Diary Entries

CORONAVIRUS BAG PART TWO ‘They said they thought it wasn’t safe!’ my husband told me, and I blenched. Me, unclean? Me, carrying the virus? I hadn’t just returned, not taken That Cruise, How could they think–but it’s just asthma! Suddenly I knew how Typhoid Mary felt. Suspicion made me a danger even at home. In upset and dismay, my eye fell on my cheery yellow bag, lying on its innocent side there by the pool. And one repeated motif struck me now: with the force of a blow: a nimbus of spikes about a central core, with droplets on each spike. This pretty drawing now seemed ominous, as if my bag had marked me out. ‘J’accuse!’ it whispered loudly. And suddenly the sunshine felt too bright, the shadows darkened and leant forward to remind me that I was mortal too, quite as much as the ants I nudge aside or carelessly flush down the drain when they find the pantry honey again. It’s taken time for me to learn to like my yellow bag once more. It’s still the same, most useful in the rain to guard my goods from dangerous drops. But I never see it now without a glance to check the corona-shapes have not somehow multiplied or morphed unseen by me into the pretty killers striding through our human world creating such a panic, striking such terror that wolves come forth and howl in our streets again.

CORONAVIRUS BAG (PART I) My woven plastic bag was an impulse buy last year in Europe– how fairy-tale exotic that sounds in these lockdown times. Bright yellow, decorated with cheerful graphic flowers, birds and insects– and the logo, of course, written in French, the clincher for me to buy. Just a euro or two–why not, Madame? And sturdy strappy handles. Yep. Back home it soon became a useful souvenir, carrying the phones and water bottle round the garden, sitting on the pool edge; indispensable, really. Then my bag seemed incongruous as the bushfire summer unfolded in all its apocalyptic horror, though it shielded phones and shucked off clothes from several downpours which fingered their wet way inside what now seemed a fragile home. We joined the insurance phone queue. Now the dragon-mouthed winds from round the globe brought not red dust and burnt leaves from our country’s heart but the silent covid killer floating from the breath of– who knows who? Obediently we began withdrawing from those we loved and those we hardly knew. But finally came the phone call to tell us an assessor would come to pronounce upon our growing patches of mould growing more florid by the day above our dining table. At last! I thought as I opened the door one morning to burly strangers in hi-vis jackets. And then I paused and sneezed. And sneezed again. ‘Hay fever!’ I choked out between the spasms. ‘Asthma. All this mould!’ My eyes were streaming. In retrospect, I’d have done the same. As soon as my husband came to squire them round and I escaped outside for my morning swim, I heard their truck start up and off they sped.

Quarantine reflections. As life begins to gain some semblance of normality again, I’m reflecting on our iso-time. With gigs and my EP launch cancelled, I kept myself busy by keeping up our normal homeschooling life (12 years and counting). We got out the dehydrator and made beef jerky and preserved apples and lemons. We picked olives from our trees and brined them up. We planted seeds and my never-been-a-green-thumb daughter decided to propagate succulents. The kids wrote letters and I wrote songs. Hubs worked (in a nursing home) and we marvelled at how risky it felt to go to Woollies or Coles. I played in a pub online in LA via zoom and held live talks supporting others new to the homeschool-game. We set up shelving in the shed - a job we’d been procrastinating for too long and we watched Gilmore Girls and McLeod’s Daughter’s reruns. We read aloud the stories of Corrie Ten Boom and letters by Dietrich Bonhoeffer both imprisoned during WW2 which we found inspiring in a new way. We played lots of card games, drank wine at night and missed our extended families (cherishing the time we spent in online video chats with them instead). We got take-away for the odd date night ‘in’ and I really missed going to gigs as my creative and social outlet. Flowers on the table, journaling, baking and opening up the blinds to let the light in all helped to give me perspective and remind me of beauty. I needed those reminders daily.

