Hope and peril at the dawn of a new epoch

Oh, the voice of Yolanda Adams singing Hallelujah!

My throat swelled and tears brimmed in the corners of my eyes. Yes, my lady, it has been a long, long night and that first pale light has come at last!

I had an extra reason to be choked up. The day of the inauguration was also the day my son started his new school. It’s still online, but it is functional. There are explanations. active teaching, smiles, help for those who struggle and clear goals—none of which were prevalent at his previous school. There is also a reasoned amount of work that he can finish without exhaustion, despair and tears.

Image via Pixabay

In mid-December our local schools opened for ten days and the bullying problem that had been growing in June roared back with a vengeance. I don’t know if it was just that the bullies were suffering from pent-up energy due to successive lockdowns or if it was because all the sports and after school clubs are still closed, but it was worse than ever before.

There were daily attacks. One day, a boy tricked my son into letting him “see” his phone and then he whacked it repeatedly against a tree, smashing it beyond all hope of repair. Four older boys lifted my son off the ground and slammed him down on his back, leaving bruises. Others threw rocks at him as he escaped on his bike. That was just one day.

He’s the only person of color in his school and he’s a softy—a kid who wouldn’t tell me about any of this because he hates confrontation more than anything.

But I found out from friends, and it turned out that a teacher had seen some of it, so I got my son’s permission to try to find out which teacher it was. The principal refused to let me seek out the teacher though, saying, “This was ten meters off school property. It is none of our concern.”

So yeah, I was researching schools after that.

It took weeks. I can’t drive and there is no other school within transportation range. There’s no specific bussing for schools here. And the US online public schools require physical presence in the right time zones. I searched and I searched and I searched.

For weeks on end, I ran across block after block, even with online schools. I’d think I had found a solution only to find out that it required documents I don’t have or cost more than my family’s entire monthly income. We had to have an actual online accredited school because getting approval for homeschooling in the Czech Republic is a bureaucratic nightmare of at least twelve months before you can start—and that’s IF you get approved.

Finally, I found a theoretical possibility and then I had to see if it would actually pass muster with Czech educational and social service authorities. A few days of nail biting, and it is looking good, so I yanked my son out of the endless drone of mandatory make-work without waiting for the end of the semester (or even the end of the day), and started the new program immediately.

He was watching his final required session from the old school while I worked out in front of the news. That’s when I heard Adams and I felt my spirit lift. Oh my, but there are moments that speak to the soul of a nation!

Then, I got my son set up on his first math class in the new school. The lesson was on place value, something he has always struggled with—despite knowing how to do most arithmetic. “Ah well, might as well start off with a bang,” I thought, and I hopped in the shower.

As I stepped out of the shower a few minutes later, I heard a sound even sweeter than Adam’s voice. (OK, possibly a mother might be biased.) My son yelled, “Oh, cool!”

Photo by Arie Farnam

In math class!

Over a place value lesson!

He wanted to show me, still dripping in a towel. “Mama, they explain it so much better!” In the evening, he did extra math problems “for fun,” because he was so elated to have finally conquered something that had plagued him for years.

That was his first class free from four years of tyranny.

Yup, dawn is breaking.

OK, even if you loved Yolanda Adams, you might find me a bit overly optimistic here. Surely, no one can stay excited about fourth grade math for long and the feeling of fresh air in politics isn’t likely to last much longer. Joe Biden isn’t exactly a progressive dreamboat and my son’s school science curriculum on climate and weather doesn’t even mention climate change. Their “social-emotional” course is so fake (not to mention weirdly cult-like) that we had to opt out.

And beyond that, the reasons so many Americans supported an egotistical, racist maniac remain and his supporters are still out there festering—and in some cases plotting violence and hate crimes. The bullies who found school such a convenient place to take out their frustrations on my son are still out in the parks and playgrounds, and they are particularly bored during Covid restrictions.

All is not perfect.

But gods, there is nothing like a few years of things being really bad to make one appreciate the imperfect and the halfway decent.

A few days later…

A lot of people in America are mulling the opportunities—and the perils—we now face. It isn’t that we’ve come down from the glorious hope of dawn after a long night. We’ve been thinking and talking about these things all along, but now is the time we need to really take a hard look.

My focus is on progressives and more broadly people who support the Democrats, because that’s who is in my circles, who I relate to, and the ball is now in our court.

So, here are the opportunities I see before us:

• Democrats in the federal government can now make policy. President Biden has begun it already. His initial moves about climate mitigation, immigration and Covid relief may have been partly a ploy to win the hearts of progressives, since he already got their fear-based ballots. But they were also much needed and they set a good tone.

• Those of us who value fairer voting systems, science-based public policy and education, fact-based discourse, compassion and empathy in society, broad inclusion, protection of the vulnerable, economic justice, equitable treatment for all, and the centering of marginalized voices have a chance to be heard in the current political and media climate. For at least some weeks and maybe even a couple of years, we have an opportunity to decide what concise and clear message we want large portions of the country to hear, because the media is primed for it and there is a theoretical way for political leaders to hear it.

• There are some who once supported Trump, who are disillusioned and are open to having civil conversation and possibly even changing their minds about a few things. OK, I make no claim to knowing how many of these there are, but I’ve seen some of them personally and seen evidence of more. Yes, some will hunker down and dig in, nursing hate and resentment. Some will just tune out and zone out. But some are open now. And IF they meet progressives who are kind, compassionate, open-minded, utterly factual, balanced and clear—some will change.

• As vaccines proliferate and the economy rebuilds, we have the opportunity of rebuilding in our lives and communities. And with that will come opportunities for healing. I think there will be a lot of scars from the traumas of the past several years, but healing is still healing, even when it leaves scars.

But as crucial to our consideration—if not more so—are the perils we are walking right straight into:

• We are pretty well aware that there is a danger that Biden and other mainline Democrats could squander the opportunities of this moment and either make deals where they give away the farm for a pittance or they could simply drift to the right over the next few months. This is something most progressives are pretty aware of and it appears from Biden’s early actions that he is aware we’re aware. It simply bears mention that vigilance will be necessary.

• Similarly, many of us are aware that Trump supporters, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and climate deniers are still out there. While some of them are disheartened and likely to zone out on beer, football and consumerism, many are stewing in their resentment and hate. If we don’t deal with the reasons why people turn to hate and conspiracy theories, as well as the reasons why people become so extreme that they are willing to participate in or tacitly support violence, this is going to come back to bite us—and very likely sooner rather than later. Some of the next few issues may exacerbate this one if those go unchecked.

• Much less discussed are the reactions to the coup attempt that could come back to haunt us even without the help of Trump supporters. The social media crackdown on Trump, his supporters and Covid-deniers in general is on a slippery slope.. I know. I get it. The rhetoric WAS harmful and it was also a serious source of stress in our lives. And as far as direct harm goes, social media companies are justified in banning repeat offenders. But banning a whole topic of discussion or some statements about scientific topics should be taken very seriously. Just because we are sure we understand what scientists are saying about Covid right at the moment doesn’t mean science doesn’t develop. Both in social media and in our off-line circles, we risk much by closing our minds to new information, contrary perspectives and questioning of authority.

• The ACLU has blown the whistle on policy discussions about how to further crack down on the right to protest and lift surveillance and privacy protections in order to combat right-wing extremism and domestic terrorism from white supremacists. And with good reason. I am NOT supporting neo-Nazis in any way and neither is the ACLU. But the fact is that the US government has all the policy and legal tools it needed to stop the attack on the Capitol. It just chose not to use them because the attackers were white and conservative. Any new policies in this area won’t just impact those groups. They will be general policies against public protest and against people outside the mainstream organizing. The next administration may well take those policies and use them against us. This goes back to the Geneva Convention. Whatever you do, remember that it can and will be done to you.

• Similarly, the so-called “liberal media” isn’t all that liberal on a lot of issues, but there have been a couple moments, especially around Covid, where journalists have been stepping out of objectivity and openly (as well is covertly) pushing a particular agenda. It’s all in the name of “supporting science,” but there was at least one time this past year when science didn’t support that agenda and the more progressive-friendly media actually did what Trump and his supporters accused them of doing. They bulldozed right through, using the words of scientists out of context and linking “children and super-spreaders” together again and again, despite the fact that even the most alarming studies of the pandemic show that children have a 0.5 spread ratio. By contrast, the flu has 1.2 and Covid among adults has more than 2.5. That 0.5 spread ratio is actually very low. When scientists said children CAN spread Covid, they meant just that. It is possible, though not likely. They did not mean that schools are super spreader hotbeds which should be closed while the real hotbeds, like meat packing plants, remain open. Keeping schools closed (and countless low-income parents out of work as a result) hurt the real small-people economy far more than closing certain types of workplaces, shuttering shopping beyond food and medicine and turning vegetarian for a while would have. But mostly schools have been the first to go and the last to reopen, due in no small part to the “children and super-spreaders” media ploy. Women, who bore the brunt of the home-teaching policy, were 40 percent more likely to have to give up their jobs due to Covid than men, and equity experts say women’s economic equality has been set back by decades. If this was truly the best way to fight Covid, the sacrifice may have been better accepted, but it wasn’t. In situations like this, we are at peril of using “supporting science” as a slogan without remembering that to support science means adopting a total openness to change your mind based on the evidence at hand, even if it means changing tack a few months into a crisis once the numbers are in.

• When any group is on a roll, there is a danger of confirmation bias. We have been clamoring for a return to facts for years now, and rightly so. But now that we have the ability to spread messages and make waves, we must be extra vigilant about our own truthfulness. Some of those who spread that factually flimsy “children and super-spreaders” slogan, admitted privately that it was “an exaggeration” but justified it by saying that too many people were bucking desperately needed public-health measures—like masks and social distancing—and anything that helped scare people into compliance was justified. But here’s the rub. Eventually, a lot of people will see through an exaggeration. And many will lose trust in media outlets, in all public health advice and in science-based policy in general. Public trust is severely shaken right now. In many places, even those who were initially very compliant with Covid restrictions are now flaunting them at a time when the pandemic is at its worst, not because of exhaustion but because they have come to assume restrictions are overstated and that officials who publicly tout them will privately flaunt them. It happened. The only way to win trust back in public discourse is through extreme truthfulness that is willing to admit mistakes, explain nuance and trust that MOST people will not be idiots when something like public health advice is carefully balanced. Check the facts before you repeat what you’ve heard, don’t exaggerate and admit mistakes. The next pandemic could easily be worse. The trust and voluntary compliance of vast numbers of people is the best defense.

