S2E1 – How to Human in a Pandemic

Margrit and Eileen (fka Lin) are back with season 2 of World of Stories. 

This time around, we’ll be discussing how to live in this new reality we find ourselves in. What does work look like in a pandemic? What does rest look like? Can we imagine an alternative to capitalism? Just how ableist is our language? What is the value of friendship? How do we live with trauma? 

How to Human in a Pandemic? 

Recommendation of the Episode: Death to 2020 on Netflix, and Yearly Departed on Amazon Prime. 

Question of the Episode: What has changed for you since the start of the pandemic? How have you had to adapt? What has been the biggest challenge? 

Join the conversation on Twitter at @World_ofStories or email us at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com. 

Transcript

Eileen 0:16
Welcome to World of Stories, a podcast about how stories shape our lives. I’m Eileen, my pronoun is she.

Margrit 0:23
I’m Margrit, and my pronoun is they.

Eileen 0:37
Hi, friends, we’re back. We went on hiatus in May 2020. And to be honest, I didn’t think we’d take such a long break. But 2020 was a mess of a year. And I think we all needed to lighten our workloads just to make it through. It’s now 2021. And with a new year comes changes. So we figured it was a good time to get back to World of Stories. That plus Margrit and I have really missed chatting with each other and connecting with you.

So we’re back. And this isn’t going to be the same old World of Stories. We’ve revamped the podcast with the hope of deepening our conversations, and making them more accessible for you to join the discussion.

So what’s different? Well, first of all, I’m Eileen, the podcaster formerly known as Lin. Same person, different name. And our second season will revolve around the theme of how to human in a pandemic. We’ll still be talking about diversity, inclusion and equity in stories, but through the lens of a world stumbling through a global pandemic, and the recent political awakenings around racial and systemic inequalities.

And as always, we want to hear from you. So come find us over on Twitter at @World_ofStories or you can email us directly at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com.

So, Margrit, we’re living in a pandemic!

Margrit 2:08
News flash!

Eileen 2:10
And as we’re recording this in January 2021, Canada is in the throes of a second wave of COVID-19. And Toronto, where we both live, has been a hotspot for several months now. And the Ontario government has just declared us to be in a state of emergency and we have a stay at home order. And so I think it’s safe to say that our lives look very different today than they did a year ago. How about you walk us through some of the changes that you’ve had to make to your life to adapt to our new reality?

Margrit 2:48
Sure, like many others, I’ve shifted to working from home. And while online teaching has been around for quite a while, it’s been a learning curve for us all, primarily because most of us would not have chosen it. So my day looks quite different now. I’ve actually always enjoyed my commute going into work, because I love walking and my work is right in downtown Toronto. So my commute has always been a wonderful transition in and out of the work day.

When it comes to the work of teaching itself. There’s a lot of new skills to learn in this remote learning situation. So one of the things I treasure most when I’m teaching is the connection with the students. Getting to know them from the very first class, I learn their names. This is a party trick I do in class, I learn their names in the first class, and they’re all super impressed with that.

Because I want to make sure that my teaching is tailored to their particular needs. I’m teaching them, I’m not teaching this abstract topic of English and communication, you know. So it’s, it’s really important to connect with students. And so finding ways to accomplish that in a virtual environment has meant a lot of work and research and learning of new skills. So hello, video editing! Who knew you needed that in order to teach.

But you know, I’ve been very lucky with a really supportive environment at work. And teachers are very collaborative, and they’re all sharing what they learn. So it’s been a lot of work, but a lot of support. So way more work than before, which is something I’ve heard and seen from everybody who teaches at every level.

How about you, Eileen?

Eileen 4:27
Yeah, for me, I quit my day job which was unrelated to the pandemic, but just so happened to coincide with the pandemic. So, like a lot of people I’ve also been working from home and limiting my time in public. And one of the bigger changes is that I decamped from downtown Toronto to the suburbs where my parents live. There’s just more space out there and I have access to a car so it’s easier to move around. And you know, it’s kind of nice to have some humans contact instead of being completely isolated by myself in my downtown condo.

Which, actually, was one of the biggest challenges for me earlier in the pandemic with the isolation. And honestly, this really surprised me, because I’m the most introverted person I know. I’m not joking. I can go literally an entire week without stepping outside of the house, without talking to anybody. But you know, when there’s a pandemic, raging outside, suddenly, I felt this need to connect with people and to know that I’m not going through life alone. And I, I mean, I’d like to think that’s a fairly human reaction to the state of the world that we’re living in.

