1. They provide excellent customer service from their living rooms
COVID-19 means a lot of people have to work from home, in tricky circumstances, including but not limited to while taking care of multiple children under the age of ten. But when I rang my bank to cancel some cards, Kind Kylie answered, chatting to me about her son losing his job just like me, but he’s a teenager, and he won’t get out of bed early enough to log on to Centrelink, and apologies that this is taking so long my work from home laptop is terrible. Then Kind Kylie accidentally hung up on me. Did I care? Not one bit. Best customer service call ever. I called back. Waited on hold for a real long time. Got Work-from-home Wendy. Explained the situation to her, and she chatted to me about how weird it was being at home where it’s so quiet, so she asked Google to play background noise for her. Turns out Wendy is mates with Kylie, and between the two of them they sorted me out. I love Kind Kylie and Work-from-home Wendy. These tiny little, real-life human interactions, full of empathy and humour and understanding, are the absolute best bits of living through a crisis together with the rest of the world.
2. They craft sock puppets and bake goods
COVID-19 means people have lost their jobs entirely. I’m one of those people. My friend, Jordan, works in travel, so he’s also lost most of his hours. To cheer me up, he used his spare time to send me a video of a sock puppet, narrating our mate Aaron’s definitely-private-possibly-confidential phonecall (which is why I’m only posting a screenshot here). It’s okay. It was techbabble. I didn’t understand it. But it was 10/10 funny and definitely made me feel better. This same friend also provided cookies and pretzel buns. Have you eaten a pretzel bun before? Eat one. They’re amazing.
3. They send each other flowers in a never-ending friendship chain
One of my friends has just started a new job in infectious diseases. I’m sure you can imagine how easy-breezy that is right now. Her husband is also a doctor, so they see each other approximately never. As a thank you for being amazing, we’re sorry work is so hectic, another friend suggested sending her flowers. Then we thought, ‘hey, let’s also send flowers to that friend, because she’s immuno-compromised and having health problems right now, and terrified out of her mind because she has to go out in public to a hospital that gives her PTSD from the last time she was there. So again, COVID-19 sucks. BUT, friends rule, because flowers turned up on the doorsteps of these two ladies, and then on my own doorstep as well, as a ‘sorry you had to fire everyone at work, and lost your job and changed your wedding’. More flowers have since made the rounds for birthdays, pregnancy announcements, and all kinds of happy and sad things. Friendships have never been more important to me. COVID-10 freaks people out. Humans send each other flowers and cheer each other up, no matter what. Humans win.
4. They help each other appreciate the little things
Appreciating the little things, despite the tricky things. I’ve not been sleeping well. I know a lot of other people have been the same. A few days ago, when I woke up early, I decided my partner and I should walk to the beach and watch the sunrise. It took a little coaxing, but he came with me, and we watched the sky change colour, and I felt so grateful. These tiny moments – lorikeets feeding in a wattle tree, saving a skink from the lounge room and returning him to the backyard, speaking on the phone to my grandparents while walking in the sunshine, smiling at a passerby – these moments make tricky days worthwhile.
5. They understand that empathy is golden
COVID-19 meant that I had to upend my wedding plans. If you’ve ever organised an event before, you’ll know it’s pretty stressful at the best of times, no matter how exciting and joyful the reason for hosting the event might be. As the pandemic unfolded, our wedding plans kept changing, rapidly. At first we thought we’d have to uninvite some guests. Change the venue. Lose our money. Get married in the living room. Spend more money on extending the wedding outside, spacing everyone out. Not have my grandparents there. Risk people getting sick. Not hug anyone. Eventually, we were able to postpone it for a year. The beautiful, kind words of our vendors, and shared moments of understanding and empathy, have been such a relief. Our photographers, in particular, (Margan Photography – I can’t recommend them enough) sent such a heartfelt, kind, compassionate message, it brought me to tears. In the midst of all this craziness, their email kept emphasising ‘We’re on your team, we’re in this together’. With losing my own job, I know how hard it is for these small businesses caught up in the midst of all this. So I was simultaneously stressing about just how much of my money was on the line (for a wedding that truth be told, I’m worried I can no longer afford), and feeling guilty for messing around vendors that have already struggled through the bushfires. Hearing the words, “We’re a team,” meant the absolute world. These kind moments with vendors, and the kind messages from our own customers at our aerial studio, saying they don’t want credits or refunds, or that they’re there to support us, and they can’t wait to come back, and just offering their love, makes the difference between giving up and carrying on.
6. They have tiny humans, who create public displays of pure joy.
This chalk drawing on the wall of a house, which I ran past today, and the constant giggles of kids playing in their backyards.
7. They support small businesses.
Rent and mortgages are going to be impossible to pay for some people. Before it was an official recommendation of the government for landlords to ‘sit down and have a chat’ with tenants, and before they brought out the pause on evictions, our landlord at our aerial studio wrote my boss a message in response to our pleading letter, that they would suspend all rent for the next two months, again, emphasising that we would be there for each other. This is the difference between our business surviving this pandemic, and collapsing entirely.
8. They stay socially connected, and laugh in the face of it all
The endless Zoom chats with friends and family, and WhatsApp threads where we share advice, and silliness, and check in on one another. What’re you cooking today? Have you checked this website for financial support? Does Spongebob Squarepants really represent the seven deadly sins? Are smurfs secret socialists? Why does asparagus grow like it’s pranking people? While I haven’t seen my friends in person in too long, I’m more in touch with them than ever. I’m lucky enough to have lots of friendships that have now spanned decades, and hearing almost every day from these people who I love like brothers and sisters almost (almost!) makes all this worth it.
9. They turn to animals (different to turning into animals)
Dogs are having the time of their lives, with pals to walk them every day and hang out with after that. Mother nature is actually thriving out there, without so many of us interfering all the time. And people like my beautiful friends Tess and Shannon are adopting animal shelter kittens to make sure the shelters can survive. And, let’s be honest, to make sure that they can survive, working from home together in their small apartment. Pets make everything better.
10. They’re full of hope
I guess this is the main thing. We’ve all been there to listen to each other’s fears, which has been a real lifesaver, because talking about how you feel really does help sometimes. But though there’s definitely a collective sense of anxiety, we’re all different. We all process things differently, at different times. Sometimes I’ve found that really hard. It sucks to have someone tell you “we can’t do that anymore”. No one wants to hear that they shouldn’t be visiting their mum when they’re feeling sad. That they can’t have a hug from friends. And no one wants to have to tell a beloved uncle or aunty to please not touch their child, or a grandmother who lives on her own to stay inside, no matter what. However, some good comes of processing things at different times. Some days, you’re the strong one. Some days you can bear the burden while somebody else loses the plot, and some days they can take care of you when you want to collapse in a heap, because they have plenty of good news ready for you, and distractions, and flowers and baked good and sock puppets. It reminds you, even on the shittiest day, that you have plenty to be thankful for, and that people are incredibly hopeful, even in the face of something as big and scary as a pandemic. It’s hard to stay anxious and depressed all the time, when you stay connected to people who are understanding that this is all very serious, and that at the end of the day, we really are talking life or death, but can still see the positives, and make you laugh, and talk about the future. One day, when this is over, we’re going to look back on this time and feel thankful that we went through it together, because it will make us stronger, as a collective. Hopefully, we’ll remember to be more empathetic, more grateful, kinder to ourselves and others, and to appreciate the simple things, including but not limited to bountiful supplies of toilet paper and a good old fashioned hug.
Samantha Todd 
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