In the Quai Branly museum in Paris a few years ago this clay totem captured my attention. And now, during isolation, I wonder again at his markings. Are the bands across his eyes a symbol of energy, or of knowing, or of wonder? Maybe worry. He peers out at our modern world and watches me as I search far and wide on the internet for ¼ inch flat elastic so I can make a few hundred masks for emergency medical use. That old business maxim, “you don’t know what you don’t know” rings ever more true as these days tick by.

Lots of people want to make masks. Five days ago I thought of it, probably as it circulated through the zeitgeist. Now all the available easy to sew elastic has been snapped up in the few hours since Forbes posted a pattern on the internet. In fact I can’t get my hands on the elastic of any color in any quantity until May. At the earliest. Can this be true? Shall I order anyhow? I ask my totem. He says yes, Elisa. Order.

What we make here in the US might be used elsewhere, if not in this pandemic, in the next one. Remember the ‘greater good’? In the 1950’s we heard about this in church, in school, in Brownies and Girl Scouts. The greater good was part of the ethos of being human. In the decade after World War 2 families, teachers, leaders and preachers waved high the flag of the greater good. I bought into this, after all, Dad made us clean up trash for miles along our steep canyon road, trash other people mindlessly discarded. He made a spring box to capture water so motorists could cool their engines as they drove the steep grade. We painted rocks white and placed them around the turnout. The rocks soon disappeared. White rocks were apparently needed for some other greater good.

My grandmother folded endless stacks of donations for the less fortunate, my girl cousins and I pitched in when we stayed with her. My mother lobbied for mental health reform and championed new legislation for those who could not afford therapy.

These were the same years the nation rallied to prepare for nuclear war. Another unknown. Another time we had to rely on others’ notion of how to be human. As a society we watch and we wonder, like my totem. If others binge buy toilet paper and water, many others follow. How is this to the greater good? What flag are we flying high these days, decades after the banal fifties gave way to the “make love not war” sixties?

Staying still for a few weeks appears to be very much in keeping with the greater good, as far as the planet is concerned. Pollution is plummeting, if only for a while. My friends and relatives hope new global efforts will emerge that protect our planet and all our people as we climb out of this canyon of isolation. My totem says this is a pretty tall order. While I wait for materials for homemade masks I think of the new personal flag I might sew, and realize my mojo has retracted. I stand holding an empty flag pole. In my tiny realm where I now reside I am queen, I can make a difference, in very small ways. I revert to my favorite mantra I use when feeling most powerless, “I trust myself to take good care of me.” By staying strong I can help others. By staying strong I can carry forward the loving care of countless generations who, in their own way, faced the unknown with tools crafted for what had been previously known.

Here we stand, like this ancient totem, and face our own unknown. Let us keep a record of what we learn, and let us use our wonder and our energy for the greater good.