Seeing Beyond “Sheltering in Place” in 2020?

Seeing Beyond “Sheltering in Place” in 2020?

William Mueller

There are myriad ways to understand the concept of “sheltering in place”, or a “lockdown”, or quarantine. Most of us cannot fully imagine sheltering from aerial bombardment, as Syrian people have done in recent years. Now, we are experiencing a lockdown necessitated by the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. (In contrast, I realize that my sheltering/lockdown is really something of a “first-world problem.”) What will this mean; how will it change us?

I am confined to my home and small yard, due to health problems that would be much exacerbated by contact with the virus. My world has shrunk – but I still have the glorious sky.  I still have the awakening flowers and leaves, the breeze that blows into my windows, the rainfall every few days. There is a small number of urban bird species, crossing and crisscrossing that glorious sky, like aerial writing on an alternating blue or gray or cloud-strewn tapestry. So, after pondering my “shrunken” world, I see that is only a limited perspective.

I recall a black-and-white photo by the great Hungarian photographer Andre Kertesz: it was an exquisite amalgam of light and shadow, with intricate texture...but the subject was only strips of torn paper, piled on his worktable. Maybe you can see where I am going with this:  turning inside, the world can expand, but with a shift in perspective.

While we have abundant opportunities to re-think our world (in a “before-and-after” the coronavirus pandemic), maybe we can re-vision how to place limits on our activity, to vision a world that accepts ecological limits, a world where we might behave as if our relationships with each other and the natural world were re-fashioned, out of interlocking structures of beauty, and care. Unlike some public figures in spring of 2020, I am not asking “what have you got to lose?” I am asking what we could gain, and build.

In Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s great book, “Braiding Sweetgrass”, she writes of the indigenous concept of reciprocity with the natural world: the people receive from nature, but then they give a gift back to the earth in return. Our family’s small garden space is the limit of my “reach” right now; but caring for it is meaningful in ways I am only now fully exploring. My relationship with earth: how can I foster it more deeply? If I note the aerial writing of birds on the sky, can I give voice to that…so that it does not go unheeded?

Each recent day during lockdown, I have watched the expanding leaves in their short-term yellow-green garb of spring; that color is already changing to a darker hue that plants wear in summer. During yesterday’s day-long heavy rain, I could still hear birdsong throughout the downpour. Each notification from nature prompts me to investigate, to ponder, to turn over in my mind like the gardener does with a spade-full of soil.

New research specific to tele-working - indicates that there may be environmental benefits to being-at-home beyond the obvious: fewer auto miles driven, less CO₂ emitted. Perhaps our enforced period of lockdown has let us look at aspects of our behavior with an unfamiliar scrutiny. Do we really need 50% of the stuff we own?

May we all become native-to-our-place, wherever on earth it may be. If we can foster an ethic of care, this time of sheltering-in-place will have been worth it.