Lessons from the Pandemic (2020-?)
Mia Bailey

Always loved learning, but this year has been a harsh teacher. I feel bombarded and overwhelmed by one crisis after another. My skin tingles with fear, confusion, and anger. I spend my days keeping busy to stave off the anxiety and worries that seem to paralyze me in my bed at night. You do not get to choose the lessons life throws at you, and with how many shifting crises you will have experienced. Not all the lessons I am living through make sense to me in the moment, but for better or worse, I am learning.

You can only expect the unexpected. That you can ride high in life one moment, and be destroyed the next. I have learned that you will need to adapt at any given time, and sometimes it is hard to be flexible. I have learned that you have no choice and that flexibility is a requirement, not a luxury.

I learned to smile with my eyes because my face is covered by two layers of cloth and a charcoal filter. That the internet is a utility and the inequity that makes it unavailable to others is unjust. That work from home can be done and done productively if you can choose to focus and make it your priority.

I learned to be a homeschool teacher and organize lesson plans, due dates, school web conferences and hands on activities. Baking is not only a math lesson but a chemistry project as well. Flying kites is a lesson on air pressure. Not to raise my voice when my kids don’t understand a concept or get a low score on a test. At the end of the day, it is best to just get some perspective and realize that pushing harder isn’t going to help anyone.

I learned to be a home health aid and log and track biostatistics. To use a stethoscope, an otoscope, a pulse oximeter, a touchless thermometer, and a blood pressure monitor. If I put on a blood pressure cuff properly so that the arteries are lined up with the sensor and I can get a more accurate reading. Keeping healthy is not just about tracking other people’s symptoms, but your own as well. Staying healthy means taking care of yourself as well as others.

I learned hobbies we want to ascertain most need the one thing we don’t want to give them, time away from the television. I’ve learned how to play songs on the piano, the guitar, and the computer keyboard. I have written more in the last two months than I have in 12 years.

One ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure. I know how to put on a face mask and wear it in all kinds of weather conditions. I know to put on and take off nitrile gloves safely, so germs are not spread onto surfaces. How frequently to sanitize my hands and how to sterilize groceries before putting them away. Washing your hands 50 times a day causes them to dry and crack, and become red and sore. I learned which lotions are best.

I learned that when a human being steps out of the way of mother nature she can heal remarkably quickly. I have seen dolphins and fish swimming in the venetian canals. I have seen how clear the sky in our own valley when there are no cars polluting it. Air pollution can drop by almost 90% in some areas if we want it too. The planet is begging for us to listen to her, and perhaps it’s time we did.

A healthy economy means we need to have a healthy society, and that a healthy society needs to have a healthy environment. We are all connected and that if we do not start to address how to make our country, our cities, our citizens healthier, then the economy won’t be healthy either.

People can be compassionate, caring, respectful, selfish, cruel, stubborn and divisive all at the same time. Some people will do the right thing, but no matter how you ask, some won’t do the right thing, either out of ignorance or sheer stubborn indifference. Just because others choose not to do what’s right doesn’t mean that I have to.

Women for centuries have known before me, and that my generation forgot: You are not owed another day on this planet. We cannot control the accidents and illnesses that befall us. Just because you had someone you loved at the holiday table last year, doesn’t mean they will be at the table this year. I have learned that we are only here on this Earth for an instant.

         Yes, I have always loved learning. I was not prepared for the onslaught of lessons awaiting me this year, and I am not capable of predicting the ones that are just down the line. I can only focus on this moment, this second, this instant. Feeling my lungs fill with air, my body roots itself into the frame of the Earth, my fingers dancing as I type these words. There is an Indigenous proverb that reminds me of where we’ve been: “When a warrior asks the great spirit for strength, the great spirit will send hardships. For that is the only way to become strong.”

I am learning what it means to become strong.

I am learning.