Despite new directions to work from home if possible, no concerts, plays, or theatre, no gatherings of more than two people and physical distancing, my new life isn’t actually too different from my old one so far. I’m still going in to the office, although only three days a week. I’m riding my bike, perhaps even a little more than I used to. The girls seem to be adjusting well. And I’m trying to maintain a fairly similar routine which is helping me feel centred.
Routines have been recommended as an important part of wellbeing. This makes sense, it gives the day a rhythm. I’m incorporating into my working day things that I enjoy, things that give me a sense of satisfaction, exercise, meals, time with the girls, time watching TV and time reading. I’m listening to my favourite podcasts: Chat 10 Looks 3; All in the Mind; the Mindfield; and Conversations. I’m also enjoying some new ones: Tall Tales and True; the Eleventh; and Everything is Alive. These are (respectively) true stories told by a diverse range of Australians; an engaging series about the Whitlam dismissal and its contributing factors; and a series in which objects like a lamppost in Brooklyn and a generic can of coke are interviewed about their perspectives on humans and the world. The new ones have delighted me, the old ones engage me too.
I’m reading through a stash of books I borrowed from the library just before it closed: some essays called The Rub of Time by Martin Amis and a memoir by a Polish bookseller living in Berlin at the time of the Second World War called No Place to Lay One’s Head by Francoise Frenkel. I’m looking forward to reading Julia Baird’s new book Phosphorescence which has just come out.
I’m happy to be saving money from the free parking now offered at the mall near where I work, although I miss not riding in to town followed by a meditative bus ride. It’s sad that my favourite café is closed so my Friday treat of eating there isn’t possible, but the bakery stocked with fruit flans, apple or blueberry pies and strawberry tarts is still open (‘we sell bread so we’re classified as an essential service’) and I’m treating myself to one of those one day each week. I’ve been riding around the lake in recent weekends and listening to podcasts as well as catching up with old friends that I haven’t spoken to for months or years, which has been invigorating.
The new arrangements have prompted many people to reflect on what’s important in their lives and in the world. For some reason this reminds me of Robert Dessaix’s essay about travel, in which he explains how a key pleasure of spending time in an art gallery, and travel, is the sitting down and resting at a café in between the hours of sightseeing. To me it’s another example of the balance between work and play being important, even during play. So for me, work is still the necessary counterpoint that gives play its sweetness, so I’m grateful to still have work, not just for the money, however challenging it can be.
The girls have extended our living space at home to the roof, which is a pitched one, after they cleaned out the gutters for us last weekend and have left the ladder to their adventures still leaning against the house. The autumn leaves are magically golden and red and they glint in the warm sun, even as they are gradually falling off our big Manchurian pear tree. We sat beside it yesterday, eating the strawberry sponge cake Maggie made together with her. Lotus’s completed cat run was beside us, where Lotus periodically popped up to bask in the sun.
The day after tomorrow will be a new term which will start at least with online learning, and as it’s my day off I’ll be available to help the girls ease in to it. Lara described the experience as weird, but as big girls with their own rooms, desks and computers, it’s going to be manageable I think. The Saturday Paper includes a story of how disadvantaged students with inadequate support and sometimes inadequate home study spaces will be further disadvantaged by online learning. Lucky girls, that’s not us.
I’ve registered to participate in an Australian Twins Registry survey series tracking the short and longer-term impacts on Australians of COVID-19, whether people get it or not. I did the first month’s questions, including asking us whether we think we’ll get it and what the likelihood is of us dying if we do. It’s also measuring community connection, depression, anxiety, resilience, compliance with recent directions and job status.
There have been some positives from the experience, and as we soldier on, I hope that the world will apply the best lessons to the climate emergency we will still be facing when restrictions are over.
The science and community-based response to this crisis needs to be used for that one.
