If I had a Heart as Big as a New York City Nurse

                In a previous life, I worked as a nurse and a nurse practitioner. I was a crappy nurse. I knew the textbook knowledge, but I could never seem to put together the knowledge in my head with the observations of the person in front of me. And I really lacked the sympathy, empathy, plain caring that makes an excellent nurse.

                So, when I’m listening to nurses and doctors working on the frontlines of the pandemic talk about their experiences, reading their posts on Facebook, seeing the pictures in the news, I find myself tearing up. I’m not an overly emotional person, but listening to the tired voices of these amazing people talk about working round the clock to try to save people, losing patients, and trying to comfort families that couldn’t be there when their loved ones died, I feel like I’m in the presence of human beings who have skills and compassion at a level that I can only imagine.

                In the face of their sacrifice and caring, listening to the protesters in Michigan whose protests blocked access to a hospital is disturbing. Don’t get me wrong, I believe protesting the things we think our government is doing wrong is a cornerstone of a democracy. But our demonstrations, our protests, should never make the work of these incredible health care workers harder. It should never make light of the incredible loss of life we are experiencing in this pandemic. It should never make the grief of those who have lost loved ones worse.

                Normal is gone. Yet, when we come out the other side of this world changing time we will have our work cut out for us to restore our democracy. We will have to address the income inequality and institutional racism that have been exposed during this pandemic. We will have to recognize that the people who kept our world going were not politicians or billionaires, but minimum wage workers working in grocery stores, nurses and doctors working double shifts to offer skilled compassionate care, teachers learning on the fly how to teach remotely. We will have to realize that we need a single payer health care system so that everyone can afford health care without going bankrupt.

                Before that though, right now, in the midst of the pandemic, what we need is compassion for others. We need to be more concerned about the needs of others, than our own wants and desires.

Earth Day Watch

It's been 50 years since the first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970.  That's still a week or so off, but I wanted to post a few facts relating to the current environment in this country.

(All notes are from the Jan./Feb. 2020 issue of "Sierra" magazine)

"There are nearly 3 billion few birds today in North America than there were in 1970."

"An analysis of seafloor mud off the shore of Santa Barbara reveals that between 1945 and 2009, plastic levels in the ocean doubled every 15 years."

"The Trump administration moves to exempt Alaska's Tongass National Forest from road-building rules, opening the door to logging on 165,000 acres of old-growth forest."

And some good news...

"Next year, Texas will produce more electricity from wind than from coal."

"Almost two-thirds of Americans now believe that climate change is either a crisis or a serious problem."

Let's sincerely hope that's true, because we need as many Americans as possible to stand up for the land we share.

Six Mergansers

Six male mergansers swim on the river. The sight of Ben and I walking by causes them to take to the air. Their webbed-feet skim along the water, as they fly downstream. The brilliant white of their bodies in stark contrast to the deep dark river. 

I hear the wild chattering call of a belted kingfisher. Spy its steel blue feathers in a barren willow tree. The first of the season. Earlier than usual this year.  

As we approach Route 13, the roar of cars causes Ben to sit and drop the beer can he is carrying. This is our routine. He picks up beer cans as we walk to take home and turn in for a deposit. He stops and sits when a car comes toward us, to be rewarded with a dog biscuit. Biscuits paid for by the cans he has collected. But no car is turning down the road. It takes a while to convince Ben that sitting for imaginary cars is only rewarded with imaginary biscuits. 

On the way home a huge dark bird flies low overhead. Too big for a hawk, it lacks the silhouette of a vulture. There is no telltale white head or tail glistening in the sun. Not an eagle then, unless maybe it’s a juvenile.  

In the midst of a pandemic, it is spring as usual for the mergansers, kingfishers, eagles. Only we have been sent to our rooms by Mother Nature. 

Measuring Economic Well-being

A therapist once told me I catastrophized everything. When something bad or unpleasant happens, my mind runs ahead to the worst-case scenario. Bad day at work? I'm going to be fired, never work again, be homeless and on the streets in the matter of a year. Bruce is late from work? Surely, he's been in a car accident. Probably is dead. I've got his funeral planned and am figuring out how I'll be able to make ends meet without him about the time he pulls in the driveway. The therapist, of course, thought this was a bad thing. I might be happier if I could learn to not assume the worst. To me though it's just good planning. Preparing myself for the inevitable bad things that will eventually come down the road. Because, in the midst of a pandemic, it's obvious that bad things do inevitably come down the road. 

The problem is that despite all the catastrophes I’ve been preparing for, a pandemic wasn't on my radar. It never is. I plan for conflicts to arise at meetings, getting my arguments and data all in a row. And then the thing that sets off the disagreement is something I never imagined people would have an issue with. Like why on earth when we can fight over raises, are we fighting over what color to paint the walls? 

There is no point to worrying, I realize that at some intellectual level. I can prepare all I want, but life is still going to throw me the zombie apocalypse when I'm planning for how to fix the Democratic party and save democracy. I really didn't see the zombies coming, but maybe they're all related. Democracies die all kinds of way, often because we either aren't reading or thinking, or maybe we're just eating each other’s brains. 

Even if I had been preparing for the pandemic, I still wouldn’t have had the imagination to think we’d be arguing about saving lives versus helping the economy. It would have felt like the choice between raises and paint colors.

Obviously, as a catastrophizer, I'm not one for seeing silver linings. To try to see the "bright" side of a pandemic is probably to be certifiably pathological. But then again, I'm an INTJ, the villains of the Myers Briggs Personality world, so maybe I'm the only one who can say it. Could an economic slowdown, a time out for humanity, have some positive impacts? Might it slow down climate change? Would it force us to change the way we view the economy and measure economic well-being? 

I wonder if this time could be used for changing our understanding of how economies, countries, and people actually live and work in the world. Could we possibly consider that an economy based on continual growth and consumption might not be possible? Could we maybe decide we'd like to measure economic well-being not on the Stock Market, the GDP, or a consumer price index, but rather on all people's and the planet's health, happiness, and well-being? Can we begin to understand that economic well-being cannot be measured in any meaningful way without including peoples’ health, our very survivability? We won’t have an economy if everyone is dead, so let’s get our priorities straight for once. This is our chance to do it.