We have a yearly ritual here in New Orleans—sometimes twice yearly. It goes like this: news starts to trickle in about a possible disturbance that may or may not be coming our way; it gets closer and forms into a storm and the news starts to focus more, as you pass grocery store carts, you see more canned food and jugs of water than normal; it gets closer and more intense and officials tell people to prepare, grocery aisles empty and as you drive past businesses you see people starting to board up windows, jump into any conversation and you know what the topic will be; it gets closer still, schools close and businesses shut down and the tension in the city becomes palpable, a physical thing you can feel, that pulls you to make eye contact with people in the street, and share a wordless question: is it going to hit, and if it does, will we be okay?
This is all to say that the coronavirus pandemic feels exactly like a storm about to make landfall.
I can’t claim to know anything about the effects of a pandemic. I don’t know if corona will knock down power-lines or sweep the tiles off a roof, or cause street flooding. I can’t say if it’s a Category 2 or a Category 4.
But I’ve been through New Orleans’ yearly ritual enough times that I feel like I can offer some advice about looming storms:
Prepare, but Don’t Panic
The thing about storms is that there’s nothing you can do to hold them back. Either it will hit or it won’t and there’s no way of knowing which it’ll be beforehand. Speculating about all of the terrible things that will happen and buying 80 gallons of water and a case of toilet paper for each day you expect the grocery store to be closed won’t help. The only thing panic does in these situations is to increase the fear of everyone around you, spreading like a virus of its own.
Don’t focus on the distant future and the long-term consequences of what might happen if it hits.
Focus on the things you can do now to prepare for the near future.
And whether you need to prepare to hunker down for three days or two weeks: do it logically and follow expert advice. Would you actually eat those twenty cans of tuna fish? How long does it normally take you to go through 100 rolls of toilet paper? Panic-prepping, as we’ve seen, only causes shortages and worse panic.
Make Your House Nice
There’s a chance you’ll be stuck in your house for a period of time. Make sure it’s a place that is comfortable to be in. Clean and tidy it. Fluff your pillows and light a candle. Buy or cut some fresh flowers to fill your vases with. A chaotic, gross house will be miserable to be stuck in and there are enough sources of misery at this particular moment.
Besides, not only will having a clean house make you comfortable and happy, but the act of cleaning it itself is a productive and rewarding way to spend a few hours and will distract you from all of the bad vibes.
Make Self Care A Priority
Situations like this can be overwhelming stressful. Your mental health is important, too. This is a time to treat yourself. Buy your favorite candy. Read your favorite book. Make your favorite meal. Take a two-hour bath while listening to Enya.
Do things that make you feel relaxed and human, even if it feels silly and superfluous when you can be disinfecting all of the surfaces in your house or making another trip to the grocery store to stock up or trying to figure out what to do now that schools are closed. Taking care of your mental health is just as important as anything else you can be doing right now, if not more so.
Reach Out To Others
If you’re in a place where you’ve done all of the preparation you need to do and still have time and resources, reach out to friends, families, and neighbors and see if they need any assistance. Unless you check, you don’t know if someone lacks the time, health, resources, or ability to get themselves to a place where they feel comfortable and prepared. Even if all you can do is offer a few extra bottles of hand sanitizer, that may be enough to help someone feel a little more relaxed and secure. Times like these are when we need to come together as a community (figuratively, of course) to make sure everyone is secure and prepared for whatever will happen next.
This Too Shall Pass
Nine out of ten storms don’t hit, but sometimes they do. Hard. I’ve been through a worst-case scenario. I’ve had my community collapse around me, my entire world crumble. I’ve had everything I usually feel secure in—family, friends, a home, a job, a source of food and water—suddenly jerked from beneath me. I’ve been in a situation where everything changed-for the worse, it seemed-and it felt like nothing would ever be okay again. It was traumatic and it was life altering, but eventually, it ended.
Normalcy returns. After disaster, people rebuild and normalcy returns. Even if it’s not quite the normal you’re used to.
All storms pass. Katrina did. Coronavirus will too.
Take care and be well.
Love,
Julia