• Finally, we face peril within the progressive movement itself from the demon of division and judgement. Our patience has been strained in so many ways and it shows. I’ve witnessed firsthand several (and heard of many more) examples of close friendships and family relationships broken up, not just because of the Trump versus Democrat divide, but also because of micro-differences among progressives. You think racial justice is more important than justice for LGBTQ+ people! Relationship cut. You think poor, white disabled people are underprivileged in any way comparable to black people! Not speaking anymore. You cite stats that school closures have exacerbated wealth and race inequality and have caused a surge in youth suicide instead of holding to the line that all costs are worth even one life saved from Covid! You’re worse than a Trumper! It sounds silly in black and white, but these are real divides, real relationships ruptured and deep rifts in a movement that has a tenuous chance to make some progress.

I am not a leader of anything. And I’m rather glad of that at the moment. This is a rugged time to be a progressive leader or even a Democratic elected official. There is a lot of pressure, some opportunities crying not to be missed and a whole lot of pitfalls. I’m just a scribe pointing them out.

Here’s a poem to close with.

Divide and conquer 

“We find our strength in open minds.
Always did. But always will?
We could stand side by side on the line,
Democrat and progressive, leftist and anarchist.
How many times did we hammer out agreements
In late night meetings with bleary eyes?
And yet when it came to the poll booth,
Our strength became our weakness.
Spoilers and small factions kept us down,
Against the rah rah juggernaut.
If the pulpit said it, they voted it. 
End of story. End of our hopes. 
Yet the few times we tried the strong arm,
It was terrible, much too bad to think on.
So, we say our strength is in open minds.
Today the tables have turned somewhat.
For once the juggernaut has been shaken.
Is there a line of insurrection some won’t cross?
Evangelicals in bed with old-style conservatives
And Nazis riding their coattails.
We might be able to use this,
Break the juggernaut, divide and conquer.
But our strength is in open minds.
If we take up their old tools of forced unity,
The half-truths and pressure tactics,
We might get victory and still lose everything
That mattered to us at the core.
If we divide from our body those who disagree,
Or cut away the wild ones and the rebels,
We will one day find that this more than anything
Was what made us who we are.
Our strength is ever in open minds.”

Compassion and politics in the time of coronavirus

This is not the post I want to write today. I feel like I’m watching my country disintegrate. Throughout all the crises in the past thirty years, the situation in the United States has never felt more desperate, and I wish I could write only words of encouragement and hope.

In these days of coronavirus, racist violence, political tyranny and thoughtless posturing, we wish we had a president like Theodore Rosevelt or Abraham Lincoln, one who would call the country to courage and mutual aid. My home town was recently hit with a massive spike in COVID-19 infection because of the unwise and politically motivated actions of church leaders, including laying on of hands to heal the sick and large group events.

Among most people I know, there is so much fear. Fear of the virus. Fear about the election. Fear over lost jobs and economic collapse. Fear of the police. Fear of rioters. Fear of people with guns. Fear of people reacting to fear.

And yet the thing that makes me most afraid isn’t coming from strangers or Republicans or a virus. It’s the desperation and anger numbing those people I identify with most to suffering other than that specifically sanctioned by the cause. And that’s why this isn’t just an encouraging post about banishing fear.

Creative Commons image by Matthew Kenwrick

I can’t speak for American conservatives and Republicans, but those of us who are in the US called “liberals” or “progressives” like to think of ourselves as the good guys. I mean we really REALLY like to think of ourselves as the compassionate, nicer side of the political divide.

I don’t mean that we just think that we’re right. I assume everyone thinks they’re right. But we also think we’re nice and empathetic too. It comes with the political territory.

And I am not above this hubris. I not only think that being anti-racist, pro-universal health care, proactive on climate change, anti-corporate and so forth are all factually and morally correct. I also think these positions are more compassionate than the alternatives available.

Those who call themselves “conservatives” often make noises about how compassion is good and all, but sacrifices must be made for some other greater good, usually economic prosperity, and that it is more important to ensure that people who work hard get what they deserve than it is to be compassionate for those seen as being less hard working.

Every issue that comes up in America is supposed to be drawn between these lines. So, when Trump belittled the threat of COVID-19 and delayed the US response to it, liberals and progressives were quick to raise the flags of compassion for those most vulnerable to the virus.

In Europe the political sides haven’t been so clearly drawn on COVID-19. Many liberals cautioned against draconian lockdown measures that were likely to harm the most vulnerable and conservative goverments enforced lockdowns, workplace and school closures as well as masks. Europe has a culture in which listening to doctors and scientists is the default, regardless of one’s political stance—at least in theory.

Large scale lockdowns were enforced for more than two months in most places and they proved effective, even in places like Sweden where personal social distancing wasn’t mandated for those at low risk. Except for parts of Italy and Spain where the virus struck before it was even remotely understood, Europe has avoided chaos and massive death tolls.

Over time, European doctors have determined which measures are most effective and which are unnecessary or have harmful side effects, and some measures have been phased out. In the US media and blogosphere there is a lot of discussion about how masks and social distancing are likely here to stay, even beyond a specific vaccine for COVID-19.

But Europeans have loosened up interpersonal interaction already in favor of large scale-social distancing in shopping centers, public transportation, mass events, crowded factories and other hotbeds of contagion. Interpersonal interaction was relaxed a month ago where I live and no spike in COVID-19 cases has resulted.

The Atlantic divide has meant that I get some flak from American friends for discussing which measures have been phased out locally due to nasty side effects or ineffectiveness. I find myself with a sudden, uncomfortable insight into why conservatives often scoff at liberal claims to compassion because of our vehement (and yeah, sometimes self-righteous) insistence on particular social norms.

In American liberal circles, it is mandatory to be compassionate about the two to four percent of the population (depending on the strength of your healthcare system), who could die from COVID-19. It is not so encouraged to be compassionate about people with anemia and other blood-oxygen conditions who are at risk while wearing masks or about the relatively young and healthy people who have experienced cardiac arrest due to attempting to run or cycle wearing a mask or about the countless people pushed into psychological instability and suicide risk due to extreme isolation.

It is not okay in liberal circles to voice compassionate concern over the people hit by the economic crisis, if that entails any criticism of COVID-prevention measures. Voicing compassionate concern for people who cannot stay home with their children and survive at the same time is not much encouraged.

It isn’t good to mention that social distancing, which we blithely predict will be permanent, is devastating people who are already socially isolated due to mental illness or disability. It is definitely not okay to talk about the rising tide of suicide figures or to compare any of this to the number of COVID-19 deaths, which while equally terrible, are still a small fraction of the preventable deaths in our society. (And I’ll get flak for that statement alone, despite the facts.)

While I do think I’m personally compassionate, I have never felt that this requires tolerance and empathy for everyone. I am not tolerant toward intolerance and never have been. I am not even very compassionate toward people who are clearly suffering under a burden of too much privilege and too little introspection. But still the current compassion exclusivity is disturbing, even more so because it is fueled by feelings of desperation and political anger.

It has become more about politics than about compassion. Compassion is now rarely referenced unless it suits the cause. Do we truly care about protecting the vulnerable or just about combatting Trump and his supporters, because of everything else Trumpism has brought?

Each camp in the US wields the virus like a political weapon. The conservatives are suddenly into hugging strangers in crowds. (Just imagine explaining that to a time traveler from a year ago.) And liberals are into putting a cold hand in the face of anyone who doesn’t wear a mask, regardless of the circumstances.

It isn’t hard to generate empathy for my freaking-out liberal friends and family. This is a depressing year for American liberals and progressives. We are facing a grim election in which all we can hope for is the defeat of a horrible regime by a somewhat less horrible one and we won’t succeed even at that unless we can muster a lot of enthusiasm for it. That likely plays into the politicization of COVID-19 response.

But even so, the speed with which we began erecting walls on compassion leaves me cold. In some ways this is lonelier than all the months of coronavirus lockdown.

Given my vision impairment, social distancing and masks really do mean that I can’t interact with people in person. If people sit six feet away, I can no longer sense their mood or emotions. If people wear masks, their voices are usually so muffled that I can’t hear the non-verbal cues. I can pay for groceries, but I can’t have a real conversation.

Sitting close, an occasional hand on a shoulder, the subtle tones of voice—that’s my version of eye contact. Social distancing has taken that away entirely. And I’m told it will never be back.

I worry about the people with disabilities like mine who don’t have a spouse and kids at home. If social distancing is here to stay, will they never feel the touch of a human hand again? So many people with disabilities live alone without a lot of family or community support. People talk big about caring, but the truth is that mostly people only hang out with those they think are popular, successful and attractive enough.

A lot of people who are just as friend-worthy fall through the cracks even in normal times. And now… I don’t even want to contemplate it.

I am not saying we shouldn’t do social distancing or wear masks. In many places, particularly in the US right now, we have to. Listen to medical advice. Be careful particularly in areas hard hit by the virus. But let’s also sit a moment in stillness and think on what protecting the vulnerable really means.

I’m not saying you have to empathize with everyone. Compassion fatigue is a thing and likely part of the culprit here.

If someone is flaunting risky behavior—forcing people into hugs, breathing in people’s faces in public, intentionally creating large gatherings to make a political point—you’ll have to protect yourself first and save compassion for those who are just struggling. Still, a less biting reaction toward conservatives might just help them come down off of their very dangerous wall on COVID-prevention.

Most importantly, let’s think about compassion for those who fall through the cracks in these very troubled times. Let’s be gentle. Let’s include as much as we can. Let’s remember that human contact is a basic human need. Long-term denial of human contact has documented, medical effects and can eventually lead to death, and not just through suicide.

My class of mostly elderly women studying English as a foreign language met just once last month. I offered my veranda, which has a table and chairs and a canopy of lush grape leaves. Attendance was definitely voluntary, given that several students are over seventy and one over eighty. But everybody came. They seemed very much in need of the in-person connection.

One of the students has a husband who has had a bone-marrow transplant and is at substantial immunological risk. She sat an extra distance from the rest of the group and we all wore masks at first. But then several students are hard of hearing and they rely on watching my mouth for English pronunciation. I was also having a lot of difficulty hearing the students and reading their level of comprehension with the masks and the distance.

In the end, the one with the vulnerable husband and the one who is a nurse decided we could do without the masks but remain at a distance. Everyone was gentle and considerate.

As the teacher, I am able to set the tone in these classes and I have always set a standard in which everyone’s needs are heard and cared for. If compromise is made, it is initiated by those most vulnerable and not imposed upon them. I think it is part of why the same students come back year after year.

Most of my European students would likely identify themselves as conservatives, though they take universal health care for granted and are serious about COVID-19. I wish their culture of consideration was more widespread in all political camps.

We are living with terrible risks every day. COVID-19 is just one more factor. It isn’t a small one, but it isn’t the only one by far. Saying “we are all in this together” should mean more than just thoughts and prayers. It should mean real care for those hit hard by the virus and by our attempts to combat the virus.

