So, I just wanted to pontificate a bit...I don't know if my thoughts are useful but I do hope they might be to someone, somewhere...
I read a post on Facebook yesterday which chimed with me (this doesn't happen often; I try to keep away from the site partly for this reason and partly because whether or not there's much of note or use on there, it still sucks up my attention and wastes my time).
Anyway, a friend - someone I met on a writing course more than twenty years ago and have only seen on a few occasions since - was writing about supermarkets. Firstly, about the apocalyptic fear that you currently can't help but sense when in them - the packed trolleys, the empty shelves, the haunted visages - and secondly, regarding the fact that he felt judged when shopping in one recently.
This guy, by the way, is the tallest person I've ever met (so presumably he's legitimately hungrier than most) and he has three strapping teenage sons (teenage boys physically need quite a lot more calories than a grown man). This chap is married but ever since the children were small he has always been the homemaker, while his wife goes out to work. So there he was, feeling the apocalyptic fear in the supermarket and trying to ignore it and get on with his shopping. He said he always buys enough for a few days and I'm guessing this is equivalent to a week's shopping for most people/families. And he felt embarrassed in case people thought he was hoarding. Which they probably did. And they were probably judging him for it without having any idea of the true facts. I've formed this opinion from a lot of comments I've read online - Facebook, Twitter and an app called NextDoor which is supposed to provide links for people who live in the same neighbourhoods. People have become very judgemental of 'selfish hoarders'.
I can completely relate to my friend's concerns. I go shopping every couple of days for our family of six to avoid being judged for buying too much at one time, and I am still judged. I'm not imagining this. I've had shop workers talk to me with disdain, for example, when I've asked when eggs and porridge were going to be re-stocked. I wasn't aware there was a national shortage when I asked about either item. Things have moved so fast in the last week or so; I wouldn't even ask if I couldn't find something on the shelves nowadays. When I asked about the porridge the supermarket worker told me (a bit rudely) that she had no idea when there would be more. I ignored the rudeness, put it down to bad manners without thinking any further, then took two packs of the more expensive organic porridge instead. An elderly couple then came along and took one pack and the woman made a point of saying to them, 'Oh, do you want some porridge?' while shooting me daggers. Then I understood - she was making a point about my 'greed'. (The old people didn't understand at all - they looked at her as if she was mad, which made me smile to myself).
She didn't know how much porridge the elderly couple might have had at home. She didn't know that my family of six eat porridge for breakfast every day (about half a kg each day, believe it or not). She didn't know that I didn't know that porridge was in short supply. She also didn't know that I'd be quite happy never to eat porridge again or feed it to my family, if it means being judged negatively. I find people's disapproval, real or imagined, hard to take. (This is one of my many character flaws and also one of the reasons why I've suffered three serious nervous breakdowns in the past - I'm a people pleaser. It took me a while to work this out.)
Yet, without knowing any of these facts, this woman felt able to judge me and treat me rudely - and possibly added me to the tally of 'greedy' people she'd been judging all day. I don't think she was right and I don't think any of us would be right to judge others, however shabbily they might behave (or appear to behave) in these unprecedented times.
(I'm sick of the word unprecedented by the way. I used it ironically there. I won't be using it again. I have spent some time thinking up alternative words over the last few days and have several up my sleeve - strange, weird, unparalleled, and so on and so forth. I probably won't be using them either. We all know this situation is surreal).
More of my personal picture now. My family are self-isolating. We started on Wednesday last week - my husband has asthma so is working from home, one daughter was already home from Uni and the other's school closed early (she is at private school, she got a full academic scholarship) and to me it only made sense to get the boys out of school too. My mum is 84, housebound with COPD - I was already caring for her and I'm not about to stop now, so I still visit her daily (while taking care to sit at a distance and keep everything as clean as possible in her house).
Really, I shouldn't be going to see her at all and nor should my sisters - but when I suggested that they stop going (I've been her carer for a while because my sisters work) I was told that this might just be spoiling her last days. Which is a fair point - we don't know how much time she's got left. She's very frail indeed. I can't insist that I should be the only one to visit her - that wouldn't be fair. And I don't want to leave her completely alone - none of them can visit every day.
Also, we haven't got any specific guidance to go by, in this sort of a situation. We all have to use our own judgement as to how far to go in isolating ourselves. We're only supposed to go to the shops when we really have to but we're also not supposed to buy more than we need? More than we need for how long? Confusion. Mixed messages.
Apparently Boris Johnson said, in answer to a journalist's question, that he was going to see his mother today (it's Mother's Day in the UK) but then Downing Street issued a 'clarification' saying that what he meant was that he was going to speak to her on Skype. Boris, of course, is not allowed to trust his own judgement, because he is the man that the masses are going to follow. So whether he was actually intending to visit his mother or not, he's not going to now!
