Monday, March 23rd, 2020
As we are settling into this new life, I realize how much we have that we should be grateful for, which maybe in the fluster of acitvities of our old life we are never really aware of.
Often it is the little things or what we take for granted. On Friday evening I manged to lock myself out of my phone and went into a state of intense anxiety as I realized my life line to the outside world might just be cut until I could get to some IT person able to unlock the device. This drove home the point how important our communication tools are and how grateful I am to have a functioning internet and a phone, both of which enable me to stay in touch with friends and family. So a big shout out to all those people not sheltering in place and making our communication infrastructure work.
Especially in times like these, when life's social interactions have been severed, virtual social interactions not only become more important, but in my experience also increase in frequency. I find myself chatting with friends across the globe and time zones that normally I might be in touch with every other month. Friends I have not heard of in while are reaching out to me, as am I to them. And we do need to retain a sense of humor - laugh and joke together; like my friend in Portugal reporting that they are now planting fruits and vegetables and welcoming me to 1800. Or every time someone in my household sneezes or coughs there is a resounding "Corona".
EM and I have taken up chess, not that either of us knows the rules or different tactics, but maybe we will become grand masters yet if this all lasts long enough :) In some aspects the world seems indeed to be moving backwards.
Not necessarily in a bad way though. Life as we have led it, we all know, is not sustainable. The climate change discussions have been trying to drive this home, with limited success. Now a more drastic natrual force is slowing down the world. Collectively the world is learning to scale back.
This is an opportunity to rethink our consumptive behavior and our global supply chains. That is not to say, there should be no global integration based on comparative advantages; it is more about finding an equilibrium between "global" and "local" (incidentally something the IFC has been grappling with for over a decade now - how much is centralized, how much localized and I doubt we have the right mix yet). "Slow Food" and similar movements have been around for years, but maybe now they will garner more support.....
Food is also one of the things I am immensely grateful for - not only for nourishment, but time spend lovingly preparing a meal, while important before, this is now one of my key diversions. As a result meal preparation is becoming more elaborate. Venturing into the territory of making "Sauce Hollandaise" or "Sauce Béarnaise" or slow cooking an asparagus risotto with lemon zest. Experimenting with marinades, herbs and spices to make our daily meal an event, a celebration (okay, this does not apply to breakfast, which remains minimalistic, need to watch those calories or we will all end up twice the size by the end of this exercise). While we can, we try to get fresh produce and I am thankful for all those stocking up shelves, working in food production and distribution.
On gratefulness: While the Hood has, I think, gotten closure on the blower discussion, it is still reeling from it as the discussion on coming out in support of nurses, doctors and other first responders illustrates. Some neighbors have suggested to follow the example of India and bang pots to show appreciation of medical staff at a certain hour of the day. This kicked of a debate on acceptable noise levels. In the end the consensus was on everyone putting a candle in their window. I am not sure how many first responders live around here, maybe they got to walk the hood and see it.
Otherwise the situation in the USA continous to be a mess and the moronic president is not doing anything to make it better, quite the contrary. He is causing confusion and continues to spread false information, so as not to say lies.
At the same time, the ugly face of capitalism is rearing its head - hospitals report that cost for desperately needed supplies such as masks are almost tenfold. This is about as immoral as it gets! The full extend of the misery is summarized by CNN.
Infection rates in the US are increasing rapidly - ten days ago there were ~300 registered cases, today the tally stands at ~39.000. This paired with the already strained medical system does not bode well for survival. The FT has a pretty good visual tracker which enables comparison of infection rates and their relative rise between countries. Based on this the best survival strategy - at least in this part of the world - is to not get infected. So #stayhome! Be grateful for the small things in life. On that note: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, Sneha Mathan is an excellent read.
My book club is currently reading News of the World by Paulette Jiles, though I have not started yet as I am still busy with Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (almost done, I have a feeling it does not end well). Seeing book club is not until April 16th, I still have plenty of time. Grateful for the Kindl App!