Mama, why are they killing black people?

I had a different blog post for this week but shit happened. There are things that can’t be ignored. Still, I am very far away from the terrifying events going on in my home country and I don’t have much that is new to say.

I’ve already written about white privelege and coming to understand the underlying structural racism I didn’t used to know existed. I’ve already written about my path out of ignorance. And a lot of people are writing those things now, as they should.

And really, do we need more white people yammering on about our feelings or opinions about black people being murdered in a structurally racist society in which we are all complicit, whether we want to be or not? On the other hand, silence doesn’t work. White people just carrying on as usual won’t help, even from ten-thousand miles away.

So, I’ll let my kids, who aren’t black but also aren’t white, have a go, in so far as they can.

My kids don’t watch the news much. I have tried to introduce them to the issues of the day, but usually they refuse. We live in Central Europe, far from the current tensions in the United States. They both have significant learning disabilities and although they are nine and eleven, they don’t follow current events. I fear that they are particularly unprepared for the harsh realities of adult racism.

Even so, somehow the events in America filtered through into their media world of YouTube slapstick humor, video games and Likee clips. Today during an increasingly rare quiet time before bed, my daughter asks, “Mama, why are they killing black people?”

I’m careful with my answer. She has been very negative about her own background and appearance lately. Frankly, I’m wary of painting too negative a picture of the racism situation—not because I think it is anything but catastrophic, not because I don’t think kids should be educated about it—but because my first concern must be for the child right in front of me, her shaky self-concept and her propensity to interpret racism against people of color as another reason to hate her own body.

“A lot of people are prejudiced or don’t like people who look different from them,” I say, turning toward both kids. This is not the first time we’ve had this conversation by a long shot.

“I told you it’s better to be blonde,” my daughter puts in. “I wish I was white and blonde. I wish my hair was straight.” And it definitely isn’t the first time she’s made those statements, but it is telling that white police shooting black people in her mother’s far away home country sets this off..

She is obsessed with ultra-blonde YouTube celebrity kids and constantly talks about wanting to bleach her dark brown hair.

“You are beautiful, honey.” I tell her and add quite truthfully, “and people in America are going to think you should be a model.”

COVID-era Black Lives Matter demonstration in Madison, Wisconsin. Signs read “I can’t breathe,” “The Divided States of America” and “Is this the American dream?” - Creative Commons image by Ken Fager

“Shhhh!” she hisses, ducking her head in the bedroom, as if someone might overhear. “Stop it, Mom! Don’t say anything about it. I don’t want anyone to know.”

In recent weeks, her fear that someone might realize she isn’t just golden brown in color but specifically Romani has become extreme. She shushes me in panicked whispers if I mention anything about her birth culture, even in private. That’s why I don’t use her first or last name or ever speak or write about any of this in the local language, even though a great many people in town do already know.

It hurts my heart, even if I know this is a common phase adopted kids go through. We did all the things you are “supposed to do.” We got her lots of expensive, high quality dolls that look like her and other racially diverse dolls. We organized as many POC friends as possible. We went to culture camps. We paid a tutor to teach us all Romani language.

It has been a massive effort and it helped a little in the early years. In preschool, there were times when she would joyfully tell the others she is Roma, which is one way most of her classmates’ parents found out. But now she has absorbed the “norm” and is focused on what is “popular” in all things.

Being blonde is apparently popular. Being beautifully golden brown with voluptuous dark brown curls and mesmerizing blue eyes with long dark lashes is not. Or so she thinks.

“But why are they shooting so many people?” my son breaks in. He is almost entirely silent on these issues, so I allow his question to turn the conversation.

I explain that some police officers are good and very careful not to hurt anyone but some are not. Some police officers are afraid, but also some like the power of being able to control people and being the one with a gun. I explain that some white police officers think black people are bad or mostly all criminals and so lots of times they shoot immediately when they see a black person, just in case it might be a bad guy. And lots of times it isn’t and some nice person gets killed.

“Will the police try to shoot me when we go to America?” my daughter asks. My son, the one most likely to be in real danger, does not ask. I am not sure what I would say right now, if he did ask point blank. Someday we’ll have to really go into detail on this, but he’s so fragile right now.

“We are going to grandma’s house and that isn’t in the city. It isn’t dangerous there. And even in the city, most police officers are good…” My throat is closing up.

How do black, Hispanic or even Romani mothers do this? Damn it.

“The police won’t shoot you. You don’t have to be afraid of them. If you are lost, you can ask them for help.” What mother doesn’t need to tell her children that? I have told them that before and it still applies. “Most police officers are good and will protect you. But it is important to do what they tell you. If they tell you to stop when you’re walking, you have to stop right away.”

“What if they are telling someone else to stop, not me?” my daughter asks.

I understand what she means. What if she isn’t entirely sure? What if she thought they were talking to someone else? This is what fear does.

“You had better stop, if they say stop, even if you don’t think they are talking to you. You had better be polite and not touch them. You have to tell the truth and use polite words,” I continue, searching for the way through this morass. “If they tell you to go away from some place, where they are trying to get bad guys, then you have to do it quickly and politely.”

I know, of course, that isn’t enough. But I’ve seen enough videos of ultra-polite black kids dealing with police, that I know their mamas must have taught them this part. You have to be polite and positive about the police, but also careful and obedient. I don’t live in a place with other people of color, mentors for my kids. I don’t have anyone to tell me what else to say or what to teach my kids.

“I’ll bet if we were black you wouldn’t let us go to America,” my daughter adds before I can finish.

“Not exactly,” I tell her. “I would be very careful though. I would make sure you didn’t play with toy guns, if we were in a city.”

“Can I have a nerf gun in America?” my son speaks up again, timidly but clearly focused on his own priorities.

Once I might have said a nerf gun is so clearly not a weapon that there couldn’t possibly be a problem. But as he gets older and his face looks more and more like a young man—a young man with darker skin than my daughter’s, dark eyes and dimpled cheeks that tan to a deep brown in summer—fear rises up in me, the kind of fear that wasn’t made for white mothers.

“In the city, no, you can’t have any kind of toy gun,” I tell them. “But at grandma’s house you can have nerf guns.”

Grandma’s house is five miles from the nearest tiny town of 250 people in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon. The kids’ uncles think I restrict toy guns because I’m a peacenik and that might have actually been true when they were toddlers and I just couldn’t bear the sight of two- and three-year-olds pretending at carnage. But today, I’m a lot more cynical as a parent. My idealistic, peacenik side has been pretty well pulverized, but then there is this part. I may have to have words with the uncles, who mean well but might not think their gifts to my kids through.

“What about in La Grande,” my daughter is quick to bargain with me. La Grande is the nearby metropolis of 12,000. And it is full of little boys with toy guns and slightly bigger boys with real guns, but all of them white and at risk mainly of accidentally shooting themselves or their friends, parents and siblings. It is the kind of place that is supposed to be ultra safe. I wandered all over it as a kid and the police, such as they are,, are pretty friendly.

But today… I do wonder. It is also as white as a new journal book on January 1 and there are all those guns in the hands of people who aren’t police, people who have been steeped in this culture and who have been watching the same news I have.

“We’ll see,” I tell the kids. “Maybe nerf guns, maybe. But nothing that looks anything like a real gun.”

This is all happily theoretical to us for right at the moment. Thanks to COVID-19 our summer trip to the US may well be postponed. The Czech Republic, where we live now, has its own race problems but not very many guns and very strictly reigned in police forces.

Just last weekend, we went to see the Romani cultural museum. It is a three-hour drive from home, so it isn’t a trip we can do often. It also isn’t particularly child-friendly. The vast majority of the exhibits are not interactive. But it does represent one of the best collections of Romani cultural pride and identity anywhere in the world.

We had a lovely guide—an older Rom, who took us under his wing and delivered his memorized speech interspersed with interesting personal asides. At one point, he murmured discretely to me, “Those children are Roma, aren’t they?” I confirmed it. If his Rom-dar is that good, he deserves the truth.

The kids stopped by one of the few interactive displays, a tablet which would read out the Romani words for the numbers along with the Hindi words, to show how Romanes and Hindi are related. The kids were mildly interested, and the guide asked, eagerly, “You know Romani language?”

The kids looked sideways at him and squirmed away, refusing to answer.

My daughter had protested coming to the museum at all. My son had been silent, uncertain what to think. Then on the way there, walking through a part of town with more Roma than usual, they asked an adult friend with us why there are so many Roma in one place. Before I could say anything, the friend answered, “Because the Roma were so noisy at night that all the white people left.”

I told myself to just ignore it. This was not the time to start a fight. But the images from the US news flooded into my brain. The buzzing noise and flashing lights in my peripheral vision rose up so fast that I didn’t know what was happening, until I whirled around and demanded, “That’s a lie and you know it! Do not lie to children! Tell them the truth!”

This adult friend’s children were present as well. I didn’t want him spreading twisted stereotypes in front of my kids or his own kids..

Of course, it didn’t help. Maybe I should have tried to explain the nuances. There were lots of other reasons for ghettoization. And if any of it was because of cultural differences, it was just a cultural difference. In actual fact, white households here generate at least as many decibels, if not more, because of the almost ubiquitous keeping of very loud and poorly behaved dogs among the white population. But the stereotype remains.

A stereo played inside one apartment we passed and Romani kids sat on the steps. The music was muffled and gentle but audible on the street, a grievous sin to the local white culture. As we passed, a Romani girl in another doorway read out a phone number off of her phone’s screen to someone leaning out of a nearby window.

My kids and the white and Asian kids with us stared. This too is not “normal” in the socially repressed local white culture.

I could have tried to explain, but the kids would not have heard any of it. Their attention spans are lightening quick and the fact that they were paying attention to such a topic at all when my adult friend spoke was rare and certain to be brief.

The same goes for my daughter’s question about the news from America. It was a fleeting opportunity to address the complex issues or to try to support their faltering self-respect.

My son has gone silent on the topic of Romani background since he was bullied several times with racist epithets last year. I tell him how beautiful and amazing and strong Roma people are, how courageous and steadfast they had to be to survive everything they came through. He doesn’t answer. He says nothing, just turns away and presses his back into the pocket between my body and my arm for comfort.

Adults can’t make sense of the events of these past weeks. How in the world can we expect children to?

My heart is broken. I am angry and afraid. I would be afraid of rioters if I was there and yet I don’t blame them. Quiet protest is ignored or silenced. The killing must stop and if you and your family are next in line, you’ll grasp at whatever you can—even if it makes no sense, even if it might make things worse. I don’t blame them.

It has gone so far beyond “too far.” Negligently racist killing is intolerable. Denial of racism is intolerable. Fraudulent justice is intolerable.

I can’t breathe. I really can’t get a deep, full breath of clean air. And I’m not even in the line of fire.

