watches as the babies high five while you awkwardly try to fill the language barrier with gestures and smiles. It's eerie. Japan is such a friendly culture but we're all on high alert now, just trying to make it through to the other side.
Ezmé of course, being small enough to have no clue what's going on, smiles and waves to anything that passes by us from construction workers, to other families hurrying past, to birds and airplanes flying overhead. She is a light in the darkness.
It may come as a surprise to most of you, but being stationed overseas and not having regular cable means that our news sources are primarily information that we read from news articles and scientific papers online. In other words, we have to actively go out and find it. In some ways I feel lucky that I'm not bombarded 24/7 with news (with the exception of Facebook which, I hardly trust as reliable).
However, it's hard to miss the stories about the suffering and deaths of those unfortunate ones who have contracted this virus. The stories of the families left behind and the healthcare workers being run into the ground as they try to stave off this infection are heartbreaking. And then there are the stories of those who can't seem to wrap their heads around the concept of staying home to help minimize the destruction of this illness. It makes me want to scream! Are these really the same people preaching the importance of all life? How is it okay to use policy to deny medical procedures to women with terminal pregnancies, but it's not okay to ask people to stay home to save the lives of those around you?
Will stores go out of business, yes. Will the economy take a hit, duh. Are people going to lose their jobs and need financial assistance, of course. But, can anyone honestly say that they are willing to sacrifice the lives of the people around them to 'prevent' those things from happening? I know that I can't in good conscience support that idea. To me, it is inhumane and a glaring example of one of the biggest problems in society today; our priorities are completely out of sorts.
You can see it in the posts made around the world about parents finally getting to spend quality time with their children. You can sense the frustration and stress associated with trying to balance family, self care, and working from home. You can feel the exasperation of parents trying to be teachers, parents, and friends to their kids as we're all sheltering in place. I wonder when it became so hard to have down time and just BE?
The world may have come skittering to a halt in the wake of Covid19, but it seems like even now there is an emphasis on pushing forward, working harder, overcoming this inconvenience by outpacing it. Parents trying to squeeze a full 8 hour work day into a 4 hour tele-call so they can help the kids do their 6 hours of online busy work (each!) before scrambling to get dinner and bedtime done to maintain some sense of normalcy, BUT WHY?? It's like trying to block a tsunami with a mote in the sand.
What if, instead of pushing so hard against this situation, we decided to yield a bit instead? Before I go on, I realize that I speak from a place of privilege; I haven't lost my job, my family is financially stable and healthy for the moment, and I am able to maintain social distance in the comfort of my own home. I'm one of the lucky ones. But I can't help but wonder if this situation is being agitated by the fact that we are socially out of touch with what truly matters. The health of a society is only a good as its weakest part. What can we do to better the lives fo our neighbors? What policies and laws can we change/create to protect the good of ALL of our citizens in times of hardship?
If anything, this pandemic has shown that we need a serious overhaul in the way we think about the work-family dynamic, our healthcare system, the education system and how we treat/compensate our educators, our understanding of socio-economic worth, our care of the planet, and our (lack of) empathy/respect for our neighbors.
I don't know that I have the solution to any one of these HUGE underlying issues, but I do know that you would have to be a fool to not see these glaring problems for what they are, and to come out of this on the other side without a better understanding of the changes that we need to make.
I know that I personally have had to rework the way I think about a lot of things during this downtime. And I hope that when the skies clear we can all move forward on a better, cleaner, healthier, happier path than the one we rode in on.
Stay Safe Friends
