The Virus Diaries: Goodness
Look, I know there are lots of things that suck right now. But I’ve never seen such a flood of kindness, generosity, and support. I’ve never felt so connected to the whole world—in a good way.
This entry is almost entirely made up of just stuff from my facebook and twitter feed from the last hour. It’s a random mixture of encouragement, humour, information, stuff to do, and resources to help people either deal with self-isolation or understand why it’s necessary.
The above was posted by Julia Vee from the Parasol Protectorate facebook group.
The “Bear Hunt” is all about putting teddy bears in windows and front gardens for kids to spot as they walk around the neighbourhood.
And here are some videos:
A bunch of late-night hosts are working from home. It’s messy, awkward, and hilarious:
This is my favourite song right now. It’s rude and funny and strangely inspiring (make sure your kids aren’t in the room).
Another parody song:
A beautiful in-character bit of encouragement from The Doctor herself:
A charmingly odd news article. It kind of epitomises how so many people are reacting to this global challenge—with humour, with love, and with everyone asking, “What can *I* do to help?”
Here’s a news article thinking about how COVID-19 will change the world, which is fascinating for all of us (I haven’t had time to read it yet, because I’ve been hard at work all day preparing something VERY special for the school holidays). Not necessarily uplifting, but sometimes it’s nice to have someone say, “This is what will happen next, then this, then this.”
And how about twitter, that infamous trash fire?
This guy is always like that. He bleeds love and kindness every single tweet.
(If you haven’t read Gail Carriger’s funny supernatural steampunk tales, you should!)
I wish I was in Melbourne right now, but I also love how facebook has so much content talking about how important artists are right now.
I’ve been fielding emails and calls all this time. My Flourish home mental support people switched to phone calls, but gave me a million other options of ways to stay connected, and also checked a whole lot of practical things (do you have food? Can someone look after your kids if you are sick?)
My chemist called me up to say they’ll be delivering my regular medications to me, and is there anything extra I need? My friend Chevelle climbed into a store refrigerator to get me the last, lost pack of frozen peas. My Mum finished painting the signs we were making together (pics soon). People are looking at their pantry and giving food away over social media.
A woman I have never met gave me a quilt she made. That’s not even because of the ‘rona. She just… makes quilts, and gives them away.
Here is the quilt (gorgeous, isn’t it?) hanging on my washing line (hence the odd pic) for several days so any ‘rona germs can die before I touch it.
It is, in a word, beautiful.
I’m not saying the ‘rona doesn’t suck. It does. I’m not saying certain people aren’t being tossers. There are some people making awful decisions out of various kinds of fear. But what I’m mostly seeing is kindness, thoughtfulness, generosity, humour, and creativity—all at unprecedented levels.
We can do this. We have each other.
Resource of the day: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if you’re not on social media now is a great time to join.
Donation of the day: What weird item or talent can YOU throw out into the zeitgeist?
Personal action of the day: Have you heard of #FormalFriday? Or my alternative, Wear-A-Bra Wednesday? Go ahead and dress up. It’s good for the soul.
Hoarding item of the day: Pet food and litter (only 2 weeks’ worth, okay?)
Felicity Banks 
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