When I was young, I was invited to a philanthropic party at a mansion, with a glamorous host and hostess to match. As I snuck off to peek around the gorgeous home, I found a woman, nicely dressed, crouched down with a broom and dustpan cleaning up a kitchen mess. I assumed it was the housekeeper or caterer. As she stood up she said, “Hello, just sweeping up a little mess”. I quickly realized she was our hostess, she saw my curious look and said, well, you know, “everybody sweeps”. I’ve thought about that moment from time to time over the years and when I remember, I think, “You know what, everybody should sweep!” We are all competent to “sweep” in the broadest sense of the term, but we don’t. We rely on a multitude of services providers and we outsource almost all of our “sweeping”.
This is one reason that handling the repercussions of coronavirus and being home-bound seems so difficult. Gen X’s and Boomers grew up having to “sweep” more. We did a lot for ourselves. We cleaned up our own messes and few households had daily help. Most of us learned to grocery shop and cook under the apprenticeship of our elders, enjoying mostly homemade foods. The service industry as we know it today did not emerge until we were grown. Thus, we have a few more tools to help us “sweep”.
Social media is full of “information”, but as we all sit at home and wonder what WE can do we all need to think about the future. This all happened fast! We need to get back to the basics of what makes American’s unique yet connected. We must get in touch with our shared humanity and community, we all need to learn to sweep for ourselves and others! We may not like doing everything ourselves, it is certainly easier to outsource our cleaning, cooking, laundry, gardening, child-care, schooling, personal beauty care, shopping or the myriad of other services we tap an app and have on demand. All of us must KNOW and learn how to do things ourselves so that times like these don’t seem so unmanageable. That staying at home, entertaining at home, home self-care and improvement are not as daunting as they seem. We want you to have confidence that you can do anything from sweeping to plumbing. It is possible and even preferable not to mention profitable!
We arguably founded SaySo, to keep the “sweeping” going in our own household with advice and family recipes for family and friends to access wherever they are. Over the next few days and weeks, I’m going to use my time, doing more postings to help my community “sweep”, so that we can all feel empowered today and going forward. We can all work together to become more self-sufficient, more empathetic, more altruistic and more American.
We know that your inboxes and sites are full of information and missives and are glad that we all seem to be supporting one another. This article, https://drhyman.com/blog/2020/03/17/protect-yourself-from-covid-19/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=b424a99fdd-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_29_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_07a277e311-b424a99fdd-124065441&mc_cid=b424a99fdd&mc_eid=21d6c0231f, and this podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/98-peter-attia-m-d-and-paul-grewal-m-d-coronavirus-covid-19-faq/id1400828889?i=1000468457729, are timely, thoughtful and comprehensive, showing how much YOU can do to protect yourself and loved ones.
See the site for all the comfort recipes, like banana bread, waffles, potato and bacon frittata, lemon poppy seed muffins, Mimi soup, chicken and noodles, pie, Florence’s Buttermilk Cake and tapioca pudding along with other favorites we are making for our group! Happy reading and sweeping!
The fine art of Shelly Lewis Stanfield
The Charleston Academy
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