None of us are exceptional. All of us are exceptional.

I've been thinking lately about how surprised some people are to be living "in these strange times" as some of them put it. I've heard baffled friends compare it to living in some kind of post-apocalyptic movie or a historical documentary. I sense a general feeling that some folks expected the exceptional nature of being wealthy or American to protect them from hardships like coronavirus has caused. A distance in geography and time from extreme poverty and epidemics made our population and our leaders complacent. A general assumption that we should be exceptions to hardships leads to amazement.

But we are not exceptional.

Perhaps my perspective as a global health advocate makes me less surprised. Haven't we been spouting slogans like "polio anywhere is polio everywhere" in lobby meetings for years? In fact, I was once part of a photo shoot in Africa in holding my fingers close together like Bill Gates to show
we're "this close" to ending polio.

Shot@Life advocates in 2012 saying we're "this close" to ending polio
Photo by Stuart Ramson with Shot@Life

It's not like I predicted this pandemic or knew I'd turn my basement into a face mask factory. It's more that I was aware it was a possibility. After all, we were already in the midst of a pandemic before COVID-19. Tuberculosis is a pandemic without a reliable vaccine, which most people just don't notice. Last year, 10 million people fell ill from TB and 1.5 million died. It's not that I expected to be scrambling to keep the necessities in my house, as if rationing for war-time. I just know people who struggle in poverty to keep the essentials in the pantry every day and I didn't see myself as inherently different from those friends. I am not so special a person to expect a pass from disasters.

I know I am not exceptional.

Across time, people have suffered so much. During Passover, I reached out to a Jewish friend who was celebrating in isolation. She admitted it would be a lonely Passover meal, but noted that "we've had worse as a people." She's right. There's a reason that Jewish households retell the story every year together and eat matzo, the bread of poverty and affliction. It's supposed to be an annual reminder and link to the experience. Christians like me can learn a lot from the tradition. We can all realize there is no part of our humanity making us different from those who have suffered in the past from war, poverty, and disease.

Except...

Except that every human is special in our souls and our individual experiences. Each of us has an extraordinary voice and a loving heart to share with others. We live in an unprecedented time of communication. You can text your mom half-way across the country from your living room just to reassure and check in. You can play Battleship on an app with your cousin stuck in her room in NYC to keep her mind off the virus. We can set up zoom meetings to speak to members of Congress from our kitchens. I can email a newspaper over 100 miles away and have them publish my letter about strengthening global health systems. In the meaning of being special, unique, extraordinary, and individual...

We are all exceptional.

It's up to us to decide how to use our individual voices to make things better. What will you do with yours today? Will you comfort a lonely and depressed friend? Will you defend the World Health Organization? Will you share your unique thoughts and experiences to tell Congress why we need better health and nutrition for every American? Maybe you'll write an encouraging blog ending with a quote that helps you get through every day...like this one...

"I am not alone in my tiredness or sickness or fears, but at one with millions of others from many centuries...and it is all part of life." - Etty Hillesum

We're Isolated, but NOT Powerless

“How are you holding up?” That’s the standard question to ask one another these days as the COVID-19 virus continues to sweep across the planet. Unless you are a health care provider, grocery store employee, or have some other essential community role, the best thing to do for yourself and others is to stay home...or as some people put it, “do nothing.” But to do nothing feels like a cop-out. It makes me feel powerless.

My message to everyone is that we are not powerless! 

Even though the days seem to run together, every day we get to wake up and decide what we will to do to make it different and special. If you are an advocate, take heart that almost every advocacy tool we used before is available to us today! And beyond our advocacy, there is a lot that we can do for ourselves and others.

So, how am I holding up? I’m holding up by getting up every morning to ask myself three questions and try to do something about each one.

1) What can you do to take care of yourself?
Flight attendants tell us every time we board a plane that we must take care of ourselves before we can care for others. What works for airplane safety and oxygen masks, works for coronavirus isolation. Every day, try to do something that makes you happy/sane/stable even if it’s small. For me, that’s often exercise, but I’ll be honest in admitting that doesn’t always work. Sometimes, my self-care looks like a zoom call with friends and wine. Other times, it looks like video games and a margarita. One day, I just got really fed up with everything happening around me and retreated to take a bath and have a cry.

2) What can you do for someone locally?

Window scenes from our neighborhood "Bear Hunt"

There is so much need in all of our communities right now. Sheltering in place comfortably is a privilege. Families in poverty are running out of food as unemployment skyrocketed last month.

It’s both frustrating and overwhelming to think about all that need when we’d be a danger to the community if we physically went to provide help. What can we do?

That’s where ingenuity and creativity come in. Some things we can do are big and grand, but the right small gestures can be grand, too, when someone is lonely.

Some of my thoughts might inspire some of your own that you can share in the comments.

