COVID-19 is the Wild Card

What happens in COVID-19, stays in…

Okay, no. This pandemic is too global and deadly to compare to a weekend in Vegas, even though some are gambling with their lives.

What kind of learning is possible in this crisis – not just for scientists, medical personal, and economists, but for all of us? My own learning comes from a place of physical abundance and safety. I am among the fortunate few who have food, shelter, health insurance, and a loving partner during this time, and I don’t take these advantages for granted. In fact, I value them more than I ever did.

When self-pity looms because I miss my loved ones or my work, I am reminded of my privileged view. Ongoing violence against Black people, raging fires, homelessness, disproportionate fatalities among the poor… these are some of the problems the pandemic exacerbates. COVID-19 is a magnifying glass - zooming in on hard truths about our country’s systemic, oppressive systems. It is searing into our collective inaction and it’s demanding change.

As I try to do my part to slow the virus and support progressive social justice, I’m also trying to monitor my own mental health in this endless quarantine. Hopelessness, grief, and fear are my tablemates in this new reality as brutal truths are revealed again and again, losses are endured, and social disconnect shatters my resolve.

The big lessons I’m absorbing are too raw and personal to include here now. But there are small learnings about which I’m certain:

• Planning is silly

• Siracha makes everything better

• One of my bras is definitely the most comfortable

• Cookies, poetry, and coffee can save a day

• My words and actions can make a difference

I’m proud of:

• Keeping up on hygiene (if shaving doesn’t count)

• Not name-calling my partner (until today, on day #170, and they didn’t hear me)

• Learning to meditate, aka sitting still for 20 minutes and not answering texts

• Keeping my shit together when I can’t meet my grandchild yet

In Vegas, my understanding of probability and fixed advantage prevents me from gambling. In COVID-19, I am forced to play, to weigh risks and recognize advantages. I choose to draw my hand from people like Alice Walker, “What is always needed… is the larger perspective. Connections made, or at least attempted, where none existed before, the straining to encompass in one’s glance at the varied world the common thread, the unifying theme through immense diversity, a fearlessness of growth, of search, of looking, that enlarges the private and the public world.” Jackpot.