During these upturned and uncertain days, let me suggest a fabulous Word Nerd Word: resilience. The news, especially reports from Italy, sometimes scares me, but as I tell my children, including the 19 year old college student who didn’t expect to be living at home this semester, this isn’t the first time our society has faced overwhelming challenges, and we must practice creativity and flexibility to survive this crisis too.
We must practice resilience.
My grandmother was born in 1914, and although she’s been gone for many years, I still remember her scolding me for wasting food or buying an unnecessary trinket at Winkie’s Variety Store. “I was a child of the Depression”, she would frequently chant, “and I learned not to be so wasteful!” She told me stories of how when she was a young mother with three children during WWII, she traded ration coupons with her unmarried sisters to get enough sugar and shoes to feed and clothe my mother and her siblings. To this day, even with all the toilet paper cleared from Walmart shelves, I have a hard time imaging rationing.
But, she did it.
While reading great pieces of historical fiction, like The Alice Network, The Island of Sea Women, All the Light We Cannot See, I am awe struck by the horrific situations and enormous sacrifices that generations before us made in the face of adversity. Quite frankly, I’ve often thought our society has gone soft, that we would never be able to endure what our grandparents and great grandparents did.
Well, now we can prove ourselves.
Resilience comes from the Latin verb resilire, meaning “to jump back” or “to recoil.” In physics, resilience describes the ability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused by physical stress. In everyday life, resilience means the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. I’m determined to be resilient in this crisis, to rise above the worry over lost opportunities and conveniences, to not be overwhelmed by nagging fears of lives shattered by illness and lost income.
Here’s how I’m embracing resilience:
I’m staying “informed” without becoming “obsessed”. I check a few reliable news sources each day to learn the latest COVID developments. I ask my husband for updates from the world of health care. And then I stop. I could listen to podcasts for hours; I choose not to. When the shadow of fear creeps into my thoughts, I unplug.
I’m focusing on the positives of this crazy situation. I have my all of my kids at home again. Yes, that means going through four gallons of milk and five bags of chips each week; it also means quality time playing games and taking hikes. And, all of those household projects I’ve been putting off because we were too busy running around? Well, let’s just say some weeding and window washing are in our future. And while I always use technology with a cautious hand, I am thankful that my iPhone makes it easy to check on my dad and see proof of life for friends and loved ones. I’m hopeful that maybe, the need for us all to pull together for the greater good will finally overwhelm the hostility and division that has dominated our culture for too long.
I’m thinking of my grandmother and what would make her, “a child of the depression” proud. Hint: whining wouldn’t do it. Seeking ways to help the people around me would.
Finally, I’m contemplating the words of C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity. In 1948, Lewis published Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays, which included the piece “On Living in an Atomic Age”. This essay was written a few years after atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan and the world faced a new conflict: The Cold War, but I think Lewis’s advice applies today. Just sub in “corona virus” for “atomic bomb”:
In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, … or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”
…In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented…
…the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
Sounds like resilience to me.
How are you staying positive these days?
Thanks for getting inspired with me!
Julia, I love this. The way we are in the world right now feels like an extended snow day to me. I love snow days because it is a time when everyone around me agrees, at once, to return to the basics and to do without. I was raised by parents of the depression and they made a point always of being conscious of waste and entitlement. The quote you have here is perfect. Being grateful for what we have is something I hope we can return to as a society with the inadvertant help of the corona virus.
Thanks Jane! I’m glad you could relate. I, too, believe some good can come out of this crisis. Let’s keep spreading our positive message!