What I learned in quarantine

Our family therapist suggested, somewhat plaintively, that most people appear to have learned something constructive from COVID-19 lockdown. She left unsaid-—but obvious enough—that our family seems not to be among those gaining positively from it.

I’ll give her credit for tackling our case. I wouldn’t want to be our family therapist either. My husband and I aren’t perfect or perfectly coordinated, but we’re skilled parents. We talk through issues. We’re patient and loving. We know how to handle emotions and how to be consistent with the kids. But we’ve been hit with one thing after another and there simply are no easy psychological fixes.

Image by Arie Farnam

Since that session, I have noticed a rash of saccharine blog posts on what people are learning from the crisis—from “community is what really matters” to “self-care is what really matters” conclusions and everything in between.

I do think I learned a lot during the two and a half months in isolation with my kids. I never stop learning in this life. But it is true that a lot of the things I’ve learned aren’t very positive or therapeutic.

Here are the top dozen things I learned:

12. I learned, as so many people in major crises throughout history reportedly learned, that times of fear and hardship bring out the worst in a lot of people and the best in a few.

11. I’ve learned that my pantry, when well stocked, can support my family for at least a month, despite requiring some creative cooking after a couple of weeks. (Learning this gives me both a small sense of security and a more concrete sense of what long-term disaster might be like.)

10. I learned that you can make sourdough from one package of yeast and then use it for months to leaven bread. (This is moderately useful in general.)

9. I became an expert in parental controls on both Android and IOS systems. (I wish this wasn’t a basic survival skill in our world but now it is.)

8. I learned how to kid-proof most of my house and lock myself in my bedroom, when that is all that can be done and when to come out again. (My husband learned how to install several locks around the house.)

7. I learned to prioritize, utilize micro-moments and how to clean and cook faster than I ever thought possible. (This is not fun but it does represent stretching of personal capacities.)

6. I learned to gauge the lung and vocal-cord capacity of my kids and schedule scream-time into schoolwork sessions. (This should not be confused with having learned “patience.”).

5. I learned just how little Netflix Europe has for kids. (I could really do without this knowledge.)

4. I learned which tiny chores my kids can be motivated by video game rewards to do and which actually entail a savings of time over simply doing them myself.

3. I learned to do a full shower and bathroom routine in less than four minutes.

2. I learned overwhelming gratitude for an hour or two of alone time and learned that the pre-COVID routine that used to seem hard was actually incredibly easy.

1. The number one thing I learned during COVID-10 lockdown is what living in the present moment actually means and sometimes I can even pull it off.

The situations people are living in during COVID-19 vary widely. Some people are learning to cope with solitude. Others are learning to cope with overcrowding. Some are learning to cope with a ton of free time. Others are working frantically just to keep up with basic needs. That’s why making assumptions about what someone else should be gaining or learning won’t be very effective.

Things have been hard—really hard—in so many ways. I try to take a deep breath. It isn’t easy. My chest is tight today but eventually it comes.

I glance up from the keyboard and out at the fading evening sky above the greenhouse. The trees on the ridge above us are in full leaf now and the clouds glow pink and cobalt behind them. I take a deep breath.

This moment is okay. The children are in bed. The sky and the trees give me the gifts of their beauty. The garden plants in the greenhouse are well.

I used to be confused by instructions to “live in the moment,” because it seemed like the naive advice of people who don’t need to plan for how they are going to eat in a month or a year or the advice of people who are fortunate enough not to need to process painful past events on a regular basis.

“Don’t focus on the future. Don’t focus on the past. Focus on the now.”

But I have learned this much from COVID-19 lockdown. It isn’t that you don’t think of the future or learn from past mistakes. It is that emotionally you react only to the moment. We cannot plan much now. And if we think too much about the future, we are likely to start crying. Thinking over the past day is rarely any better.

Yet this moment is OK.

If you focus on future plans or mull over the past, be it bright or dark, you will inevitably miss the present moment. And even in the bad moments, it is better to focus on that one moment and deal with it, rather than adding up in my mind all the days it has been happening and anticipating all the days, months and years this will continue.

The question is always, “Can I survive this moment?” And if the answer is “yes,” then it becomes, “What should I do in this moment?”

And if the answer is “no,” then it is okay to cry out in that moment of despair, but then it passes and I realize that the answer was actually “yes.” I did survive.

This I think is the same for all of us, whether what we are surviving is isolation and a crisis of inner mental health or chaotic and unhealthy circumstances. “Can I survive this moment?” is the question.

I used to be all in my head. My primary entertainments and tasks were intellectual, reading, listening to audio books or podcasts while I worked, writing, research, teaching, preparing to teach, studying medicinal herbs and so forth.

I was bored with random chatter. The first days of COVID-19 lockdown were an agony of boredom amid frantic work for me. I had to rush from one task to another and still never catch up, yet my mind screamed for stimulation.

I learned to stretch my interest. Now my mind finds stimulation in the mingled aroma of the soup or in the grain of the wood in the cutting board or in the understanding of the child raging in front of me, the face and the posture, the exact type of cry.

I pay attention more. I am less in my head and with that I am less self-absorbed. I am less concerned by what my small ego wants and more focused on what is needed in the moment. Somehow, with that has come a greater focus on the joy found in rare moments.

Can we make sacrifices when scientists say it's necessary?

In the Czech Republic we have lived with school quarantine and national lockdown for six weeks now.

The entire service industry—beyond grocery stores, gas stations and pharmacies—is shut down. Major factories have closed. All of the borders are closed. Road and air traffic has been cut to a minimum. People rarely leave their homes. Everything happens online.

Children study at home. Adults work online. The only activity you are allowed to do outdoors is go to a natural area to walk or bike alone. People who still have jobs and open businesses are allowed to go to work and one family member at a time can go shopping for food.

Image by Arie Farnam

That’s it. That is the new normal.

Everyone who leaves home must wear a face mask. Only if you are in your vehicle alone are you allowed to be without a facemask. If you are in your vehicle with your child, who shares your household and air every day, and you are not wearing facemasks, you are very likely to be stopped and fined.

It has been six weeks and while the economic strain may force some changes in May, there is no real end in sight. In some places Covid-19 lockdown may not be entirely enforced. But here it is strict and it isn’t just the authorities enforcing it. Social pressure is intense if any individual is seen outdoors without a mask.

My husband who rides his bike on the “communing with nature” exemption is often yelled at for not wearing a mask while speeding down a scarcely used rural road at 40 mph without a mask. Doctors say wearing a facemask during physical exertion is unsafe and can lead to heart attacks and that the distances involved make such exercise safe without a mask, but the media spin is all about Coronavirus with none left over for details.

The media reaction around Coronavirus has been off the charts. Fear has spread like wildfire. People I never would have believed would go in for such fear or be willing to change their way of life so drastically for anything have fallen into line like so many ants.

On the one hand, I hear criticisms over the phone from my few advanced students who work in medical fields. They say that, yes, COVID-19 is a bit worse than the flu and, yes, we should be concerned, but they worry that the fear reaction has been blown out of proportion and they wish people were more careful about other diseases that have caused and continue to cause preventable deaths.

I am watching the social situation with a certain amount of analytical interest. I would not have believed such massive economic and social restrictions would be accepted so enthusiastically by the public for anything short of an air raid or a nuclear attack. But the restrictions have been followed willingly and peer-enforced by the vast majority of the population.

Much of it appears to be motivated more by fear than by an altruistic desire to protect that portion of the population which is truly at risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19. But still even the idea that fear could motivate people to sacrifice in this way is novel and surprising.

I’ve spent much of the past ten years trying to raise concern about climate change and implementing what measures I could in my own life. It’s very hard to do something like that on your own. Anyone who is concerned about COVID-19 and trying to do voluntary social distancing in an area where authorities are not imposing it will now understand what I felt for years over climate change.

Frankly, the “sacrifices” we are making regarding COVID-19 aren’t that bad. The worst is probably that I may not see my family in Oregon this summer, and depending on what this does to the airline industry and the wider economy, it may be a long, long time, if I do see them in person ever again.

That hurts. No doubt about it. The thought of never being able to go home again hurts a lot. But I’ve always known that if real steps were ever taken to combat climate change, long-distance air travel would be one of the first things to go. I’ve been ready to give that up. It just didn’t make any sense to sacrifice my own family for a symbolic savings that would not in reality change anything for those dying due to the catastrophic effects of climate change.

The other sacrifices we are making because of COVID-19—staying home all the time, living in close quarters with family, being isolated from friends, foregoing social engagements and entertainment, taking economic and financial hits—these are not fun, but they are easily survivable. The hardest thing is dealing with insanely demanding and insensitive teachers, who insist my kids must do long lists of make-work exercises in order to keep them “occupied,” but refuse to teach online or provide interaction with kids.

All the actual teaching, explanations, motivating and corralling distracted kids must be done by parents, if teachers refuse to interact. With kids with special needs, that is easily a full-time job for me—a job I’m not paid for that prevents me from doing the work I might get paid for.

The combination of complex technological struggles and kids with learning and behavioral disabilities makes it one of the least pleasant times I have ever lived through. It is definitely less pleasant than the five months I spent on short rations in Siberia amid extreme economic crisis when I was nineteen, and that is saying something. But it is primarily the actions of insensitive and oblivious humans that make it that way, not the actual conditions of quarantine.

Other than the school issues, quarantine is easy if you live in a place where it is handed down from above. Work schedules have been accommodated to it. Food deliveries are sporadic but they keep coming. Official support for the measures and the fact that everyone else is doing it makes it easy.

My kids used to complain bitterly about the restrictions on our lives caused by combatting climate change. They could see that few of their friends take the train on a regular errands or walk and bike to school. They could see that their friends eat differently, don’t have to recycle and have a lot more plastic stuff at home. Even my husband resented our climate-related “Victory Garden.”

But the kids are fine with COVID-19 restrictions. It’s exciting and they feel like they are part of a community effort when they put on masks. They ask almost every day, if their friends can visit, but it is the other kids’ parents saying “no,” more than me. I’m not the one putting on the brakes and asking them to make sacrifices this time. They can see the facemasks on everyone’s faces when they watch people out on the road and even live in TV studios. They are happy about being home from school, though unhappy about the extra load of schoolwork. Most importantly, they don’t see it as my doing.

It’s easy when you don’t have to fight your family over it.

Many friends have started to refer to Victory Gardens online because of COVID-19. People who used to dismiss my calls for gardening and self-limiting to combat climate change are now ordering seeds and shovels.

The end result is actually much better for the climate and the people struggling to survive in flood and drought zones than anything activists achieved before. Long-haul air transport is now rare. The roads are empty. Everyone shops online for food and does without new plastic stuff because only grocery stores are open.

