It can be hard to keep working to show people that N95s and cleaning air will actually significantly reduce the number of sick, disabled, and dying in our communities. Here are some words of solace to keep your fires stoked this winter:
Sue J. from Cleaner Air Collective wrote a lovely, poetic epistle to everyone working hard to keep us all safer.
"Finding a way to not give up is the ability to hold being realistic and being resilient together in face of huge challenges. It may seem hopeless and too difficult, but if we keep going, we may prevail. If we stop, we can't.
I’ve mentioned before, I spent six months tearing my hair out trying to convince my vulnerable elderly parents to mask, “but no one else does.” Providing masks, modelling, explaining, lecturing, challenging, pointless … til it wasn’t. They’re the only ones masked at church now.
The other day my young adult, at risk youngest daughter sighed as she put on a mask to attend a crowded outdoor market with me: “I hate wearing a mask outside, but I’ve been making good choices for so long, it’d be stupid to stop and get infected today.”
People reach out and say, "I was ready to give up. Thanks for posting that infographic/quote; it helped me keep going." You never know who printed that info out and shared it, you know which person saw you masked in a healthcare setting and thought, if they can do it, maybe I can too.
A friend is building the single biggest piece of advocacy I can think of from the ground up from sheer force of will. She has set her sights on changing the world, and her determination is breathtaking. She is a magnificent force of nature and makes me want to try harder. Good doctors are arguing with indifferent doctors, showing up despite mind bending cognitive dissonance, heartbreak and moral injury. If they can keep going on the frontlines, while I advocate from the privileged safety of home, the least I can do is stand with them steadfast. I keep going for those who can’t.
Our numbers are decimated by the impacts of infection. Watching passionate activist friends fall by the wayside is nothing short of devastating, but now I have no choice but to carry them in every single action I take. When we meet with crossbencher and they’re gobsmacked at “how reasonable” what we’re asking for is, then watch in real time as their mind blown, equilibrium lost with real cost of inaction and know it’s the very first steps of a journey of an ally. And you do this half a dozen times, building.
A warrior senator with integrity hears heartbreaking testimony from a friend in a zoom and is moved to fight the bureaucrats and CMO on the public record on the side of decency, and you see a glimmer of what could be in the long run if you keep running. I believe this will turn. My goal is to help turn the ship sooner not later. The more voices, more advocacy, more information, more pressure, the sooner we change direction away from destruction. It’s possible that what we do changes things quicker and prevents more damage. Keep fighting so we can look the next generation in the eye and say we never stopped trying to protect you. They alone would be enough to keep me going.
I keep going for my youngest daughter who is at risk and trying to protect herself in a world that doesn’t care how vulnerable she is. I keep going to protect the little time my elderly mother has left. I keep going for respect for every amazing member of CAC and this community. I keep going for my other family members who are not strong enough to look at this head on because I am strong enough for all of them.
They want us to give up, they want us to feel so defeated that we stop trying and let them continue to make decisions that damage and kill, unanswered, unopposed, til everyone is too impacted to oppose anything. We stand in the way of total capitulation. They want no control group to prove our point. They want everyone impacted so they can say it was inevitable, nothing they could have done differently.
It’s an act of defiance to refuse to capitulate, to show road less travelled, road well protected, road less indifferent. It feels like building a wall one tiny pebble at a time. It is a gesture of faith. It is a gesture of defiance. It is a gesture of resilience. It is a gesture of the value of life. It not now, when? If not me, who? If not this, what else possibly matters? The stakes are so impossibly high, the outcomes so profound, how can I choose anything but to keep putting one foot in front of the other?
There’s no choice, I cannot be a bystander. I cannot unknow what I know. I will fight until I physically can no longer fight. I will go down fighting. I will be inconvenient. I will be relentless. I will hold and nurse my anger, and I will bear witness to everything. I will keep receipts. If there’s an opportunity to hold to account in the future, I will be there with my evidence and my fury.
Yes it’s exhausting and frustrating and we can’t see if our drops are extinguishing the edges of a fire, our pebbles are holding together. We go forward with faith, we go forward with humanity, we go forward with resistance. We have no reason to know we make it out unscathed. We stay on the path that gives us best chance of surviving - which includes fighting for better policy. We do this knowing odds are against us, but strong enough to absorb that truth and keep going. We’re in a war, not with CVD, but with those who accept death and damage for self-interest.
The optimists will fall, the realists can prevail with heavy hearts and eyes wide open. We can be the living embodiment of that which you refuse to allow to kill you, makes you stronger. We can continue even though we don’t know the end of the story. The only way we influence the end of the story is to remain active protagonists. Don’t look ahead, stay in this moment, what can you do today that will add another pebble to the wall of resistance? It’s a marathon extending beyond the horizon. Take breaks, balance with simple joys, feed your soul in any way you can so that you can stay in the fight. You can experience joy in a little life, you can find happiness and meaning amidst the devastation. You can put down the load. “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in end—which you can never afford to lose—with discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be,” James Stockdale.
Our challenge: accept reality, then never stop working to change it. Show the world what new, long term survival mechanisms and adaptations look like. Have faith, confront reality, hold hands and endure. Walk through the world holding our values and purpose and grit. And then get up tomorrow and do it again - with realistic faith. We have a goal and we have obstacles and we have each other.
And this mess isn’t going to fix itself (Stockdale Paradox) “We’re not getting out by Christmas; deal with it!”
BASICS REMINDER (from me): Covid never left. Most Covid transmission is from people who look and feel completely healthy. Exhaling unmasked can send Covid across a room in minutes, where it hangs in the air for hours like cigarette smoke. Vaccines help reduce severity of cases, but can't eliminate transmission and wane in effectiveness within months because Covid mutates so fast (because of all the spread!). It takes seconds to inhale Covid where it gets into cells all over the body, able to hibernate and affect the brain, heart, and other organs. N95s trap Covid using inertial impaction, diffusion, interception, and electrostatic attraction. They really work!! Covid's the #3 killer in Canada, and we don't know how many people it has disabled. Avoid being one of them. There is no treatment, only prevention. Be wise with N95s!
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