Kia ora Koutou,
its obvious that Lockdown affects us all in different ways. A lot depends on a situation. You might be in a house with another adult and two small kids, you might be old and on your own, you might be in an ancient villa with five other people or in a shed all by yourself.
Whatever your situation is you have to eat. To eat you need money and during Lockdown you need to know how to cook or live with someone who does. You need to shop for food but you also need to know what to buy and you need to know how to present it in a way that you and others will eat it. YouTube can show a novice how to cook a particular dish but that novice still needs a power point.
I’m wondering how those who can’t or don’t cook, manage? There are meals on wheels possibilities for some, or frozen meals available from other suppliers but these all cost money and they also need an address to deliver to. You can only go so long on bread and mashed sardines, or eating cold spaghetti out of a tin. If you live in a shed you might have one power point, all depends on the money supply and need of those who originally built it – there might be an electric light or there might not. Same with water supply and warm bedding to sleep on. No toilet? So its public toilets or the lawn out the back of the shed.
Most of us have digital phones but not all of us. You have to be able to pay a phone bill, you have to have access to a power point to charge it and if you’re on a limited income, you have to have the will power to ration the use of it. Some incomes are more limited than others. You have to make decisions. If you have people dependent on you, those decisions become even more important. There are no ‘should have, could have, might haves’, the reality is now and it is no good the rest of us tut-tutting and turning away.
Have you seen someone wandering about? Maybe just filling in time until they locate another shed for another night?
I am lucky, I have whanau and friends who will shop for me, but there might be someone like me next door or a couple of houses down from you, who doesn’t have that kind of support? Or who is hesitant about asking? A lot of people my age find it hard to ask. They find it hard to believe in kindness that comes without strings. There are also younger ones who don’t know how to ask or think if they do, the one they ask will think they should be able to manage like everyone else. So shame enters stage left and they stay silent.
We all put on a good front. When someone asks ‘How are you?’ we automatically say, ‘Fine, I’m fine.’ When I go to the doctor, even if I’m feeling like shit, when she asks ‘How are you?’ its like a button is pressed and I say, ‘Fine thanks.’
There are food banks, other helpful organisations, but sometimes best of all is just one person saying to another, ‘Are you okay? I’m going to the supermarket – you need milk or something?’
This tells the one being asked that you are already going to the supermarket or the pharmacy, wherever, so they know they aren’t putting you out. Being the giver is always better than being the receiver, but it doesn’t hurt us to be the receiver, to learn we are not always able to be self supporting. I bless all the givers in my life. I could not manage without you. I think there are probably many out there who need a giver but put on such a good face no–one knows. Lockdown and masks probably make this a little easier – you might have to persist.
And – because of Lockdown, the Cancer Society had to cancel Daffodil Day, so send your usual donation via online banking.
Renée