It’s easy when you don’t have to explain endlessly to dismissive and jocular friends why you choose limits.

I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised, even relieved to see that our society is capable of this. If we can do this over COVID-19, surely we can do it for the much greater, already very deadly and equally scientifically certain crisis of climate change.

The missing elements, of course, are the media frenzy and the official support for limits.

I used to have difficulty even imagining a scenario in which people in our society would actually act on climate change. Now it isn’t so hard to imagine. All I have to do is replace the word “Coronavirus” in the news cycle with “climate change,” and the scenario is all too realistic The intense media focus on the virus has infected every corner of the blogosphere, including avidly trend-bucking ol’ me.

If this amount of media attention was paid to climate change, I guarantee we would see significant remediation. Even if authorities didn’t act of their own accord, popular pressure would soon force them to. The onus now seems to really be on those who wield pens and cameras. It is our move in the struggle to save the world.

The media focus made Coronavirus the defining issue of 2020. Media focus can do the same on climate change. There are no more excuses. It’s a choice.

Isolation is hard, but I already knew that

The past month of national coronavirus lockdown has been hard on my family.

We have a kid with serious behavioral, psychiatric and learning disabilities and another kid with dyslexia. We are coping with the excessive demands of insensitive and disengaged teachers. We’ve been learning to cook from scratch faster than ever before. There have been a few weeks in there where supplies were hard to come by and we had to get creative with our prepper techniques.

But I hear a very different kind of suffering echoing across the internet. Other people are suffering from social isolation, a loss of control in their lives and a complete disruption of their routines. Anxiety levels are skyrocketing and clinical emotional problems are exacerbated.

For awhile I was a bit mystified, at times even dismissive. How can all these people be so wimpy? Most of them don’t have kids with complex challenges and no one is emailing them with threats of failing grades for an assignment that was thirty minutes late due to internet problems. They’re just stuck at home, alone, resting!

I always did have sympathy for the people stuck with kids in small city apartments, but oddly those aren’t the complaints you hear most about. By and large, the loudest wails of distress are coming from the privileged suburbs. Those who I expected to be most vulnerable seem to be stoically silent.

At first, I wondered if this was because they didn’t have access to the internet. I contacted a friend who is a single mother in the inner city and asked in depth about their well-being. She assured me that they were coping well. She can still go to work and her ten-year-old has been semi-parenting and supervising homework for the eight-year-old and the seven-year-old for years already. Homeschooling them and herself isn’t that much more. They’re used to hard times.

I shook my head in wonder and went back to my own struggle, feeling decidedly inferior to the ten-year-old in the inner city.

But as the weeks have passed and I have observed the struggles of others (and read a certain amount of psychological analysis), I realized something significant.

That social distancing that is causing so much havoc for so many people… I know it well. I’ve lived it for years as a socially excluded person with a disability. The amount that I leave my house has only decreased slightly, despite the fact that we’re on national COVID-19 lockdown with only essential supply runs allowed.

Photo by Arie Farnam

My social contact has only been reduced a little, since there was very little of it to begin with. The only change in my daily routine is that my kids are home and I can’t do my work because they are so overwhelmingly needy and their teachers are insanely demanding.

That loss of control in people’s lives… I have always lived in a world where I had very little power in the outside world and I was forced to make harsh choices to build a life I love in the small area I can influence.

For years the decisions of others to exclude or include, to harm or to take have hit me like successive waves that I was powerless to deflect. My only power was always in how I took the waves and what I did with driftwood that washed up.

And that disruption of routine and the resulting rudderless confusion… I remember when I was in my twenties and I first left the shelter of structured education. It was terrifying for a few years. I spent almost every day alone. My work was independent and no one was giving me daily feedback. I had to create my own structure, my own schedule and routine. If I got any reward or consequence for my work or lack there of, it was in terms of months, rather than minute by minute or day to day.

And it was hard. I recall the months I spent struggling against depression, sitting among the boxes in a little room I rented at the time in a city where I had few friends and no family.

I knew that my life was in my own hands, that I had to get up and do the work despite the isolation, that no one else would do it for me and no one would help me. It was paralyzing and demotivating and such a heavy load.

As I start to realize these things, my empathy grows in bounds for the people experiencing this for the first time. Suddenly, the people who were out in the free world, who had a social life and regular jobs and culture and community have been thrown into a life that is much more like mine.

I remember the six years I spent almost entirely alone—often on two-week bouts of lockdown and enforced rest—while I struggled with intractable and medically unexplained infertility. I remember the many resolutions I made to study something, to use my open-ended time wisely, to be calm and to practice good grooming habits. Day after day, month after month, I started new schedules and forced myself into healthier routines.

Then as an inexperienced, new mother of traumatized children adopted from Eastern European orphanages, with no women friends to advise me, I spent the baby days battling the demons of despair, guilt, shame, depression and extreme loneliness. Without the ability to drive, it was nearly impossible to get to mommy-and-me classes for toddlers and when I made the mile-long trek into town, other mothers told me that my inability to make eye contact due to my disability made me unacceptable for their group.

So, I made my own music circle with my two kids. I put up colorful posters on the walls. I had an art project scheduled for every day. I tried to teach my preschoolers to cook. I started early reading programs with them and learned to garden.

But it took years! I’m not bragging. I’m aching for all the people facing isolation just now for the first time. If it feels really really hard. That’s because it is.

I’ve been there. And I didn’t overcome it in a few days or a few weeks. I did overcome it, but it took years.

In the end, I did learn a lot of great skills. I can now make my own schedule and I get up happily before dawn, meditate and go out to tend to my garden and animals all before the kids get up. But I didn’t start out that way. I was a wreck, a mess, like a lot of people report being a mess now.

It might help to listen to those people you know who have traditionally been somewhat isolated. Ask them how they stay sane and healthy. If you’re struggling with this, consider that while whole societies being at home in lockdown is unprecedented, you aren’t really the first people to experience it. And those of us who have known isolation and didn’t succumb to extreme depression, addiction or unhealthy living have skills that you can learn.

I have read several self-care articles out there on the web that try to teach these skills and I remember when such things sounded very unrealistic to me. They tell you to keep to a routine, to try to set a time to get up, to shower and get dressed as you used to when you had someplace to go. They tell you to eat regular meals and make sure they’re healthy. They tell you to limit your time staring at social media and scary news reports on TV. They tell you not to beat yourself up mentally when inevitably you fail at all of this.

So from experience,, are they right?

Yup, they’re right. Routine helps. A lot.

Regular bedtimes and waking times help. Personal hygiene isn’t just for the physical health concerns. It really helps the whole situation. It helps you feel purposeful and gives back some of that sense of control. Healthy eating and healthy sleeping both have major psychological effects. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve paid the unpleasant price for wasting half a day on social media.

But the thing I rarely find in these lists, the skill that I think I developed over time that has helped the most, is actually making a schedule for yourself with a purpose greater than daily survival in mind.

About ten years ago, I realized that my life was probably never going to change, that I was never going to be accepted and welcomed into the community and a wonderful group of friends. And somehow, against all the weight of years of depression and media programming that said friends are the sum total of a person’s worth, I decided to build a happy life anyway.

I started building it step by step, by deciding what I wanted in my life and scheduling it. I scheduled a daily spiritual practice and did it.

For the first few years, I didn’t manage to do it every day. Then there came a year that I did manage it every day, except once when I was really sick. For the next two years, it felt like an accomplishment. Then it became indispensable and something I would never voluntarily miss.

I’m close to that level on daily exercise, but not quite to the point where it is automatic. I have managed to get daily contact with nature, animals and gardening into my life. I’ve managed to make daily writing part of my life.

I now manage to keep a schedule for my kids schooling despite their vehement protests and natural disinclination. I manage to have regular and healthy meal times for the whole family. But it all started with scheduling a few things I wanted in my life, like spiritual practice and exercise.

If you’ve read this far, you are intrepid and I know you can do this. Focus on the essentials and on your core values.

Here is a method for developing a fulfilling life even when you’re in isolation:

1. Figure out a practical routine of waking, grooming, eating and sleeping that actually works for you in your given situation.

2. Set alarms and push yourself to stick to it.

3. When it falls apart, look at the routine and the clock and get back into it at that point. Don’t spend time and energy berating yourself for being lazy or lacking self-discipline. Like they say with meditation, just gently return to your focus.

4. Once those basics have been mastered, you will have somewhat more energy and less chaos around you. Use some of that mental space to think about your core values and what you really want in your life. If you have to work at the same time, consider your work to be one of the priorities.

5. Write down your daily routine with times when it works for you to fulfill it. How strict you are with those times depends on your personality and whether or not being relaxed about the times results in the routine being fulfilled or results in chaos. Learn from disasters and adjust the routine as necessary. There’s always another day to practice on.

6. Then choose one thing you really must reintegrate into your life. That could be the thing that provides income or it could be physical exercise. Both are essential. But choose just one for now, and write it into your time schedule. Try it for a few days.

7. Then choose the next most important thing and write that into the schedule.

8. As you add more priorities to your life, you’ll run into problems. Some things take longer than you think. You may start to experience real fatigue again and need to adjust your sleeping hours. Tackle each issue as it comes. There is nothing you can’t fix or at least improve.

9. When you have integrated the priorities you don’t want to live without, stop adding things to your schedule, at least for a while. Get the schedule down really well before adding optional extras. Then when you add something else, pay attention to the effect on your whole daily routine.

This is the basic method. Of course, it sounds easier than it is. If it was easy, everyone in quarantine would be fine. But I know from experience that it can be done. It can be done alone and it can be done with a spouse and kids. Each variation has its own challenges. The key is focusing on building a life that you enjoy, bit by bit.

A word about self-discipline: Yes, self-discipline helps. But society tends to view it as something you have or something you don’t have. Many people will fail at this routine again and again and think that means they lack self-discipline. The thing is that the discipline is the starting over every day. That’s the crux. Yes, there are people for whom sticking to the routine is easier and some for whom it is harder. Some of that is about tenacity but a lot of it is about whatever circumstances you find yourself in. The discipline part is failing and getting back at it again… and again… and again… and again.

A note about depression: Your propensity to sink into depression in isolation or due to failing at your routine is largely biochemical. You can’t entirely control whether you do or not. Healthy food, meditation, positive thinking techniques, contact with friends and (pleasant) family over the phone, exercise and sleep will all help ward off depression. Comparing yourself to other people with different biochemistry generally will not help.

A note about purpose: One of the greatest and least discussed antidotes to depression is purpose. You can’t feel purposeful very well unless you have mastered the basic routine, but once you have, it may help a great deal to choose something you want to accomplish during this quarantine time. It can be as simple as building some abs through a lot of exercise on your yoga mat in a small apartment, or it can be as grand as preparing applications for graduate school or writing that book you’ve always wanted to write.

