Disaster living

Happy place

"Oh, 2020," the Internet moans, "What else do you have in store for us?" Writing from California--blanketed by smoke, with more fire-starting thunderstorms on the way--and facing a third of the year still to come, it is hard to keep a brave face. And more bad news: the epic Trumpfoolery aside, 2020 will be followed by worse years still. The hallmark of climate change is concurrent disasters, after all.

Pandemic living is not the new forever, but we have to accept that disaster living is. I do not expect ever again to enjoy long periods in which the world around me seems calm and well-adjusted. But I do want my internal world to be calm and well-adjusted just as often as it can be. That's going to take work and preparation. Some things I tell myself:

• Focus on making progress, not on being done. Because we are--I'll write about the Barn, soon--but will never be.
• Meet uncertainty with diversity. You can't prepare for everything, but if you're well prepared for at least a few scenarios--fire, flood, earthquakes--then when something new (a pandemic, say) takes you by surprise you'll probably have at least a few N95s on hand.
• Put yourself out there. Not literally--stay at home, except maybe if you're going camping--but visualize the world you no longer encounter. Those friends are still there, those places are still there, those problems are still there, and there are still ways to interact with and to help all of them.
  
•  Give and ask. Friends of ours, aware of our lack of air conditioning and of the situation outside our window...
  

...let us borrow not just one but two air purifiers. Saved the day (or possibly the week), and reinforced existing mutuality. We are none of us going to get through this alone, nor will we have to.