Trudy J. Morgan-Cole's Blog, page 40

Mistakes Were Made

Two weeks and two days ago, on March 11, 2020, I participated in an act of reckless endangerment to the public. If I did this thing today, I would rightly be held up to public scorn and possibly even reported to the authorities. By next week, the same act might well be illegal.

At the time I was aware of doing nothing wrong. It was a regular school day at the adult-education centre where I teach — our third-last school day for the 2019-2020 school year, most likely, although we didn’t know that at the time — and the middle of our Spirit Week. And as part of Spirit Week, I and another staff member, and one student, stood behind tables in the lounge with big 4L containers of ice cream, scooping up ice cream and spraying on whipped cream, encouraging everyone to dip a spoon into communal bowls of toppings, or pass squeeze bottles of syrup from one person to another. Then everyone sat down less than two feet apart from each other and ate their ice-cream sundaes.

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Stock photo by Leah Kelly from Pexels

At the time, having a make-your-own sundae ice cream bar seemed like a fun, team-building activity. We had already heard news of the coronavirus in other parts of Canada, but nobody had tested positive in Newfoundland at that time, and while we all washed our hands well before and after serving, nobody wore gloves or masks or suggested that serving ice cream to fifty people was a bad idea.

Two weeks later, our centre is closed, as is everything else not deemed an essential business. And the very idea of communal ice cream sundae bars, or eating a meal next to anyone who doesn’t live in your house, seems like an exotic relic from a past civilization. Things are changing so quickly it seems trite to say that things are changing quickly.

Three days later, on Saturday, March 14, our church held a long-planned musical worship service. It was more poorly attended than we would have liked, since some people were already staying home out of caution. We cancelled the potluck lunch that was supposed to follow it, and we dispensed with handshakes and hugs during the greeting time. We left church that day not knowing it would be the last time we’d gather as a congregation for, potentially, quite a long time.

That same day, Newfoundland reported its first positive case of Covid-19. That night, Jason and I had another couple to our house for a long-planned board game night — again, an activity that seems positively exotic now.

Also on that day, March 14, the Canadian government warned Canadians who had returned from outside the country to self-isolate for two weeks, even if they were not showing symptoms of Covid-19.

On Sunday, March 15 — as everyone in this province probably now knows — some grieving families gathered at a local funeral home for visitation, just as people did in funeral homes all over the province. I don’t know any of the people who were there, but I’m sure people hugged and shook hands and maybe handed each other tissues as tears were shed. And, as we also now know, someone at that visitation, between March 15 and March 17, later tested positive for Covid-19.

Since then, dozens of infections — the vast majority of all positive cases in the province — have been traced to that funeral visitation. Some folks on local social media have called for the naming, shaming, and public punishment of the person or persons who attended the funeral home, reportedly after returning from travel outside the country. (It’s unclear whether they returned to Canada before or after the government warning to self-isolate on March 14; if they returned a few days earlier, they likely assumed, as did thousands of other returning vacationers, that there was no danger and no need to isolate as long as they felt well).

Others have taken up the opposing side, defending the person who unknowingly spread the infection and saying that the funeral home was at fault for holding the service, or even that the grieving families were at fault for holding the visitation. But on March 15, there was no guidance whatsoever to suggest that gatherings of the size of an average funeral or visitation could be dangerous: those warnings would come later in the week. At the time, this funeral home and these families were doing what everyone else was doing, following the best guidance they were given.

Yes, some people were cautious early; some returning travellers self-isolated before they were told to; some people began avoiding gatherings a week or two ahead of the official warnings. But most of us didn’t. Most of us went about our daily lives until we were told not to. Some of us even scooped up bowls of ice cream for other people. (I’m only telling you the ice cream story because 16 days have passed, and no-one who was there that day has tested positive, so we got lucky).

Most of us did what we thought was right, or at least okay — and a few people, tragically, found out later that it wasn’t okay after all.