If you are, like me, stuck in a situation where purpose is elusive because each day is still a massive struggle to get through even the basics, whether that is due to harsh physical conditions, crowded conditions or disabilities, you likely already know there aren’t a lot of simple answers. But keeping to a little bit of greater purpose still helps me.

Hang in there. Keep getting up, even when it feels hopeless and useless. The use is always in the fact that your life will be more enjoyable if you create your own routine and schedule, even if just vegging out may feel enjoyable in the short-term. You’ve probably done that enough by now to know it doesn’t actually pan out that way.

Stay in touch with those you love far away, stay awake inside yourself and build what you want your life to be like within the external conditions. These are the things I learned through isolation.

A lesson for grown-ups from online schooling

Scientific studies and child development textbooks tell you that positive messages matter. What the don’t tell you is precisely what happens to messages from teachers and mentors inside a developing mind.

This forced online schooling resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has provided me with an interesting insight into that secret.

Our schools closed weeks ago. In fact, our local school was likely the first school in Europe outside of Italy to close due to COVID-19. The closure took place directly after spring break and many teachers treated it like an extended vacation, except that they were required to send lists of assignments to the kids. The assignment lists were initially ridiculously long and repetitive, causing huge stress in families.

Slowly some of the teachers have begun teaching online in one form or another and their assignment lists have become more realistic and engaging. My two children probably have the extremes when it comes to teachers.

My fourth-grade daughter has three teachers covering language arts, social studies, science, math and foreign language. None of them is very engaged with students. The homeroom teacher spent the first two weeks of the quarantine trying to avoid contact with parents and students, but he has finally agreed to brief phone check-ins with students on an individual basis. This at least gives kids a chance to clarify assignments and gives a feeling that it isn’t just parents forcing kids to do the endless work.

Image by Arie Farnam

The math teacher is the one teacher who continues to have extreme expectations and who refuses all contact with students other than assignments being turned in through an online form that makes any back-and-forth impossible. She regularly threatens to give failing grades if assignments are late due to lack of internet access or other technical difficulties.

My third-grade son, on the other hand, has a teacher who spends time in a private social media group with students, engages in individual and group calls, gives assignments through brief, entertaining videos and gives assignments that cross the boundaries between subjects.

Recently, she gave an assignment that students were to write a report on the section of their reading books which they had read that day with a few lines of writing and a drawing, which was required to include the use of their geometry compasses. In this way, she noted that they would be covering reading, math and art in one project.

My son was relatively unmotivated anyway, tired of weeks shut away from the world in our little house during a chilly early spring. But I got him working on the project and gave him an idea for how to employ his compass in the picture. With a little encouragement, he spent more than an hour on the report and picture and felt better and better about it along the way.

He then took a photo of it and sent it to his class WhatsApp group. He immediately got several enthusiastic replies from the other kids. Then the teacher sent him a private message of praise, exclaiming, “It’s an excellent picture! You worked hard at it and it turned out really well.” There was real joy in her voice and a bit of a chuckle, likely because the subject matter was about two boys pretending to saw into a magic-trick box with a person banging on the lid from the inside.

It was fairly average praise, but with some feeling behind it. No more than two seconds in length in the voice recording.

For the next two days, every time my son had his phone we heard him replaying that two-second sound clip over and over again. He would lie curled on the couch and play his teacher’s voice again and again.

It reminded me of how a sharp comment or criticism from someone whose opinion you really value can cut deep and echo endlessly in the mind. In this case, it was praise that echoed, but it wasn’t just inside his mind. For once, because of the necessity of online schooling, we could hear the message he was replaying to himself again and again.

Two days later the teacher had another creative assignment for the kids, asking them to write an instructional essay about how to do some simple household task or craft, practicing step-by-step language and taking photos with their phones to document the process. Instead of his usual reluctance, my son was out early in the morning looking for something to write about and document with his camera.

A week later I noticed him going through sound clips of his teacher on his phone, playing one after another. It dawned on me that he was searching for that clip. He was having trouble finding it because there were a great many new clips of his teacher kindly but firmly correcting his math or spelling, both of which present significant challenges due to dyslexia.

Again it was a glimpse into the workings of a kid’s mind, searching for that one bright point of hope amid what seems to him to be a pile of criticism and bewilderingly uninteresting detail.

On the other extreme there is the disinterest of my daughter’s teachers. It isn’t criticism necessarily that is the polar opposite of heartfelt praise but rather disengagement and a focus on quantifiable results, like grades. My daughter’s teachers are not harsh to her. They simply are disengaged. Their harshness is reserved for threatening emails to the parents to ensure their children’s cooperation or face the failing grades.

And the result is complete lack of interest no matter what the assignment is. The only way my daughter gets through assignments is by being bribed with the prospect of time on video games and social media. And even that is hit and miss. Every minute of schoolwork is torture both for her and for me.

I’ve always tried to find the bright bits that can bring out a spark of emotion in my voice when praising my kids or my students. It isn’t always there and maybe part of its magic is in its relative rarity. But clearly such heartfelt praise is very helpful and motivating.

It is worth noticing that my son’s teacher praised him or let him know he was right on math or spelling at other times. It wasn’t all criticism, though he does make many mistakes. There were other positives, but those weren’t the things replayed over and over again. It was the one with feeling that counted.

So, I will try to remember this and be present enough to put that heart in when I can. It isn’t easy but seeing the inner results played out loud makes the need clear.

The first nine days in COVID-19 lockdown

So, that happened. School is cancelled for the foreseeable future. As a kid I would have thought it was a dream come true.

But as a kid, I would have received some basic assignments, done them in thirty minutes and been out playing for the rest of the day.

Now I live in the Czech Republic, where teachers generate lists of essays and exercises with scant explanation for my third-grqader and fourth-grader. I’m also a parent, not a kid, and I’m stuck with the endless mandatory assignment lists, screaming kids, twice the cooking, nothing on the store shelves and a business I have no time to run.

It will be at least two weeks, likely a month, possibly several. months. I am already hoarse and my body feels like someone beat me with a stick. But my hubby is home at the moment, and I’m going to put down a few words before I collapse because I can’t see how there will be a blog by the new moon, if I don’t.

Image by Arie Farnam

As far as I can tell ours was the first school in Europe to close outside of Italy, where there is a real epidemic of COVID-19. (Note from the future: In the Czech Republic, there were ten cases when the school closure was first announced, but by the time of this publication there will be a thousand cases in this country of ten million.)

At first writing, this is the third day I'm home with two extreme ADHD, moderately dyslexic kids and the demands of authoritarian teachers. It’s only the first day of national quarantine, but ours was the only school in the country to close two days early. Our school closed fast before kids even returned from spring break and parents had a three-hour window—announced quietly online and missed by most—to pick up books and supplies

Still, for most people this is day 1, so I’ll call it that.

Day 1 of National COVID-19 School Quarantine

We take the train down to a town 20 miles away to get Marik’s (age 9) first set of braces. This was planned well in advance. At 7:50 a.m. the orthodontist’s waiting room is packed. So much for quarantine. The braces go on fine. We get lessons in how to tighten them and leave. There are no sinks for washing hands, so we don’t eat on the way home on the train.

9:15 am - The train arrives in our little town, Mnichovice, and it is pouring rain. We walk home through rivers of mud and arrive drenched on the path that leads to our chicken coup. The chickens are wet too. The two new ones have a nasty habit of breaking all the other eggs in the coop for fun. I mentally schedule chicken gravy for next week.

9:45 am - We get inside, hang up wet coats and hats and warm up and wash hands. I sit down at the computer to check the latest batch of dispatches from the teachers, still officially working but mostly not.

I was relatively okay for the first two days of our local “quarantine.” I put “quarantine” in quotes because there hasn’t yet been a single suspected COVID-19 case in our town or even in our county. There are a few in hospitals in the nearby city, but the schools there stayed open until today.

Marik’s teacher sent a page and a half list of assignments for today and admonitions about the consequences of not keeping up: five blocks of 15 math problems of various types, four blocks of grammar and spelling exercises, a chapter of foreign language memorization and some online exercises.

The Internet says Czech teachers are giving kids plenty of work in hopes of keeping them occupied. No one seems to be considering that children working means some adult has to be working twice as hard supervising them. Do the teachers actually think parents need more work under these circumstances?

Shaye (age 11) has four blocks of 20 math problems, three pages of grammar exercises, an online history memorization exercise, two pages of foreign language spelling words and instructions to “prepare a presentation about ecosystems.” All of this is typed in a dense block of single-spaced text, no line breaks for easier comprehension, let alone bullet points.

I spend the next hour and a half rounding up all the required books and materials, messaging teachers back with questions about things that were so sloppily written as to be unintelligible and restructuring the chaotic, disorganized lists of teacher fantasies into bullet points that kids can actually read.

11:15 am - Time to get kids off of WhatsApp chats with their friends and to work. A half an hour of yelling and protest ensues. No thrown objects and nothing but a few pencils broken. Hey, maybe this won’t be so hard.

11:45 am - The kids are actually seated at their desks with their assignments and their school books. I’m a goddess! And they’re hungry, so I head downstairs to heat up lunch. Thank the gods for leftovers.

12:15 pm - Break for lunch. I also have a moment to breathe, which I use to call Shaye’s teacher to ask for some teacher engagement during school hours and some help with explaining assignments and checking work, considering that I am 95 percent blind and cannot physically read the textbooks or handwriting.

The teacher, who happens to be a man, says he is too busy to deal with students directly. What is he busy with? Well, that’s not really any of my business.

I ask him point blank if I can write in my documentation that he refuses to discuss the work with my child on the phone or through WhatsApp or similar technology. He blusters and diverts but after three repetitions of my question, he “threatens” that if we don’t just do the work ourselves, my daughter will be required to visit him in person for an hour each day. I cheerfully attempt to schedule these visits at which point he quickly backpedal’s and agrees to a five-minute consultation with her later in the day.

1:00 pm - During the five-minute consultation, the teacher asks my daughter if she understands everything. She lies and says yes. She doesn’t actually want to do the work after all. He asks a few questions to check that she actually has the assignment list in front of her and that’s the end of the call. It takes her four more hours to do half of the work, and that’s just all that’s going to happen today.

1:30 pm - My son Marik is doing a bit better in that he is making an effort, but his new braces are driving him crazy and no one can understand a word he says. Most of his work looks like chicken scratch. It is hard to tell if it’s right or wrong, since I can’t read it.

2:00 pm - After multiple emails describing my vision impairment, Marik’s teacher relents and does a real consultation call and spends 45 minutes talking to him over WhatsApp and helping him through several sets of problems. I actually get to drink half of a cup of tea.

