Emerging from COVID
Like many people, when the COVID pandemic was first announced I stopped writing my blog, hid myself away, took up new hobbies like jigsaw puzzles and learned how to communicate and socialise over internet platforms. My garden was my friend, and the grocery store was a bit scary. For me everything changed. Every personal interaction came with planning, logistics and the realisation of personal risk. Vaccines promised the return to a normal life but somehow that has not really panned out. Continuing uncertainty and pandemic exhaustion has reshaped my relationships and my community and has high-lighted weakness in our economy, service delivery, infrastructure and the social safety net. Society has become more polarized than at any time in recent memory and people are calling out (with anger in some cases) for affordable housing, food security, reliable employment, equitable health care and most of all respect.
We are not really emerging from COVID but rather limping into a new way of living. And clouding all this are new wars, climate change impacts, disparity in food supplies, fires, floods, and loss of species diversity. And as we speak democracy is being threatened around the world.
How do we find hope? I think we find hope in putting aside anger and fear and in building strong communities … communities that provide for the needs of all individuals. This has been my passion for years and I will doggedly talk about it, learn about it and advocate for it.