If ever there was a time for reconsidering our way of life, this is it

In the afternoons lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, sitting on the big sofa in the den in a quiet empty house day after day.  My thoughts  constantly keep coming back to the Covid crisis, how I’m coping with it, what precautions I continue to need to take.  And I’m very worried about the people who are now filling the hospitals in our state, the latest victims of this disease.  I worry and am angered by all the younger people going to bars and other public places, not wearing masks and unable to keep any distance from others.  Then you hear about the people causing fights and confrontations about wearing masks in stores.  Think, think, think.  Gotta  get my mind off those things.

I do get out at least once, usually late in the afternoon or early evening just before sunset, and take a walk.  I always take photos of sunsets, clouds, flowers and trees on these walks and share them on some of my photo communities.

This is my life now.  Mom is gone.  She died this past January, right before the pandemic truck.  The house used to be busy with me and the caregivers taking care of Mom, visitors from the church, Hospice nurses.  Now that’s all gone.

Now I hardly have contact with anyone, except for the Internet.   I miss gong to my writing group meetings twice a month.  And I miss all the little shopping excursions just to get out of the house and be around others.  I recall distinctly the last time I went shopping.  It was right before the lockdown began.  I had premonitions things were going to change dramatically. I had been keeping up with the news very closely and was increasingly concerned about what lay ahead.   On that particular day, March 12, I went to get my brake works on,  then  to the craft store.  My fears were borne out next when I entered the grocery store and saw long lines in the checkout lanes, empty shelves and frozen food cases.  I was shocked.  I went from there to Barnes & Noble and then I headed home.  I haven’t been in a store since then, not even a grocery store.

I’ve been thinking about why we do all this running around buying things.   When I was dealing with the stress of caregiving last year, going to the store and shopping became a form of escape, of constant novelty.  Buy this or that, not that you need it, but I can now see why people do all this running around.  They’re either bored or stressed.  Most people can get everything they want at Costco, Wal-Mart or the grocery store.  But there are countless other stores and restaurants, gift shops, fast food joints, and on and on.  So now that I don’t shop anymore except online,  I feel sort of guilty.  With me and so many others not shopping, small businesses are hurting. How will they be able to stay in business?  Our whole way of life, our economic engine, our jobs and employment statistics are based on consumer spending.  That’s really sad when you think about it.  How many necessary items do you find in shopping malls?  But they’re mostly dying now.  I remember when I stepped into the first mall I visited.  It was 1964, and it seemed like the most glittering monument to consumer culture that I could ever imagine.  Of course, I isn’t think in those terms back in 8th grade.  The point is, to he pandemic is forcing us to evaluate what we consider necessary and worthy, and to greatly respect the essential workers whose job pre-pandemic were taken for granted.  Not anymore.

With the reality of the loss of lives, health, livelihoods and basically our whole way of life from a deadly epidemic, we can’t ignore any longer the systemic problems that allowed this terrible disease to rapidly spread.

It’s time to reconsider the value and purpose of a consumer culture, the nature and means of education, and shift to jobs that will help people and the planet and foster a new ethos of selflessness and community.   As a society, we need to cease segregating the elderly in assisted living facilities and nursing homes where a large percentage of the deaths from Covid have occurred.

For those of us older folks who can live independently for now,  the extreme dangers to our population from the epidemic leave us huddled in our homes tethered to Amazon and the Internet, fearful of going to the doctor unless it’s an emergency, hoping we stay well and free of toothaches,  praying for a vaccine that may not even help those who are older that much.  A very scary thought.

But I keep I keep getting  drawn back to the endless Covid-19 news.   The world revolves around getting this under control. A worse fate for the planet, catastrophic climate, has not gone away. But with Covid dominating everything, where is it in the news? Oh, now Antarctica is starting to melt quickly. Better go raise up the house.