4:00 pm - I go through the foreign language work with the kids, which I can actually do, since the foreign language is English and we have long since left their curriculum in our dust. Then I listen to the kids read.

5:00 pm - I’m hoarse, can barely stand and I’m getting dinner ready when my hubby comes home. I hand everyone a tortilla.

6:00 pm - I collapse into off-duty mode. Papa is in charge for the evening. I vehemently wish the teachers would either start work themselves or curtail their expectations a little. At this rate, I will do nothing but sleep, cook and try to force kids to do assignments and even then I won’t come close to finishing each day.

Day 2;

8:00 am - We get an earlier start today. Marik’s teacher actually sent assignments overnight. Shaye’s teacher hasn’t gotten up yet but there are things to work on from yesterday. Marik’s teacher has been a bit more realistic in the amount of work assigned today, and she calls to get him lined out for the day.

10:00 am - Shaye’s teacher calls and asks pro forma, if she has any questions. Then he tries to hang up, when she mumbles something negative. I stop him and let him know that Shaye has her list of written questions in front of her on her desk. He is clearly unhappy but he grudgingly gives vague replies as she grudgingly asks the questions that she spent the morning using as excuses not to do her work..

11:00 am - It takes me several hours but I manage to order groceries. I can’t drive and shopping is a nightmare for a blind person even in the best of times.. Now, the stores are packed with people and the shelves are empty. Even the online stores have no more pasta, rice, granola bars or toilet paper.

I’m not joining the panic, mind you. I mostly just need to do the weekly shopping as usual, but in the end I decide to buy an extra bag of salt, that being the old prepper standby, and useful if civilization does end and the electricity goes out and I have to make pemmican out of our freezers full of meat and blackberries.

The order arrives later with a third of the items missing, but at least we get something, including the salt.

1:00 pm - I sent Shaye to the tutor’s house. She is a private tutor and we pay her a goodly sum to help with the kids learning struggles. She can at least make a dent in Shaye’s pile of assignments. And I get to drink most of a cup of tea, while Marik actually gets an hour of relatively calm study time.

2:30 pm - We go to Shaye’s therapy appointment by train. The kids see someone in a medical mask on the train and I explain that some people have immune disorders that make the current situation specifically dangerous to them, but we don’t really need to be afraid.

The therapist chuckles over the fact that her office has officially banned shaking hands. She then forgets and reaches out to shake before we leave. Automatically, my hand comes out and I remark, bemused, that we have just broken the new rule. Shaking on meeting and again on departure is so ingrained in this culture that it will be a hard habit to break.

4:00 pm - Now the government has declared a state of emergency. All gatherings of over 30 people are banned with the singularly alarmist exception of “funerals.” Restaurants, bars and clubs must close at 8 pm. Swimming pools, fitness centers and any other body-oriented businesses are closed. All educational institutions are now closed.

The Czech Republic is still one of the least hit countries, with less than ten confirmed cases of COVID-19. A student I haven’t seen in two weeks texted to cancel her next business English lesson because one of those cases turned up in her company. She had no physical contact with him that she knows of, but she is still on two-week mandatory quarantine and cannot leave her home.

5:00 pm - When we get off the train coming home, it is pouring rain once again. Cars speed by through sheets of water, spraying fans of dirty sludge across us as we walk home. I imagine their discussions inside the vehicles. “Look at that idiot, out on the street in the rain with those poor children! And with this sickness going around! They’ll be sick for sure! This is not a time for a stroll in the rain!” Their contempt for people with more troubles than them pours off of them along with the sheets of muddy, oily water. No one slowed to spare us even one wave..

Day 4:

Saturday. At last. No massive assignment lists. I haven’t been this happy it’s Saturday, since middle school.

5:20 am - I wake up with the first gray light, scattered thoughts sorting in my head. I finally have enough mental space to remember some things, like today is the day a local chicken breeder brings hens to the square and my phone beeped with the message yesterday that I am supposed to pick up two 20-week hens at 9:30 sharp.

But unfortunately my hubby (and the only one in the family who can drive) is gone for his annual weekend with his buddies, scheduled way before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19, so that means I’ll have to get there without a car and get the hens home again. With kids, of course.

More details flood in. We need some basic supplies and ordering groceries on line hasn’t worked. The system is overloaded with all the people actually under house quarantine. That number is growing rapidly. Everyone (and their entire family) who had any possibility of contact with one of the confirmed COVID-19 cases is under mandatory housebound quarantine and cannot physically shop for food. So, I should try to get some milk, cabbage, flour—just the basics, while I get the hens.

5:40 am - I can’t sleep anyway with all that going on in my head, so I roll out of bed and do my morning meditation, get tea and take care of the animals before 7:00.

7:00 am - Marik is up and needing intensive attention and reassurance. We haven’t paid much heed to the panic about the virus, so he isn’t really afraid of it, but the restrictions have started to get intense enough that it is impossible not to notice that it isn’t just school being out. He’s clingy and afraid to be in a room with dark corners, like he was as a little kid.

I get him set up cracking eggs and running the mixer for waffles. At least we have eggs. Those are in very short supply in stores but even if the chickens are eating theirs, we still have the ducks.

9:00 am - It takes longer to leave the house than usual, given that “usual” with my kids is utter chaos. By the time we finally get down to the road, I’m afraid we’ll miss the chicken truck. I try duct-taping a cat carrier to the footboard of my electric scooter for the hens, but it is far too large. In a hurry, I grab a small paper box, slap on some duct-tape and tear down the road after the kids, who have already started the trek to town.

The scooter is my main form of transportation. When I say “tear,” I guess I mean a brisk walk by anyone else’s standards. I can see just enough of shadows and shapes to keep the scooter on the sidewalk. Once we’re in town, I’ll have to slow down to avoid hitting anyone or anything. But beyond being nearly blind, I have crooked legs and can’t walk without extreme pain for more than a few miles a day.

I notice immediately that the roads are eerily empty, even for a Saturday morning and the sidewalk is even emptier. We pass two children, a few hundred yards apart. Not another soul.

My kids comment that every driver who passes us glares at me intensely. Again, they are coming to conclusions about the crazy lady out riding a scooter with her kids during what has quickly become “national lockdown,” not just school quarantine.

9:30 am - The chicken guy is not impressed with my paper box and duct-tape approach to chicken transportation. Neither are the hens. The box is torn and I have to duct-tape it back together around them, but eventually they settle down and think they are in a laying box. I duct-tape the box more solidly to the scooter and we’re almost ready to go home.

9:50 am - But we swing by the main grocery store in town and I leave Marik outside to watch the hens while Shaye and I go in. I’ve heard rumors about some frantic buying over the past two weeks and seen the havoc caused in the world of online groceries, but I am shocked at the scene inside the store.

Unlike the sidewalks, the store is packed with more people than I had ever seen in it before. All of them move in grim silence. Pairs of people whisper urgently together and everyone passes strangers and neighbors alike with averted gazes. Shaye was definitely the only child in the store.

I veer toward the baked goods, but stop before I quite get there. Even I can see the shelves were entirely bare. Two women are searching for the last few bread rolls that had fallen between the boxes on the bottom shelf.

I turn into the dairy aisle. Here too, whole sections are bare. Not a single bottle of milk of any variety. Shaye finds the last buttermilk carton, tipped over in the back of a cooler shelf. We’ll need that if we are to make more waffles. I find ultra-pasteurized, eternal shelf-life milk in the canned goods section. It tastes bad, but does the trick, especially for baking.

No hope of cabbage. I send Shaye to search for flour while I take a quick detour into the chocolate department, realizing that the Spring Equinox is coming up in a week and at this rate, I might not have chocolate treats to hide in the kids’ plastic eggs. Even here the pickings were a bit spare, though still relatively abundant. In the end I have to settle for large chocolate bars with breakable sections.

I give the harried but still rosy-cheeked cashier a bolstering smile and wishes for continued strength. Then we are off toward home. We stop in at a tiny specialty shop and manage to get a bottle of maple syrup, liquid gold even at the best of times.

11:00 am - The new hens are in the coop and seem no worse for their unconventional trip home. The sun has actually come out and it looks like spring. The kids are huddled by the cold wood stove whining that they want computer games and more waffles instead of lunch. I lay down the law. There is a bit of weekend homework to be done and they need to play at least one non-electronic game for the first time all week… before electronics.

Little do I know what my rules will start. As I start getting lunch, they grudgingly begin, first with a card game and then with board games all over the table. As they warm up, they become more enthusiastic and by the time lunch is ready they are outside, climbing on the side of the house and trying to rig up the summer-time swing.

After lunch, they are back out there. I have a fright when Shaye falls off of the jungle gym mounted on the side of the house and comes in screaming in obvious pain and limping badly. There couldn’t really be a worse time for an ER visit, unless you count being snowed in.

Fortunately, it turns out to be just a bad shin bruise, already turning black and purple with blood seeping through a small cut. Disinfectant and a bandage will have to do.

2:00 pm - To my astonishment, the kids play outside most of the afternoon. I actually get to drink a whole cup of tea while wrestling with the online teaching platform finally chosen by Shaye’s grumpy teacher. It is mostly based on Adobe Flash, which I didn’t realize went out of fashion about the time I graduated from college.

The teacher has an old Microsoft desktop computer, so he thinks it’s fine but all of his students are on Android phones and iPads, none of which are going to work well. It takes me a few hours, but I finally find an Android solution and send it to him. He has started to give me a bit of grudging respect as he sees that my demand that he actually work, if he wants the kids to work, is coupled with a willingness to help.

4:00 pm - My phone pings with another message. The sender isn’t in my contacts but is marked ominously as “The Government.” They must be sending mass messages to the entire population now via cell phones. This time they’ve locked down all stores and businesses other than grocery stores, pharmacies, pet care shops, newsagents and electronics stores. I wonder about the electronics stores for a moment, until I realize that the entire country is going virtual and not everyone is well prepared in advance. It’s actually a reasonable exemption.

Now we are truly on national lockdown. Anything more and you’d be courting humanitarian disaster. But how long can we realistically hope to make this work and how long will be long enough to make a difference? There still hasn’t been a single COVID-19 death in this country, but there have been several hundred seasonal flu related deaths in the past week, not to mention as-of-yet uncounted stress-related suicides and heart attacks.

Day 5

As of midnight last night, the whole country is quarantine. No more therapist appointments. No more tutor to help drag Shaye kicking and screaming (literally) through her schoolwork. No one is allowed to leave home, except to go to work or to shop for food. There is an exception for individuals to go to natural areas to commune with nature alone. But neighborhood kids are not allowed to play together. Even private tutors are banned from teaching.

Shaye has three times as much schoolwork today as she can realistically handle in a day—write a short story containing seven words the teacher randomly selected, do several grammar exercises, write an essay on the Central Bohemian region, do four whole sets of math problems, do two pages of foreign language exercises, and read for a book report.