And I think on top of the isolation, there’s so much fear permeating society these days. You know, it’s this idea that every person I come across when I walk down the street is nothing more than a walking disease. And, you know, you see someone on the sidewalk, and it’s like, oh, no, who’s gonna step off to the side so we can maintain like the two meter social distance. And you know, maybe I’m waiting for the elevator, but when the doors open, there’s already people inside. So, can I go in? Or do I wait for the next elevator? There’s this distrust of people. And that’s really insidious. It’s like eating away at social cohesion or something, you know.

Margrit 6:30
For sure.

Eileen 6:31
It’s just exhausting, I find. I can’t walk down the street anymore. I have to think about how crowded it is. Or should I take a different street or go to a different store that has fewer people, I hold my breath every time the elevator door opens. Because it’s like a frantic split second decision I have to make about, do I go in? Do I not? Or if I’m in the elevator, it’s like, do I let the other person come in? Or do I ask them to wait for the next one? And it’s a real mental fatigue, having to actively think about these daily routine tasks.

Margrit 7:06
For sure.

Eileen 7:06
Yeah. Margrit, what have you found are the biggest challenges for you?

Margrit 7:12
Um, I’m a creature of habit. And I love my routines. I actually think they allow me to remain flexible, because I also enjoy trying new things, but I have to have the routines in place to be able to have that freedom. So my first challenge was finding new routines. In the absence of my bike or train ride to work, how will I let my brain and body know it’s time to switch to work mode? And it might sound like super trivial, but that’s, I think, I realized now that’s how I used to work, you know.

So the next challenge is, as my department chair says, working at home and living at work, because with four people in the house, we’re doing the same, it’s it’s really, you know, difficult to negotiate, you know, space and, and different times and needs that everybody has. So I had to try out different things. And it sounds pretty easy now, in hindsight. But that uncertainty at the beginning was pretty harrowing.

All in all, I’m happy that our locked down here right now, still allows us to go out and walk and run because that’s my main mental health coping mechanism. Just getting out of the house, since you know, the house is now, you know, my work, my home, my, you know, my everything.

And it sounds like our challenges are different. And I’m really interested in what other peoples are as well. I’m interested in how we’ll think about this pandemic, and talk about it years from now, because I remember my mom talking about living through the polio pandemic as a child in the 50s. And how she said she was not allowed to get out of the house for three months. And every single time she remembers this, she says, not even on the porch. She always emphasizes this.

Eileen 8:52
Yeah, and I don’t want to sound callous. But I really think that 2020, at least for some people, is gonna be a blip in the grand scheme of things, you know? For people in positions of privilege, including myself, I include myself in that. I haven’t lost my job due to the pandemic, I haven’t gotten sick, I don’t have any close friends or family members who have gotten sick. I still have a place to live and food to eat and access to most of the amenities of life that I’m used to. And so I think for anyone in a similar position, they’ll probably look back on 2020 and be like, oh my god, remember when.

But then there are plenty of people who are in less privileged positions. And I wouldn’t be surprised if 2020 has altered the course of their life, you know. If they’ve lost their job or their housing or if someone close to them got sick or died, like these are traumatic events. They can really change people. And I have a feeling that the ripple effect of the pandemic is going to be far reaching in ways that we won’t be able to predict.

And I think one of the things that the pandemic has really emphasized, and these are things that have always existed in society, but the pandemic has brought them to the surface again, is the huge disparity between the haves and the have nots, you know. Like economic inequality, racial inequality, accessibility, mental health issues, like we all have experienced these things for ages. But with the pandemic, it really makes the disparities stark.

And I think that’s why we wanted to structure this season around how to human in a pandemic. Because when we were discussing coming back to the podcast, Margrit, you brought up this idea of recording what it’s like to live through a pandemic, and to document this experience and explore all of these issues that it brings up. So why, like, why do you think it’s so important to record and document this period in history?

Margrit 11:06
I think I just wanted us to stop and document what it’s like to human in a pandemic, because a lot of us, I think, are dissociating, and that we’ll forget all the ins and outs and the details. Like I said earlier, you know, it took me so many tries to find a new routine. But if you asked me right now, I’ve probably blocked them all out, right? So we suppress the memories. I think we need to be present in the moment rather than dissociate, in order to find ways to heal properly from this collective trauma.