As we all react with fear to this new era of uncertainty, there’s a lot of blaming and shaming going on. Some of it is deserved. People coming home and refusing to self-isolate when there’s a clear directive from the government to do that. People going to house parties when bars are closed. When you know what you have to do and refuse to do it, you’re purposely putting people at risk.

But a lot of us did a lot of things in the first half of March that now, in the second half of March, look like really bad ideas. And most of us did not do them out of any malicious intent.

Go back a bit further, and outside our province: to March 5, and a party of 50 people in Westport, Connecticut, now known as “Party Zero.” On the day of the party, Westport did not have any known cases of Covid-19; now it’s considered a “hotspot.”  Over half the people who attended the party are now infected, and, before finding out they were infected, they travelled to several different parts of the globe.

In retrospect, this is a terrible thing to have happened. But who in North America thought it was a bad idea to have a party on March 5? My husband and I were invited to a party on March 7 that would probably have had more than 50 people and, as it was celebrating a happy occasion for family friends, would have included a lot of hugging and other close contact. We didn’t go only because the party was cancelled — not due to fears of the virus, but due to a snowstorm that night.

Any of us could have been at a party in the first week of March — or at church on the second weekend in March — or at a funeral early in the third week of March. Almost all of us were at work till mid-March (and many people still are, because their jobs are deemed essential).

Most of us did things in the first half of March that could have spread the virus, like shaking hands and hugging and going to plays and concerts and serving ice cream to our students. Most of us were lucky; we weren’t infected and didn’t infect anyone else. Some were not so lucky.

I truly believe strong social distancing measures are absolutely essential right now. I believe it’s vital to comply with them and irresponsible not to.

I also believe there is no point looking back in anger at what people did a week, or two weeks, or three weeks ago. Last week, even, feels like a different time. We had different information. We made different choices. Some people made bad choices; others made choices that seemed good at the time but now seem … not so good.

We can look back at the tragedy of what happened at that funeral (and at similar gatherings in other places) as a warning: see how important it is to self-isolate, to avoid gatherings. See how easily the virus can spread.

The only way our community — any community — is going to get through this unprecedented threat, is through unity, support, coming together rather than letting this drive us apart. While we must learn from mistakes that were made, I hope we can avoid the tendency to witch-hunt, to blame, to publicly shame people for things they did last week or the week before, whether it was going to an event or holding an event.

We can’t change the past. We can only go forward, never backward. Going forward, we have to apply the best knowledge and information we have at this moment. And maybe, just a little bit of consideration and grace.

Press Conference: 1345

I’m indulging in a little dark humour today, aided and abetted by my lovely daughter Emma whose artwork made this project possible. If you’re OK with laughing into the darkness, please enjoy this video featuring a medieval version of those press conferences we watch every day now.

Strange Times, Day 5: Focus

Up till a week ago, I thought my biggest problem as a writer was not having enough time to write. Turns out, you need more than time.

Strange Times, Day 3: Quarantined

Strange Times with Trudy: Day Two

Some people like escapist reading during a time like this; some people like dystopian futures; I like diving into history and historical fiction to learn how people have coped with plagues, quarantines, and similar challenges in past times. Today I offer a short reading from one of my own stories, and a couple of recommendations — one non-fiction, one documentary.

Strange Times

It’s hard to believe my last post was from February, talking about how dependent I am on normalcy, routines, systems, and how thrown off I was by Snowmageddon followed by a couple of weeks of bad back pain.

Update: back is all better, melting rotting black snowpiles are still all around, and … normalcy is out the window.

On February 9, we knew something called “coronavirus” was a thing but we had no idea how serious the impact here in Canada would be, if it would be a thing at all. And now … everything has changed. The adult-ed centre where I work is closed. Everything is closed. All around, people are shaking their heads and saying “These are strange times.”

I’ve started making videos again. It’s my “Strange Times” series — a little bit of structure that might help me keep my days organized.

Systems Failure

In January I tried an experiment on this blog. I hadn’t blogged much in the last year, and I decided that instead of getting hung up on long think-pieces that I had the ideas for but never finished writing, I would try to post something very short — a photo and a few lines, a poem or a quick thought — every day.