I did visit my mother, because she wanted some long life milk - 'as much as you can get' - even though she never uses milk. I got her four cartons, the most I was allowed to buy in Aldi, even though I was frightened I might get judged by other shoppers. I bought her some flowers while I was there (I'd already written a card, which I was intending to put through her door, because I don't visit on the days when my sisters do, to minimise any risk to her health. Sunday is the day that one of them usually visits. They're all going more often than usual now, which I really appreciate and I know my mother does too).
We might all have that element of choice over our actions removed soon, if we follow the example of other countries and go into complete lockdown. In Italy, public parks and other public spaces have been closed. Our family - Paul and I and the children - have spent an hour or two each afternoon at our beach hut the last few days, which has been bliss - it's not cold in the sunshine. But when we walk along the beach, we see that the promenades are packed and people are queuing for takeaway drinks and foods from the restaurants which have been told to close. And the toilets are all still open...I suspect that the virus might be spreading in these places. We've been told to take exercise, so I'm hoping that we can still go to our beach hut but that the cafes and toilets will be completely closed - that should limit each visit to a couple of hours and mean that everyone isn't too close together. We'll have to wait and see.
Back to the judging and blaming and why we shouldn't.
If I was the gambling sort, I would stake a bet that most people in this country currently have more food at home than they usually do. It's human nature - like squirrels, we're packing away extra nuts just in case. I spoke to a lady in the supermarket this morning who said it was just the same in Spain a few weeks ago, but the shortages only lasted about a week and now everything is back to normal. And things were normal in the supermarket this morning - no gaps on the shelves whatsoever. And I didn't go until eleven thirty. Hopefully we can now start to put all this behind us. The sooner, the better.
So why should we not judge? We don't know the circumstances of these shoppers. Are they self-isolating? About to self-isolate because they feel unwell and they live alone? Who else are they shopping for, apart from themselves? And we don't know who feels the most fear, or why. Maybe some of the 'selfish hoarders' are just more scared than the average person for some reason - they deserve our sympathy, not our blame, for this. There's no point inflicting guilt upon these people, whoever they are, who have bought up all the toilet rolls. They are only human. Even the 'profiteers' deserve our sympathy. We don't have to buy from them. (I haven't got any hand sanitiser in the house and I don't want any. I never bought any in the past, why would I now? I do wash my hands...) Something must have made these so-called profiteers feel so deprived that they have put aside their morals and scruples and behaved badly, risking the disapproval of others.
Those of us who are not excessively fearful of the virus are fortunate. I have always suffered from anxiety, but my sort is over nothing - or nothing real. I am more frightened of being judged negatively by the supermarket workers than I am about the very much more real risk of catching the virus on one of my overly frequent visits there. Crazy but true. And I realise I need to work on not caring about what people think of me - I fear it will be the work of a lifetime.
I heard from one of my daughters this morning that one of her wealthy schoolfriend's fathers has bought a ventilator on the black market for ten thousand pounds. My immediate response was that he was clearly morally wrong in this action. Then I thought again.
What I thought was: If I had six months left to live (just suppose) I wouldn't want to spend any of them learning to use a ventilator. I wouldn't want to try to recruit a nurse who knew how to use it either. I would be too ashamed of myself to do that. Plus, it might be a criminal offence to buy one for private use, for all I know. If it isn't, it should be.
Or should it? I mean, if the guy has worked hard all his life to accumulate money (possibly because of a gaping void in his heart formed in childhood, and due to the fear that he will never be loved, never deserved to be loved) - shouldn't he be allowed to buy what he wants? Shouldn't everyone? If we believe in capitalism, isn't this just an extension of someone buying a mansion - or a second mansion - while others don't have a home at all, or don't have enough to eat?
Personally, I wouldn't want to be using my ventilator to keep myself alive, knowing how many other lives it could have saved in the six months before I became unwell. But then, isn't that a matter for this man's conscience? In a liberal society? Life isn't fair, and times like this make it even more obvious than usual - celebrities using private jets to fly to risk-free zones, anybody? - but I still prefer capitalism and personal freedom to the alternative.
I've thought for a while that if you have more to lose, you're not necessarily lucky. I can walk on the beach and admire the huge beachfront houses. but I have the same access to the sea that they do and I enjoy the same views - free. I don't have a massive mortgage, or a business to run with the worries and responsibilities that these things entail.
Not that I wouldn't want the beachfront house if I had the opportunity - but I don't need it to be happy. And that in itself makes me lucky. (The beach hut makes me lucky too - I've waited a long time to get one! It's not actually mine, in fact, I'm renting it for a year with another family but I feel incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to do so.)
So I'm not going to judge the guy who bought the ventilator. I wonder how many of the super-rich have done the same and how many of us would do the same if we could. None of us are beyond reproach. I only behave 'selflessly' - to the extent that I do, which isn't to the point of being saintly at all - for personal reasons, which are not always the right reasons.
My family - the six of us - have decided to watch an episode of The Durrells together on TV every evening. It's given us all something to look forward to each day - so I have to go now. I can't wait!
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