Necessity Is the mother of invention. Lockdowns throughout the world and, particularly in Canada and the United States, made us realize our world was changing. Even with a vaccine it will likely be over a year if not more before life as we knew it will resume.

In the meantime, we’re finding new ways to connect and new ways of doing things. Life goes on. We learned things about ourselves and our loved ones. Some were good, some were bad. Toilet paper assumed a weirdly important role in our psyches. And a lot of bread was baked. Some people made beer and some people made wine. Some found ways to make things easier for their community.

Gardening centers ran out of or were unable to get seeds. I suspect some of us are going through seed catalogs online as my mother did upon the arrival of the Stokes cataloge.

There were Zoom business meetings and Zoom cocktail parties. Dr Oz featured a pandemic menu that started with beans. Epicure offered some more appealing options which are good whether you’re in lockdown or not and are available whether you live in Canada https://epicure.com/en-ca/product/1208771 or the US https://epicure.com/en-us . In the interests of honesty, my son does work in their IT department and I eat their products regularly.

Artists started giving Porch concerts over the internet and Zoom concerts. For free. This is continuing as you can see if you go to the Billboard link https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop. with new music coming out this month.

Many of us wanted to do something creative. But many writers, myself included, found the sheer impact of having the world lockdown to be overwhelming. We were wondering how this would affect our families. Obviously, it was worse if you lived in a place that was hit hard and you knew people who were sick or lost family and friends to Covid-19, but it was overwhelming for a lot, if not, most people. 

And really, part of being an artist is observing. It would be nuts to ignore what was happening in the world. And impossible. Shopping in stores was no longer possible. When it was, there was often a more limited array of options than previously. That, in itself, was strange to post-war people as many of us are. My father was the last person in my family to participate in a war and that was World War 2

Now, we were beginning to think, knowing where food came from and if it was local might be important. That had been happening before the pandemic, but it definitely increased, as the possibility of food shortages became more likely. As numerous people died in meat packing plants many of us began to think buying from a small, local farmer/butcher might be a better way to go. Paying more to a farmer so he could afford a good quality of life made so much sense. And we would know how the food we were eating was being processed If you’re interested in learning more about. For more information contact https://www.wikihow.com/Buy-Local-Food.

Scientists have collaborated in ways previously unheard of to discover a vaccine. While we don’t think of scientists as creative and inspiring they are. For more on this https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-exactly-where-were-at-with-vaccines-and-treatments-for-covid-19.

Covid-19 has changed the world faster than any of us could have imagined. In the process we’re finding new ways of doing things and I continue to be inspired by what so many of us have done to make things better for ourselves and for others. I can only wonder at what we’ll create next. And as often happens, when the world changes new ideas and ways of doing things come in faster than we’d normally expect.