Getting a Grip

What's the old curse? "May you live in interesting times." Well, folks, I think we're there. The question is, how are we going to handle it?

When I looked back through my blog posts, I discovered that I had written one a year ago about how to deal with uncertain times. My suggestions from back then still hold. Nature and our ancestors are still helpful sources of steadiness and reassurance. Watch the sunset, the starry night sky, the trees: they can show you how to maintain your balance as the cycles of life turn and turn. Think of your ancestors and honor their strength, all the hard times they survived - that stamina is in your DNA, in your blood and in your bones. Lean on that strength now.

When I think about my ancestors, I think about my great-grandmother. During the influenza epidemic of 1918, she quarantined her family on their rural farm pretty early in the game. She didn't panic, but she was firm in her resolve to protect her family (I'm told she was remarkably stubborn once she had made up her mind about something). All her friends and neighbors thought she was crazy. But she, her husband, and five of her six children survived, including my infant grandmother. Those are way better numbers than everyone else in their area, and after it was all over, they realized how smart she had been.

I hope our current situation never gets as bad as the 1918 epidemic, but I do hope everyone still takes it seriously. And I hope we have the strength to get through it all together. We have the Internet, a marvelous tool that allows us to stay connected with each other even as we do our best to avoid transmitting disease. So let's remember that, even if we're "uniting separately in our own homes," as the joke about introverts goes, we are still the community of humankind, and we can continue safeguarding and supporting each other so we get through this in one piece. I think that would make our ancestors proud.