Because I think you’re right that some people are experiencing in way different ways. So I’ve heard this a lot, you know, we’re not all in the same boat. We’re all in the same storm. But we’re all in different boats. And we need to learn how to how other people live to know what other issues they’re facing, and to heal and to live better as a community. So many of us are dealing with mental health issues, as you’ve pointed out. And I think we can cope better if we support one another.

And to that end, we discussed about interviewing other people, so that we learned about how they’ve adjusted to pandemic life. But our circles are limited. And we’d like to escape our own circles. So if you’d like to be interviewed, we would love to hear from you. So drop us a line on Twitter at @World_ofStories or on email at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com.

Eileen 12:38
You know, it’s funny, you should mention interviewing other people. Because there is a mockumentary on Netflix called Death to 2020. And it’s set up in an interview style with actors playing the roles of journalists, historians, medical experts, politicians, tech billionaires, and everyday people. It even has the Queen, like the Queen, you know, like the Crown, the Queen. And it’s got some really famous actors in it, like Samuel L. Jackson, and Hugh Grant. And they talk about all the things that happened in 2020. So like, obviously, the pandemic, but did you remember that the Australian wildfires started at the beginning of 2020? I totally forgot. And they talk about climate change. And Trump’s impeachment, the first one. The American federal election, Brexit, protests against racial inequality and the Black Lives Matter movement. And it just takes you through the year and you realize all of the crap that we’ve had to live through.

Margrit 13:50
And that we’ve suppressed.

Eileen 13:52
Yeah, we really have. And you know, it’s a satire. So everything’s a little exaggerated, but just enough to show us how absurd real life is. And it just confirms how wild this year has been, while giving us permission to laugh about it. Because honestly, like, sometimes laughing is the only way to get us through these types of disasters.

Margrit 14:17
It’s so true. And you know, I like looking at the hopeful stuff. So I think it’s awesome that a lot of artists have already been doing this work of emotional processing for us, right? Because we’re still in it. And we’re not necessarily all of us skilled or have the coping mechanisms to process emotionally all of the stuff that’s happening.

There’s another example that follows the same idea. It’s called the Yearly Departed. It’s a comedy special on Amazon Prime, and it’s got an impressive all-women lineup of comedians who are each performing eulogies for something that died in 2020. And it’s so for example, you know, Phoebe Robinson host and each actor comes on stage to deliver their mock eulogy. So Tiffany Haddish bids an emotional farewell to casual sex. And she’s, you know, has got this very sort of physical comedy as well as like the mimicry, like the, yeah, her facial expressions. It’s just super funny.

And then Rachel Brosnahan bids farewell to wearing pants. And Natasha Rothwell says, you know, goodbye to TV cops. Because you know, all of the defund the police, I think people are finally taking it seriously. And a lot of TV cop shows are not as beloved as it used to be. And then there’s Patti Harrison, who says goodbye to rich girl influencers on Instagram, because where are they going now? They’re not going anywhere. And then there’s Ziwe who says, you know the eulogy to beige band aids. And Sarah Silverman says farewell to making America great again. And then finally, there’s Natasha Leggero, who says a tearful goodbye to having more children, because who’s going to have more children now that they’ve all been home for so long? Honestly, I think we should all be like building statues in the square to elementary school teachers and school teachers everywhere.

Eileen 16:15
Although, you know what, I would not be surprised if the birth rate goes up. Because when everyone is stuck at home, what else is there to do? But, you know, horizontal activities in bed.

Margrit 16:28
Right. I think we’ve, uh, like it’s been a year right. So we probably would have seen the the rise, but who knows, you might be right. It could go either way. But yeah, you know, when you when you look at, you know, a show like Yearly Departed, and it’s like you said about Death to 2020, it’s equal parts funny and witty and wry, and just a joy to watch. And it’s, you know, a great, lighthearted chronicle of 2020. And it gives us permission, like you said, to not just, you know, fear, but to look to the future with a little bit of hope.

Eileen 17:02
Mm hmm. So, those are our recommendations for the episode Death to 2020 on Netflix and Yearly Departed on Amazon Prime.

And that’s all from us for now. If you’d like to join the conversation, our question of the episode, which we are bringing back, is what has changed for you since the start of the pandemic? How have you had to adapt and what have been your biggest challenges?

Margrit 17:31
So you can let us know on Twitter at @World_ofStories, or you can email us directly at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com. And if you like our show, please share the podcast with your friends. You can rate and review World of Stories on Spotify, Apple podcasts and Google podcasts. The more reviews we get, the easier it will be for new listeners to find us.

Eileen 17:53
Until next time, stay safe.

Margrit 17:55
And keep humaning.