Greetings to all those in isolation during the COVID-19 Pandemic! During these days of indoor “camping” and social distancing, I cannot help but wonder if the skills you learned at Camp Maqua are helping you during these times. Surely, there are more stories to be told of survival skills and talents of those years that you could share? What are you doing to retain your sanity?
My husband and I are living a smaller footprint here in Florida, having sold our course and our larger home. The guest house is perfect for the two of us and it is situated a mile from the Peace River, where we can watch the sunset with others. (Six feet apart, of course!) We have plenty of projects to keep us busy, from painting to gardening. We get out every day to either ride our bikes or walk and the weather has been unseasonably warm. At the end of the day, we sit on our new deck, eating dinner and relaxing with the sound of cows, turkeys and a braying donkey next door. Life is good and so far, we are healthy.
We had just visited all four of our children, here in Florida and in California, before the country went on lock-down. How wonderful it is not to be deprived of seeing our grandchildren in this time of social media. FaceTiming and Skyping brings them into our house without contact. We have tremendous empathy for the three families with young ones, home from school. Two of the daughter-in-laws are teachers and one has to begin virtual teaching next week, with four-year-old twins and an eight-year old. One has two toddlers in San Francisco and the weather has not been cooperating for them to burn off extra energy from being house-bound.
Although I was never a camper at Maqua, my Burningman experience this past summer taught me how to live very simply for six days. My daughter and husband did all the shopping ahead of time, and it was amazing to watch the meals appear from a desert kitchen on a two-burner cook stove. The shower utilized gray water from the ice in the coolers, and when we did not use the porta-potties, we used our “She-Pee” portable urinal in our tent. We stayed hydrated with water from our camel-backs and ate very sparingly. We conserved energy during the day, while sitting under shade structures. I never felt like I was in survival mode, because I had everything I needed, but the heat and harsh desert conditions were like nothing I had ever experienced.
The most amazing part of the whole Burningman experience for me was experiencing the ten principles practiced by all those who attended. (Radical inclusion, gifting, decommodificatios, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, leaving no trace, participation and immediacy.) No matter which camp I walked or biked to– someone greeted me, gifted me, fed me, offered me a drink or hugs. This temporary city in the middle of the Black Rock desert made me understand what I could live without. Possessions, jobs and personalities did not mean a thing. No-one cared who you were or what you wore. People mattered.
In 2004 we experienced four hurricanes–Charley, Jeanne, Frances and Ivan. Charley took out our 14,000 sq. ft. clubhouse, 1,000 trees on our 36-hole course, five out-buildings, and blew the pump on one course, which we lost. The other three finished us off. It took six weeks to get the trees off the course and open the doors again, but life was never the same. We had a mobile kitchen and operated from a huge tent until moving back into the original 1971 building. Our home was damaged, but we could offer refuge in our makeshift kitchen by stretching salvaged screening around our carport, decked out with the ice-machine and commercial grill that survived.
For weeks we worked 12 hours a day and at the end of the day, ate the leftovers from the club, drank the wine and beer and shared all with neighbors. What we gained was strength, humor, camaraderie with neighbors and help from volunteers who came from hours away to help us. We had no power for 15 days. Generators powered the fridge and the washing machine. I hung laundry out for four families in 95 degree heat, but others shared their pools and helped us pick up debris. There was such great community and goodwill from this sharing and caring. People mattered.
When this whole lockdown is over, I believe the world will be different. Kids are using their imaginations. Parents are practicing patience. Families are eating dinners together and playing games. Medicine is being practiced tele-medically. Businesses are learning new methods of service. Socializing has new meaning with online parties and social media has kept us laughing with humor during dark times. People are coming together in community to help those in need, because people matter.
Those who lose their jobs will have life-style changes they never anticipated. I have no illusions that our children will be paying the price financially for a long time, and that our retirement will also be affected. But, as an eternal optimist, I believe there will be silver linings to these dark clouds and that the world will reinvent itself. Faith, family, friends and hope is my wish for all of you.