I shared this wee story on my Instagram stories last week, but it's still very much with me today and it concerns...doughnuts. Doughnuts have been on my mind quite a bit lately partly because I am craving doughnuts but also because of their rather unique history as a morale boost. During World War I a group of female volunteers were sent to the front lines in France with the mission to boost the morale of the soldiers there. They were confronted with young and wounded soldiers with real problems; these soldiers had wounds both physical and psychological, they needed a lot of things--medical treatment, an end to war, a return to normalcy...but these volunteers didn't have the power to fix those problems. What they did have was some eggs, a bit of sugar and flour; legend goes they even used ammunition shells as rolling pins and they made doughnuts. The doughnuts were a hit with the soldiers; a real morale boost and the men formed long queues to get the fried pastries. Before long doughnut tents were set up all along the frontline. This story reminds me that sometimes we can't solve the big problems, but we can give people (figurative) doughnuts. It's easy to feel useless when we can't fix or help with big issues, it's easy to get overwhelmed and become apathetic. But we all have some resource within us, a bit of flour and sugar, and a way to add some sweetness to someone's day. I wrote in length on my Patreon about the need to talk about other things right now and give ourselves a mental break (as if we are not all obsessively refreshing the news) every once in awhile. I'm sharing calming nature videos, mostly from my archives, every day that I can in my Instagram stories. They're very small things, but I'm trying to make doughnuts and I hope if you've been feeling stuck these last few days you also remember that you can still make doughnuts.
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