Daddy, What did you do in the Great War?
Today the UN Secretary General António Guterres said that the current pandemic is the biggest challenge for the world since World War Two. In addition to the obvious parallel to the global nature of the crisis, I was struck by the similarity between the COVID-19 response in countries such as the UK and US and the slow start of WWII - known as the phony war. Not much happened for the first eight months after Britain and France declared war on Germany in 1939. Nancy Mitford wrote a brilliant satire of this time called 'Pigeon Pie' where she describes how life continued as normal, a jolly time of champagne parties and dancing, much talk but no action, and those who tried to raise the alarm were ridiculed. Meanwhile the virus that was Nazism spread across Europe, but it was affecting other countries, not us, easy to ignore. It wasn't until the war came knocking on Britain's doorstep in 1940 with the blitzkrieg invasion of Belgium, Luxemburg, and France that the full scale and horror of the war to come became clear.
I have always wondered what it would have been like to live through a World War. What would I have done? How would I have dealt with the stress? I guess now I am getting to find out, and it turns out not particularly well! My main emotional response these days to any kind of stress seems to be irritation and fatigue. It doesn't seem to matter what the source of the stress is, could be a bad health diagnosis, could be a pandemic, or could be that someone used up all the hot water in the kettle: same reaction. I snap angrily at everyone and then fall asleep mid-snap.
But I don't feel like we have really been tested yet here in the Bay Area - we are still in the 'phony war' stage to some degree. While for the most part people are taking social distancing very seriously, I've heard that there are illegally-open cafe's in a nearby neighbourhood still full to the brim with people carrying on life as normal. While numbers are definitely escalating here in the Bay Area it is not nearly as sudden or extreme as New York. So far we are all well, and everyone we know is well (though there have been some scary moments with family and friends in the UK coming down with COVID-19-like symptoms and not being able to get tested or get help). So on a day to day basis my stress reaction is only really getting triggered around food, such as when, for example, the frozen salmon I ordered get substituted with lox. I mean, really! Or when I let myself fall down the rabbit-hole of 'what-ifs' (What if someone in the house gets sick? What if both Mr Husband and I get sick at the same time? What if a family member in the UK goes to hospital?)
My mother told me a funny story from when she worked for the Parks Board in South Africa, her first job post graduation from university in the 1960s. From her office window she saw a truck have a terrible accident - coming around a corner the truck flipped upside down and fell down a ravine off the side of the road. She raised the alarm and her colleagues, all men, and she ran over to the truck. However, she had to stop on the way to be sick. The men had all served in WWII and one cried "Pull yourself together! What would you have done in the war?" They got the driver out of the truck and back to the office. Brandy was brought out, and was first administered to my mother!
There is a tendency to criticize stress responses, particularly those of women. There is a great exchange in the movie 'Courage Under Fire' where Meg Ryan is a kick-ass commander of a Medevac helicopter who comes under attack during a rescue mission. At some point the Meg Ryan character is crying (her unit is under fire, she has been shot in the abdomen) and a soldier remarks "Oh great. Great. The captain's crying." To which Meg Ryan replies, "It's just tension, asshole. It doesn't mean shit." So true. I am reminded me of something my friend in Canada says, "Feel the feelings." I really do think it is ok to feel the feelings, whether you snap, or are sick, or cry. Feeling the feelings, showing the feelings, doing so doesn't stop you doing-the-doing. Just makes the people around you nervous.
We are living in an extreme and unusual period in history but it can still just feel oddly normal if you aren't directly on the front lines. The contrast between the quiet of our day-to-day life and the war zone of the hospitals makes me feel particularly useless. I find myself wishing that I could actually do something and I see a similar sense amongst the WhatsApp group, where the more industrious and conscientious Moms are organizing letter-writing/care package/sing-a-gram campaigns to thank nurses and doctors, sewing masks, volunteering at food banks, driving meals to homeless shelters and nursing homes, and organizing community candle lighting/clapping/howling (?!) sessions each evening.
There is a slightly competitive nature to these activities and occasionally things get a little out of hand amongst this particular group. For example, today someone posted a fundraising campaign to support doctors at a hospital in New York where her son is a medical student. She quoted the number of deaths in that hospital that day. To which someone posted "Can we just put positive news... We all need a little bit of a cheer up. Please no number of deaths." There then ensued a battle about whether the group should only be used for positive messages, such as the people organizing good works and the grateful feedback from the recipients of the good works. Several people got upset and said they didn't know there were rules about what could be posted, and that they better leave the group. But in the end, they all forgave each other and agreed that the group was "there for everyone to listen to and support each other the best way we can. The only rule in this group is to be kind to each other." It is ok to feel the feelings, ladies!
I read a good line that basically sums up my contribution to the 'war effort'. It went something like "Our primary job is to not get infected or sick for any other reason, to stay out of hospital, to not need ICU care or a ventilator." The other day ThingOne asked, "Will this be written about in history books?" and I answered, "Absolutely! And younger people will ask you what it was like, what did you do?" There is a lot more we could probably be doing, and I will look into getting us all to write letters of thanks or make sing-a-grams, or to howl. It is a tricky path to navigate a way to do something actually helpful without putting oneself or others at risk. I can't help but think that some of these activities are as much about making the do-ers feel better as the recipients. Probably the most concrete thing we could do is donate money. Anyway, there is lots of time to figure it all out, with a formal announcement today that schools will not be going back to in-person teaching this school year and talk of the lockdowns lasting six months. For now, our contribution, our 'What did you do in the COVID-19 pandemic?' is that we did our very best to not get sick.
