Cold Comfort
By Mary Bennett
com·fort
a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint.
"room for four people to travel in comfort"
2. the easing or alleviation of a person's feelings of grief or distress.
"a few words of comfort"
Basically - To give comfort to someone else, often time sacrificing your own feeling of comfort in order to put someone else first.
Comfort to me: Knowledge. Making someone as “comfortable as possible.” The hope there is life after death. Postmortem photography - comfortable in the late 1800’s. Not so much now. My mother’s voice. The phrase “This too shall pass.”
March 13, 2020 - In solidarity with two other local theatre companies, we decided to close our theatres. As the Producing Artistic Director of Bruka Theatre I have had to make difficult, unpopular decisions in the past, but this one was monumental, though the writing was on the wall. News of the COVID-19 pandemic was confusing at best, a toxic mix of science and politics was developing to further the confusion. We were a week away from opening The Secret In The Wings, a fantasy re-telling of several obscure fairy tales. As the director and producer, I was hailing it and the actors as “brilliant.” I shared the difficult news with the cast, had difficult talks with our board, our staff, our patrons. I tried to comfort each person with statements like: “We will be back soon.” “It is important to keep others safe.” Or as my mother would say in times of great strife: “This too shall pass.”
March 15, 2020 - Governor Sisolak closed our schools, with the hope they could reopen soon. In April they hoped, once the virus was under control. My work as an artist-in-residence in two “high-risk” population schools came to an abrupt end. Our child of 13 years, who has been held back and home schooled the previous year, yearning to be around other people hit a wall emotionally. Would she be held back another year? Would she be able to see her friends? How would she continue her school work? I tried to comfort her. This has never happened in our lifetimes, we’ve got to do the right thing.” “If we keep others healthy and safe, we will stay healthy and safe.” And my favorite, in my mother’s way: “This too shall pass.”
March 16, 2020 - I walked through the Peppermill Casino in Reno, the venue that I work in as a wedding officiant. The weddings and events in the foreseeable future were being cancelled. What would these couples do with their weddings they had already emotionally and fiscally invested in? Could I, should I comfort them? What could I say to the woman who needed to get married before her mother passed from Stage 4 lung cancer? What of the event and wedding planner’s who would be eventually furloughed?
As I walked out, the slot machines turned off one by one on the casino floor as people finished their gaming, just one last time. I could literally feel the power shut down. The energy, this intense capacity that constantly needed to keep this monolith going was palpable, especially when it wasn’t there. At this revelatory moment, it finally hit me. The suddenly “unessential” jobs, workers, industries was inconceivable. Really looking into the eyes of the people I have smiled at for years, giving one last smile, one last tip, not knowing what would come. Could I comfort these people? Could I comfort myself? Would we come back? All I could say, developing my mother’s cadence even deeper: “This too shall pass.”
Mid-May, 2020 - The decision to “postpone” the opening of our 28th summer season of the Carson City Ghost Walk loomed. Things had changed enough over the last couple of months under the shut down to take us from confusing to unsettling to baffling. How could we put people at great health risk to walk and talk about the history of dead people? To have someone become deathly ill for folly felt ludicrous and irresponsible.
It was official. All of my work and creative places I had found comfort and livelihood had officially closed. Family reached out. They helped. Like so many, we dealt with additional challenges in our home, our lives and our health. Listening to my heart, I heard my mother’s voice comfort me: “This too shall pass, be strong.”
cold comfort
1. poor or inadequate consolation.
"another drop in the inflation rate was cold comfort for the 2.74 million jobless"
Basically, if you say that a slightly encouraging fact or event is cold comfort to someone, you mean that it gives them little or no comfort because their situation is so difficult or unpleasant.
Cold Comfort to me: The virus spreading and lack of humanity for others. “Fake news.” Learning through memes. Pushing buttons for the sake of pushing buttons. The idea that “fake news” is new news. That life after death could include monsters. That sometimes we are the monsters. Contemporary Post Mortem photography. The phrase “When things go back to normal”.
August 1, 2020 - I continue to put the time into my family and work, rehearsing and creating virtually in what I like to call “The Zoom Zoom Room” supporting innovative artistic ventures, while researching and educating myself, aiming to keep artistic ventures and partnerships in the public eye. I feel emotionally spun when I realize it has been five months of living in a “pandemic,” and we remain closed in our theatrical endeavors. There is little comfort in the jobless numbers, the spread of the virus and the re-opening of the schools. There is little comfort in our societal divide and faith in science. There is little comfort in the historical parallels.
In 1918, the advice during the flu pandemic went:
Keep your feet and clothing dry.
Avoid crowds.
Protect your nose and mouth in the presence of sneezers.
Gargle your throat three times a day with a mild antiseptic if only salt and water.
Don’t neglect a cold.
Keep as much as possible in the sunshine.
In large metropolitan areas like San Francisco large gatherings were banned, schools were closed. Mask ordinances were put in place. People that failed to wear a mask were charged with disturbing the peace. Heated debate ensued. Anti-mask leagues were formed. Some people protested. Objections to mask wearing were associated with infringements on civil liberties and questioning scientific data. Some say they were politically motivated. The flu epidemic that began in 1918 seems to have been curbed when 80% of the population wore masks and avoiding social gatherings came back with a vengeance in 1919 when the efficacy of mask wearing came into play. The pandemic that lasted 15 months killed 3 - 5% of the world population, with 500 million people affected by the illness. There was a high mortality in healthy people between the ages of 20 - 40. Through isolation and hygiene the virus was eventually controlled. It wasn’t until the 1940’s that the first flu vaccine was developed by Thomas Francis, MD and Jonas Salk, MD with support from the US Army.
In 2020, the advice during the COVID-19 pandemic goes:
No Shoes. No Shirt. No Mask. No Service.
In large metropolitan areas like San Francisco mask orders are again in place, large gatherings and shut downs are in place. There are currently no fines associated with non-mask compliance, but there is discussion. Heated debate ensues. There are once again protests and “anti” maskers who wear “masks with no COVID-19 protection” citing compliance not safety as the spread of the virus continues. According to the World Health Organization, we are still in what is considered a global pandemic and potentially going into a second wave. As of August 4, 2020, more than 18.5 million cases of COVID‑19 have been reported in more than 188 countries and territories, resulting in more than 700,000 deaths and more than 11.7 million people ill. Vaccines are currently under development.
There is cold comfort for me in this information, for I work in an industry that struggles to re-open during the continued spread of COVID- 19. So until then, I will find comfort in my mother’s words: “This too shall pass” and a random quote from the movie Bulworth: “Live Like a Spirit, Not Like a Ghost.”
Mary Bennett is currently the Producing Artistic Director of Brüka Theatre in Reno and The Carson City Ghost Walk. A theatre artist in residence with Nevada Arts Council and Sierra Arts Foundation, she is an actor/playwright/director/producer/theatre maker and sometimes referred to as "that woman." Her one woman original show: Dorothy Parker … Shivering and Sighing won Best of The San Francisco Fringe Festival and toured nationally. Mary is a Kennedy Center trained teaching artist and works as an arts integration specialist for The Sierra Arts Foundation. Mary also enjoys voiceover work, teaching, advocacy, historical research, long walks on the beach, and taking interesting jobs to support her art like simulated patient, perfume model, Easter Bunny, and coming up: US Census worker.
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