• Sort books from your home to give away to neighborhood kids learning to read who can’t get to the library anymore. Sure, they have to keep them in the garage for a few days to make sure the virus isn’t living on them before reading, but it’s quicker than waiting for the library to open! We took a walk to drop them at the door of some friends and got that daily outdoor exercise in, too.
• Organize a Teddy Bear Hunt in your neighborhood. We invited neighbors to put stuffed animals in their windows, so that the local kids (and us!) could have something fun to look for when taking walks. 
• Send someone who is struggling with bills some grocery money via Paypal or Vinmo.
• Open your windows and play an instrument, so your neighbors can hear. Live entertainment is scarce these days, so if you have a talent, share it!
• If you can sew and have materials, make some face masks to give to neighbors.
• Call/text someone who is lonely, especially seniors. Give Grandma a proper phone call!
• Offer to pick up groceries for someone over 60 next time you’re going shopping for yourself to help them stay home and safe.
• Offer to tutor a child (via computer) who might struggle with online school classes. 
• Bring your kids something nice while they are in an online class. There might not be much in the house as far as snacks go, but even a glass of ice water can be thoughtful and supportive.

The possibilities are endless! What else can you think of that works for you? 

3) What can you do to change things nationally or globally?
The pandemic has exposed all the cracks in our national and global health systems. So, there's not shortage of things we can work on!

If you’re already an activist comfortable writing letters to the editor, this is an excellent time to put your thoughts out in the media about health systems or the effect of COVID-19 on people in poverty. If not, this can either be a convenient time to learn that skill or put in a daily phone call to Congress. Here are some tips for writing letters to the editor. 

Here are a few of my recommendations for issues to work on right now with links to help you take action:

• U.S. Housing: Housing IS health care. You may never have have thought of it that way before, but it’s never been more clear that having a safe place of your own protects you from the elements, violence, viruses, and a lot of stress. Even before the outbreak families looking for affordable housing were in crisis. Please tell Congress that in the next virus response bill, they must take more action to help people keep a roof over their heads. This link from RESULTS has a media action called “Coronavirus exacerbates need for housing and nutrition assistance” to provide talking points for you to take this U.S. action. 
• Global Health Systems: If we can “flatten the curve” on coronavirus infection, we may avoid overwhelming our healthcare system. But for many people living in nations with fewer resources, even a few critical cases will overwhelm their healthcare system. And there are others with little to no access to healthcare at all. Tell Congress to prioritize global health systems, alongside the domestic response, as we move forward together. People living in poorer settings must not bear the brunt of this pandemic. This link from RESULTS has a media action called “Virus reminds us that everyone needs access to health care” to provide talking points for you to take this U.S. action. 

I hope this blog might help someone reading it. But even if it’s just one or a few, it helped ME today just to write it!

World Moms Give Perspective

World Moms Network contributors from around the world gather on
inform and comfort each other in our shared isolation.
Photo credit: Tes Soloman Silverman

Like a lot of folks these days, getting together with my friends for drinks and chats also means sitting in front of a computer screen. That can seem like an annoyance when it’s with my friends a few miles away, but it’s a giant privilege when I can get together with the women of World Moms Network!

World Moms Network was started by Jennifer Burden in 2010 with her vision that people would be much more tolerant and understanding of others who are different if they could personally feel connected to others globally. She built relationships with moms around the world and invited us to write blogs with our stories of raising children.

Over the years, we wrote of joys and concerns of motherhood in our own countries, which grew to include over 30 nations. The world would suffer many catastrophes like flooding in India, hurricanes in the U.S., and major earthquakes in Japan, Nepal, Ecuador, and Haiti.  Moms affected by disasters would write about their experiences, and the rest of the moms would read and check up on them with words of support. That was how it went until the coronavirus pandemic.

Never have we all experienced such an event all together. When several of us connected on our first online zoom call since the pandemic started, we had moms from Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, and several parts of the United States. All of our communities were in various stages lockdown depending on how our respective governments handled the COVID-19 crisis. It’s astounding how similar our experiences and feelings are, despite the miles between us.

The lives of the moms on the call were quite varied. Some have young kids, some have teens. Some moms work - requiring a 5AM wake-up to do work before kids must be supervised for at-home school) - and others are not employed. Our houses might be big or small, but all of us were feeling both anxious and glad to see each other’s faces.

As I listened to them, I kept thinking that if every American had friends like these, it would inoculate us from those that label COVID-19 coverage “fake news” and call the virus a “hoax” dreamt up by a political party. When you talk to a real live mom who tell you first-hand about what is happening in her community, it gives you context for your own situation and the news you consume.

Over email, I’ve continued to see more lockdown stories from Belgium, Switzerland, South Africa, and Portugal. In South Africa, they are only now starting to brace themselves for COVID-19 as it took longer to reach them. Racial issues persist as they battle a mis-informed rumor that only white people can catch the virus. Our Belgian mom is a scientist who shifted her attention to tending her garden as she can no longer access her lab. Switzerland was ahead of us in terms of remote learning, so our Swiss mom hopes they will reach a more normal state now that the teachers have things running smoother. A mother in Portugal tells us that the police are enforcing the stay-at-home order, but they are tentatively celebrating a flatter curve than Spain despite a shared geography on the Iberian peninsula.

I hope we’ll be able to share some of these stories soon at www.worldmomsnetwork.com soon. In the meantime, it’s a source of joy and comfort to me to know that my fellow moms are out there doing the best they can to bring comfort and routine to their families and friends. Stay safe and healthy, everyone!