Our world has most certainly been rocked since my previous post earlier in the year! And what a fresh new perspective this Corona Virus pandemic has brought to me (and no doubt, to so many others in the world!). When my children eventually returned to school full time after 10 weeks of home schooling and lock down in Australia and we seemed to have the pandemic largely under control (comparatively speaking!), I felt the weight of the underlying Covid anxiety slowly and gently lift from my shoulders ... but as I reflect and process what we had been through and in a lot of respects, are still going through, I am left feeling somewhat weighed down and heavy in my heart and soul.
Now don’t get me wrong - aside from the absolute devastation of this pandemic, the lives that have so tragically been lost and the economies that are in turmoil, there are also many positive things that have come from this period, where families and friends have been forced to slow down, batten down the hatches and look after themselves and each other. I suspect that almost every person in the world has been impacted in some way by this global COVID-19 pandemic, and in the end, every person will come away with their own insights, opinions and memories from their personal experience of life during the pandemic. I can only speak from my personal perspective and in general, here in Australia, there were beautiful things going on around us (through the inevitable frustrations that came with being so confined!). A few really positive observations I made during our lockdown period and beyond are as follows:
People seem to have an increasing appreciation for personal health and a widespread realisation that our health really is precious! This has been apparent in the community around us where more and more conversations have been taking place about the best seasonal fruit & veggie boxes available in the area and sharing healthy recipes with each other over chat groups, getting out for daily exercise or sharing online exercise resources with each other, emphasising the need for kids to have a break from screens and prioritise to fun in the fresh air. People are acknowledging that we need to look after our bodies and that the best defence we have against the Corona Virus, if we are unlucky enough to get hit by it, is our own amazingly-designed immune system. Long may the focus on personal health continue!
There has been an increased sense of community and support. I found that, while we were in lockdown, people were noticeably more compassionate and less judgemental of each other. There was generally a very accommodating acknowledgement that every person and family’s situation was unique. It was heart-warming to see the selfless offers of support for those in the community who were doing it tough - those who were single-parenting, those who had lost jobs or shut businesses, those who might not have the required resources, time or know-how to navigate through the maze of home schooling their children while juggling the new world of working from home simultaneously. Communities, parents and friends got together, supported and encouraged each other through the daily challenges that were more pronounced for some than others. There were rainbows of compassion and support up in windows of houses and wrapped around trees. It was truly beautiful to see.
People were forced into slowing down and simplifying ... and what a gift that was for some of us busy-bodies who jam-pack our schedules and over-commit just because we can! People have rediscovered the simple life and I am most certainly grateful that slowing down was forced upon us. The simple life is the better life for sure - people have started home growing their own vegetables again and kids have rediscovered the joy of boredom - and the resultant building of treehouses in the garden and cubbies in the lounge, they are riding bikes around the neighbourhood and learning to be creative with whatever resources they have. I found myself in the garden with my kids, playing with earthworms and following bees and butterflies ... just randomly ... in the middle of the week (that is usually so jam-packed with activities that I battle to get into the garden at all!). Long may the slower, simple version of life continue!
There seems to have been an automatic ”localisation” of our food system - people have been back to supporting their local butchers, bakers and grocers. For some, it was an active choice to support the small local businesses during the uncertain times to ensure their survival, for others it was a move to stay within their smaller, local community and out of the big grocery stores to limit their potential exposure to the Corona Virus. Sadly, for a lot of people it was due to the sickening, selfish stockpiling issues at the large grocery stores that left shelves empty and produce unavailable. I sincerely hope that the experience of shopping locally opened many people’s eyes to the joy of what local has to offer and that buying as local as possible is better for us, our environment and our communities in so many ways!
Sadly, the last point above also leads to the biggest disappointment I experienced as part of the Corona Virus lockdown period - it was quite sickening to see the greed of self-preservation ... borderline gluttony. The stockpiling and excess that we humans instinctively clutched at in the fear that we might not be able find a bag of flour or a packet of pasta on the shelves at our next shop was something else. This has really stuck with me ... and I am by no means preaching. I, too, found myself stocking up a little more than usual at each of my shops, running slightly higher stock levels in my freezer, buying more legumes and pulses that would last the test of time in case things really went downhill. But what really struck me and saddened me was a phone call I had with my beautiful Mom in South Africa one day, where they were in far more restrictive lock-down than we were here in Australia. On this particular day, my Mom showed me the scene playing out in her kitchen, where she was cooking up huge pots of soup to drop off at the nearby community centre, where selfless volunteers were trying everything in their power to keep the local, less fortunate children fed and nourished through this crisis that left so many people without jobs and any form of income. Even if they could only manage to feed the masses one meal a day, they were doing whatever they could! Wow ... now there’s a sobering thought for those of us that were worrying about whether we’d find our 3-ply toilet paper or a packet of our favourite brand of pasta on the shelf of our local grocery store, or heaven-forbid we ran out of alcohol before the authorities decided to lift the ban on alcohol sales!