I did this, not quite every day, but nearly every day in January. I did this along with some other small personal disciplines I was trying to keep to: a short devotional reading every day, a few minutes of private journal-writing, a yoga routine. Again, I didn’t do any of these things every single day in January, but I did most of them, most days. And then, in February, I just … stopped. I have not done any one of these things on any of the (so far)  9 days in February.

On top of that, I also stopped working on any my several creative writing projects that I’d been working on during January — haven’t written a word on any of them since February rolled around.

This is typical of the best of New Year’s resolutions, systems and plans I put into place any given January … they often run out of steam by the time February comes around. This year, though, there were two additional factors. 

First — and you may have lived through this, seen it on the news, or picked it up from my January blog posts — on January 17 we were hit with a snowstorm of historic proportions, followed by an eight-day State of Emergency during which we were instructed by our government to leave the house as little as possible, except for shovelling and, after a few days, going to the store for essential groceries.

This was actually a great week for me in terms of all my little personal disciplines and my writing — I got ahead on my projects (without that inconvenience of having to go to my day job every day), did some yoga and journalling and devotional time every day, and posted my little pictures and passing thoughts here on the blog. With an unexpected week’s vacation, I was doing so well. 

Then it was back to routine, finally, on January 27 … which was when I started finding it hard to get back to my routine.

But it was OK. I was still doing OK. Everything was harder and a little weird, driving to work between massive piles of snow over icy roads, helping my son get his car fixed after it died in his driveway during the storm (and couldn’t get fixed because the garage couldn’t open during the SoE), getting my classes back on track after six lost schooldays … but it was … OK. Ish.

Then, last Saturday (that’s Feb. 1 for anyone keeping track) my back started to feel … twingy. It does that occasionally. Not very often. I had a sudden, unprovoked attack of severe back pain way back in 2007, and it got better after about a week. Ever since then, every few years, I’ve had a few days of mild back pain and no problems in between.

This was … unexpected. It was like back in 2007 in intensity and long-lastingness, and I spent all of last week feeling … well, disabled. I went to work, but I couldn’t do much after work. I definitely couldn’t do yoga. I could sit in a chair, or at a desk, so there’s no reason I couldn’t have gone on writing, and journalling, and posting to my blog, and doing devotional readings. But … I didn’t. 

All my routines, all my to-do lists … everything fell by the wayside. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that my ability to do things — something I get a lot of credit for, of the “How does she manage to do it all?!” variety — is entirely based on all my systems, external and internal, remaining intact. I need the illusion of being in control.

The snowstorm exposed how reliant I am on external systems for things to be “normal.” The ability to get out of the house, to drive my car, to shop at stores that I expect to be open. To have reliable electrical power (mercifully, we didn’t lose that much during the storm week, but it was always a threat).

My week of back pain (getting better, thanks, but not entirely over yet) revealed how much I rely on my body to work properly. To let me do the things I want to do easily and without pain. 

The real test of what a person can accomplish, I’m pretty sure, is what they can accomplish when the systems don’t work. How disciplined and focused they can be when systems both external and internal don’t function they way they’re supposed to.

I’ve always suspected I might not be great under those circumstances. That’s humbling, and makes me feel vulnerable. 

Right now, I am not making any grandiose plans for February.

We’ll see how February goes.

 

Welcome to Canada

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If there’s anything that says “Canada in January” more clearly than the four-foot snow wall in front of my house with Tim’s coffee cup stuck into the snow next to a hubcap someone lost driving down the icy street … I don’t need to see it.

I Still Can’t Write Haiku

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Snowy branches traced

against the silver-slate sky.

There’s me with my phone.

Costco

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Signing books at Costco is the least glamourous part of the writing life, by quite a large margin. But at least instead of staring at a display of men’s undershirts like last time, I get to stare at a display of attractive wooden desks. Like something a writer might use….