She does part of it, throws books and chairs and refuses to do the rest. I’ll dock her time on phone games and social media because iron consistency is the only way with her, but on the other hand, the amount of work handed out for a fourth grader with multiple learning disabilities is beyond excessive.

Marik does manage to finish most of his third-grade work by afternoon. It is sunny again, so he spends the afternoon bouncing on our trampoline and hollering back and forth with the boy two houses away also bouncing on his trampoline alone. I’m sure the neighbors in between are not happy, but I am passed the point of caring. Those neighbors have five dogs which are so starved for attention that our lives constantly have the irritating backdrop of incessantly barking dogs. Now with the quarantine the whole situation feels even more claustrophobic.

On the bright side, I manage to get the grocery order I put in last week today. We are now well supplied for as long as two weeks if necessary, and I got chocolate eggs. Toilet paper may only last about ten days but I have lived in places and times where one had to use newspaper. That too could be survived.

As usual, the real conditions of hardship—such as the distant virus or low toilet paper supplies—are much less troublesome than the purely human-caused problems—such as overzealous teachers, cruel motorists and irrational fear.

With that thought, I summon the last shreds of my energy and call the elderly woman `i know with fragile health and message a couple of friends with chronic health problems, who could be in danger from the virus. I don’t really know what I can do to help, if any of them are in crisis, alone or without supplies. Without a car I’m not likely to be that much help, but I’ll think of something.

As it turns out, they are all doing okay so far

Day 7:

I’ve never been a real “prepper” but I have leanings in that direction. For once, no one in my family is criticizing me for it.

Today’s halfway-prepper menu:

Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried fruit and boxed ultra-pasteurized milk that lasts forever unopened.

Lunch: Romani Halušky - grated potatoes and wheat meal and one egg, mixed with a little water and boiled in small bits, then tossed with smoked meat and sauerkraut. Sauerkraut has all the fiber and vitamin C you need when fresh food is hard to come by. It also lasts months packed into a large urn and can tide good preppers through the winter, but I didn't make mine last fall, so this is the last of what we bought at the store when stores still had such things.

Dinner: Half a hen with buckwheat noodles and broccoli. This is good if you have frozen broccoli or manage to get some. Then you kill the hen that has been eating all the other hens’ eggs (hopefully it’s only one of them), pluck it and boil half of it all day in the slow cooker to make gravy. Freeze the other half for next week.

Snacks: Celery and peanut butter (because ... celery = what you happen to have that needs to be eaten while its fresh.)

Dessert: Chocolate zucchini cake, cause you haven’t quite run out of flour and you managed to save a few eggs and you did freeze grated zucchini in bags last summer, didn’t you? (The kids rebel because they just saw me get an order including a bunch of packaged food, but that’s all for when the flour and sugar run out. Flour and sugar were among the things even the online stores are out of.)

Day 8:

Yesterday I was almost joking about being a “halfway prepper.” Today it feels a lot less funny. Major factories are closing. There are 30 mile lines of trucks at the borders. They are checking all the drivers and the loads before letting anyone cross. The food shortages are widening and deepening.

People have started buying up seeds and gardening supplies as well as just food and toilet paper. I’m starting to think that a little hoarding might have been a good idea while I had the chance. Now there are quotas on everything and you can’t buy large amounts anymore.

I know that with my root cellar potatoes, chicken eggs, pantry and freezers we can get by for two more weeks easily, probably a month with creative cooking. But there is no sign that the crisis will be over in a month. Estimates put it at “six weeks at least.”

The government comes out with a new, tighter rule every day, as if reminding the population of their fear is somehow going to help. Hubby went downtown to see if he could get some supplies and came back mainly with an armload of face masks. As of 6:00 p.m. the new rule is that anyone who goes out to shop or go to work must wear a mask.

I have to wonder how that will play out if/when the looting starts. A little seed of fear has started to creep in, and I find myself sternly admonishing the kids not to waste their cups of yogurt. I’ve never been one for wasting food but this is different.

The kids schoolwork is still a problem, but whatever consequences the school hands us are starting to seem less important. It’s almost becoming routine, and Marik goes to his studies almost without protest. He has also started to help out in moments of family chaos, making the fire or washing off the table according to my rapid-fire requests. Sometimes he complains that his older sister refuses to help, but as kids have always done in hard times, he is starting to rise to the challenge.

Shaye still screams and carries on about schoolwork and refuses to help unless she is bribed with something specific that she desperately wants, which adds up to it being more of an educational experience for her than a help to the adults around. But this evening she was serious for a moment before bedtime and promised to try not to throw fits..

Day 9:

6:00 am - It is the Vernal Equinox. I get up and walk up to let the chickens out of their coop, only to discover that all the ducks, which don’t tolerate being shut in for the night, are gone. I find a fox tunnel under the fence.

I sit down heavily on a boulder and curl around the knot of sorrow, frustration and, yes, even fear in my chest. I don’t cry, even though I usually cry easily. I don’t know why no tears come.

I go back to the house to do my spiritual practice and meditation before the kids get up, but I have little heart for it. This is usually one of my favorite seasons. I love the budding life of spring and I relish the fresh, cool breeze and only slightly warm sunshine. I usually feel full of hope and energy at this time of year, but not today.

Now I sit in front of my altar and candles and I feel nothing but exhaustion and sorrow. I do feel some shame for being selfish and not wanting my children home all day every day. But mostly it’s just sorrow. In all the years I’ve had animals I’ve never had a loss this massive. Hardship and bad luck always seems to come in waves. It never rains but it pours.

Gods, why? Was it something I did? I don’t believe in vengeful Gods, but I do believe in reaping what you sew. Still I don’t see how my careful and conscientious actions could lead to this.

I go through the traditional words of hope in the Equinox ritual, but I don’t feel it. My faith is sometimes like that. I have to fake it til I make it, but this has happened before. I’ve been through despair more times than I care to remember.

8:30 am - Shaye takes a swing at me with the broom while she is supposed to be sweeping as her daily chore. She walks around dragging the broom behind her with one loose hand. I firmly but constantly explain to her how she needs to sweep and stand in her way so that she cannot simply walk around the room dragging the broom loosely. That’s how she takes a swing at me. I catch it but it’s close.

9:00 am - Shaye’s teacher calls an hour early and is harshly critical that her phone was turned off. He has my phone number and I have told him repeatedly that she does not have unlimited access to a smartphone because she developmentally has no capacity for self control about YouTube and other time-waister apps. He doesn’t accept this and hangs up, refusing to help her today.

10:00 am - Shaye is sitting at the kitchen table struggling through a test sent by her teacher. I couldn’t help her cheat much even if I wanted to. I don't know this level of Czech grammar. I can hear Marik upstairs talking to his friends on WhatsApp instead of doing his schoolwork. I’m too exhausted to intervene. I make myself a cup of tea and drink all of it.

1:00 pm - After heating up lentil soup for lunch and listening to the kids squabble, make farting noises and complain over it, I manage to get outside for a moment to clean up and check on the chickens again. There were two eggs yesterday and one today but more importantly there are no little piles of shells and slime showing where eggs have been eaten. That doesn’t mean they haven’t become more sneaky about it, since there should be a few more eggs, but it is possible that the chicken gravy did the trick. It better have, since there will be no more duck eggs.

I take a deep breath of the free clear air and smile up at the slightly warm early spring sun. There seems to be less air pollution. Most planes aren’t flying, cars are few on the roads and many large factories are shutting down. The things we wanted to happen to combat climate change are coming true in an odd way.

It does make me wonder why it is that the world can come together to save a small percentage of people who could die from a COVID-19 infection, but we were never willing or able to make similar sacrifices for the entire next generation which stands to lose everything to clearly demonstrated danger. Climate change already kills far more humans than the seasonal flu and COVID-19 combined.

Of course, I know the answer before the question is even fully formed. Those in danger from COVID-19 are at this point wealthier and more powerful than those who die every year from extreme heat, drought, floods and famine.

3:00 pm - The kids are finally finished with their schoolwork, which means I’m free as well. I get out my favorite Equinox decorations—blown eggs colored with waterproof acrylic paints. Back in February when the kids were away skiing, I had a little time and I painted a few more to replace those broken last year. I was so proud of myself, getting the jump on Equinox preparations. Little did I know then that those little touches would be the only preparations I would get a chance to do at all.

Now I string the blown eggs on embroidery thread and hang each one carefully from the branches of my favorite lilac bush in the front yard. It is a bit too shaded by our massive oak tree but it is what I want now—a little tree with colorful eggs on it. Usually it is a cheerful welcome for people coming to our home at this time of year.

This year few visitors are likely to see it. I sit on the grass and smile up at it, feeling unduly happy. Marik runs over from the trampoline and sits beside me, cuddling into my side. “Ids priddy. When do we ged tocolade eggs?” he lisps through his braces. His speaking and eating has gotten a little faster over the past nine days, but he is nearly impossible to understand.

“Maybe tomorrow if it doesn’t rain to much the Ostara bunny will hide chocolate eggs for you,” I say, hugging him close.

That was one tiny moment of calm and bliss in the chaos. That little bit of decorating is the only non-essential, non-food-related, non-school-related task I have done in a week and a half with the exception of this blog, which barely counts as a task.

That’s all I’ve got, folks. No great inspirational thing about hope and peace and humanist love. Just this bleak and unpleasant survival. If this post has a message, it is a plea to remember those who are vulnerable in this crisis—and not just those who might get sick.

If you are happily alone and able to binge watch everything you usually can’t, spare a thought (and maybe a phone call) for those who are alone because of age, disability or family rejection and who feel the isolation of quarantine more bitterly. If you are happily amid your family, spare a thought (and maybe a care package) for single parents with several kids trapped in small city apartments and others with too great a burden of care-taking.

It isn’t that thinking of the misery of others should make you feel better about your own situation, no matter how hard it is. But it is worth remembering that some people have it harder than others. And your elected representatives need to know what is happening to the most vulnerable in these times.

What is hard for me is easy for many. I have only two kids and we can go outside in our yard. For me it is hard because of my physical disability and my daughter’s behavioral-developmental disabilities. What is easy for me may bring another family to the brink. I wonder how people are fairing who don’t know how to cook and are used to buying packaged food and eating out.

Similarly I may be stuck in lockdown, but unlike many people I don’t have any pressing need to go somewhere. I’m an introvert and the fact that I haven’t seen anyone but my husband and my two kids in a full week doesn’t really bother me. My main problem is no alone time, rather than social isolation. But that’s just my specific situation. So if things are easy for you now, consider that many others are already enduring serious hardship.

I don’t know how long I can keep this up. For now, I’m truly just taking it one day at a time.