This conversation with my Mom made me realise that there are many people in this world who are totally oblivious to the daily struggles that face those millions of people who are less fortunate. And being in my own bubble of the home schooling, working from home, Covid craziness that was going on in my life on the other side of the world, even I had become disconnected from the reality that faced so many people out there. It was not long after this conversation with my Mom that I started reading “The Daniel Plan” (by Dr Mark Hyman, Dr Daniel Amen and Rick Warren) and within the first few pages of the book I read something that REALLY shocked me:
”For the first time in history, as many people are suffering from the result of too much food as malnutrition.”, which came with a reference to an article from The Telegraph “Obesity killing three times as many as malnutrition”.
This was a pretty sickening realisation to me - the consumption in our world is so disproportionate that humans are getting sick at both ends of the consumption spectrum - some from consuming too much and others from not having enough to nourish them. Surely this is ludicrous and doesn’t have to be this way??
I think this realisation hit me so hard because I had been feeling the impact of over consumption in our own household. I found myself getting frustrated by the never-ending chimes of “I’m hungry” and the resultant mess in the kitchen that I couldn’t seem to get on top of in between the home schooling, house work, phone calls, Zoom meetings and catch ups, dog walking, online exercising, juggling devices between family members and all the other requests and demands that came from the very unique time that we found ourselves in. However, my feelings of frustration were swiftly turned into a strange blend of immense gratitude and deep guilt as I absolutely was feeling the effects within myself of the privileged, constant, over consumption going on in my life. While there was coffee and wine involved in my consumption mix too, there was mainly really healthy food being consumed ... just too much! And that, overlaid with the permanent cloud of underlying Covid anxiety, it was brewing a great big digestive and inflammatory mess inside of me.
I have found that this realisation has challenged me in a big way personally. I certainly believe that there is far more I can be doing to spread the disproportionate consumption from my little corner of the world into communities who so desperately need the resources far more than many of us do. Not long after the conversation with my mom that resonated so deeply with me, it was a good friend of mine’s birthday. A couple of us were meeting her for a birthday trail run and in advance of the event I couldn't think of anything that she desperately needed or wanted for her birthday ... and then it struck me ... there are many of us in the world that actually don’t need more “stuff” in our lives! As much as I love spoiling my friends and family, none of us really desperately NEED anything. In fact if anything, we actually need less in our lives. So I decided that instead of buying something material for the sake of giving my friend a gift (that would possibly find its way into landfill at some stage in the future), I would feed a hungry child on her behalf for a month instead through Life Community Services. I wasn’t entirely sure how she would receive it as her birthday gift but I was prepared to take the chance. So I wrote her a card and explained what I had done on her behalf for her birthday gift ... and as out turned out, it was accepted with such wide open arms and an amazing amount of gratitude - she said she couldn‘t have thought up a gift she would rather have than that! Yessssss!!
A few weeks later it was my dear Mom’s birthday and again, I wasn’t sure how my siblings would feel about not spoiling Mom with thoughtful, beautiful gifts on her birthday to show her how much we love and appreciate her. But I braved the conversation and again it was received with a great big “Hell Yes”! So for Mom’s birthday we fed some more little people for a month in lieu of a material gift for her. She was so touched by the idea - I think it may have topped almost any of the other gifts we’ve given her over the many years!
I would like to challenge every one of my readers, and everyone who you hopefully forward this post on to, to consider where you might be able to make a positive redistribution of consumption in your life at this time when there are so many millions of people out there in desperate need. Remember that we consume MANY different things - not just food! At a rapid rate, we also consume alcohol, clothing, fuel, social media, coffee, household gadgets, kids’ toys ... The list is long! And not only are we damaging our own health through this constant over consumption, we are also damaging our planet that somehow has to keep giving of it’s resources to fulfil our excessive consumption demands. What are you consuming in your life that you realise you can actually go without in order to help someone else in real need?
I am sure many of you have a cause close to your heart that you may choose to support which is great. A cause really close to my heart is an organisation called “Life Community Services” based in my home town of George, South Africa. If you would like to see the amazing work that they do and think you might be able to help them execute their incredible task of feeding and educating a community in need, then PLEASE click on this link to check them out. You can help to feed, educate, provide shelter, medical and spiritual support to a child for a whole month by donating R300 (or AUD $25 or US$18)!
I’d love to know how you have been able to contribute to the correction of this pandemic of disproportionate consumption that we find ourselves in. Please share your ideas in the comments section to inspire the rest of us!