I have always wondered what it would have been like to live through a World War. What would I have done? How would I have dealt with the stress? I guess now I am getting to find out, and it turns out not particularly well! My main emotional response these days to any kind of stress seems to be irritation and fatigue. It doesn't seem to matter what the source of the stress is, could be a bad health diagnosis, could be a pandemic, or could be that someone used up all the hot water in the kettle: same reaction. I snap angrily at everyone and then fall asleep mid-snap.
But I don't feel like we have really been tested yet here in the Bay Area - we are still in the 'phony war' stage to some degree. While for the most part people are taking social distancing very seriously, I've heard that there are illegally-open cafe's in a nearby neighbourhood still full to the brim with people carrying on life as normal. While numbers are definitely escalating here in the Bay Area it is not nearly as sudden or extreme as New York. So far we are all well, and everyone we know is well (though there have been some scary moments with family and friends in the UK coming down with COVID-19-like symptoms and not being able to get tested or get help). So on a day to day basis my stress reaction is only really getting triggered around food, such as when, for example, the frozen salmon I ordered get substituted with lox. I mean, really! Or when I let myself fall down the rabbit-hole of 'what-ifs' (What if someone in the house gets sick? What if both Mr Husband and I get sick at the same time? What if a family member in the UK goes to hospital?)
My mother told me a funny story from when she worked for the Parks Board in South Africa, her first job post graduation from university in the 1960s. From her office window she saw a truck have a terrible accident - coming around a corner the truck flipped upside down and fell down a ravine off the side of the road. She raised the alarm and her colleagues, all men, and she ran over to the truck. However, she had to stop on the way to be sick. The men had all served in WWII and one cried "Pull yourself together! What would you have done in the war?" They got the driver out of the truck and back to the office. Brandy was brought out, and was first administered to my mother!
There is a tendency to criticize stress responses, particularly those of women. There is a great exchange in the movie 'Courage Under Fire' where Meg Ryan is a kick-ass commander of a Medevac helicopter who comes under attack during a rescue mission. At some point the Meg Ryan character is crying (her unit is under fire, she has been shot in the abdomen) and a soldier remarks "Oh great. Great. The captain's crying." To which Meg Ryan replies, "It's just tension, asshole. It doesn't mean shit." So true. I am reminded me of something my friend in Canada says, "Feel the feelings." I really do think it is ok to feel the feelings, whether you snap, or are sick, or cry. Feeling the feelings, showing the feelings, doing so doesn't stop you doing-the-doing. Just makes the people around you nervous.
We are living in an extreme and unusual period in history but it can still just feel oddly normal if you aren't directly on the front lines. The contrast between the quiet of our day-to-day life and the war zone of the hospitals makes me feel particularly useless. I find myself wishing that I could actually do something and I see a similar sense amongst the WhatsApp group, where the more industrious and conscientious Moms are organizing letter-writing/care package/sing-a-gram campaigns to thank nurses and doctors, sewing masks, volunteering at food banks, driving meals to homeless shelters and nursing homes, and organizing community candle lighting/clapping/howling (?!) sessions each evening.
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| A British recruitment poster from 1915. |
There is a slightly competitive nature to these activities and occasionally things get a little out of hand amongst this particular group. For example, today someone posted a fundraising campaign to support doctors at a hospital in New York where her son is a medical student. She quoted the number of deaths in that hospital that day. To which someone posted "Can we just put positive news... We all need a little bit of a cheer up. Please no number of deaths." There then ensued a battle about whether the group should only be used for positive messages, such as the people organizing good works and the grateful feedback from the recipients of the good works. Several people got upset and said they didn't know there were rules about what could be posted, and that they better leave the group. But in the end, they all forgave each other and agreed that the group was "there for everyone to listen to and support each other the best way we can. The only rule in this group is to be kind to each other." It is ok to feel the feelings, ladies!
I read a good line that basically sums up my contribution to the 'war effort'. It went something like "Our primary job is to not get infected or sick for any other reason, to stay out of hospital, to not need ICU care or a ventilator." The other day ThingOne asked, "Will this be written about in history books?" and I answered, "Absolutely! And younger people will ask you what it was like, what did you do?" There is a lot more we could probably be doing, and I will look into getting us all to write letters of thanks or make sing-a-grams, or to howl. It is a tricky path to navigate a way to do something actually helpful without putting oneself or others at risk. I can't help but think that some of these activities are as much about making the do-ers feel better as the recipients. Probably the most concrete thing we could do is donate money. Anyway, there is lots of time to figure it all out, with a formal announcement today that schools will not be going back to in-person teaching this school year and talk of the lockdowns lasting six months. For now, our contribution, our 'What did you do in the COVID-19 pandemic?' is that we did our very best to not get sick.
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