I would like to share my experience on ANZAC Day 2020. My partner and I live in a semi rural area with lots of tall gum trees and native fauna. We decided to participate in a drive way ANZAC 'service'. We wandered down to our driveway and there was a small group of neighbours also in their driveways all listening to the service being broadcast by the ABC on their phones. In one driveway, one group of neighbours had a fire burning in a small fire pit. At the end of the service a lone bagpiper plays The Lament and as it came time for this to happen one of the neighbours who plays the pipes, started playing The Lament as he walked out into the middle of the road. He was dressed in his pipe band regalia, everyone turned off their phones and we listened to him playing that haunting tune. So there we were, in this strange time of COVID19, standing in the soft morning light, amongst the gum trees, with the smell of the smoke from the fire, as 'our piper' played. To my left hand side stood a wallaby mum and her joey watching (with interest?). As he finished a couple of magpies perched up in the trees starting their carolling. I know there are many stories of unusual ANZAC services around Australia but that was ours. It was very moving, unusual, and very peaceful. Our thoughts went to those men and women who gave so much.

What isolation? As someone who works in the Public Health Unit in FW NSW life has gone on pretty much as normal, except it's rather focused as opposed to the variety of topics usually worked on. Everyone has worked at work and only now and then looked at ways to escape, especially EHOs who are used to being out and about travelling. They have managed to do this. At home it's just nice to relax and do anything other than COVID19. Living alone it's my time, with cats, and just enjoying not having to make false bonhomie and hug people for no reason. Wonderful. Haven' t really tried to contact people as I'm a "out of sight out of mind" type of person. Even sold my flat in Sydney, getting more than real estate agents thought. Cycling off road with a bunch of friends on Sunday mornings continued, whatever the public gatherings number was. This was complimented by cycling to/ from work as not far and in early days not much traffic. That has increased. Weekends gardening. Saved money as things I attended were closed (Rotary, Gourmet club, hash house harriers, the gym). Worked out I was saving at least $50-60 a week from these, so could spend on takeaway coffees and meals. The only thing did get worried maybe early onset Alzheimers as couldn't remember what day, how did I get to work etc. It really was a hole in my memory. Then another also wondered what day was it? So maybe dementia not set in yet.

Part 2 ...some bits didn't fit the word count. Part 2. Lockdown not so good. 4. At work I am a contractor to my facility. I have not seen a senior manager from my company the whole time. I have had 2 phone calls both asking me to do something for them. No one has called to see if I am okay. All training was done online and was poor quality. No one from my company checked if we we're being given adequate PPE. Our facility has not employed any extra staff. It has been very stressful. I am anxious about the risk of me unknowingly bringing the infection into our facility. I don't know what happens to me if I do, would I go to jail? I don't think I would but I don't know because it is such a witch hunt for infected individuals, at the very least would I get re-employed? And personally I care for my residents to harm them would be unforgivable. But who cares? No one .... So for me the lockdown highlighted two communities. One that is neat comfortable and can connect easily with technology (but is that genuine or just the presentable version of things I wonder?) and the second one which is stressed, anxious and feeling neglected and overlooked. Too many words ... A fitting end.

I look at all the positive, reflective images of the covid 19 lock down and feel sad. Some how I missed that experience. Does my story still count, can I say out loud that the people around me weren't kind and supportive? Here is what happened to me. 1. I work as an Occupational Therapist in a residential aged care facility. Our residents have been in lock down since the Newmarch nursing home out break in March. Management is afraid of that occurring for them. The residents have been asked to not leave the building and can't have face to face visitors. The residents don't connect well using Whatsapp or Facetime. It isn't their thing. The residents are lonely, bored and are feeling unloved and isolated. Yes they are alive but they are not living. It breaks my heart every day I go to work. 2. My mum has advanced dementia and lives in a nursing home in regional NSW. I am not allowed to visit, she can't talk and only responds to non verbal communication cues and Facetime/Whatsapp does not register anything in what remains of her memory. I cannot support her at this time. My heart breaks again, she is my lovely mum and I can't show her my love. One style of communication/connection does not suit everyone. But who is being creative enough to care? 3. At home our new neighbour is doing an imposing enormous renovation/rebuild. The noise starts at 7.15am and ends at 3pm every week day. Concrete grinding, loud music, swearing, yelling and mess all over the front footpath. The builders despite being asked have not changed their behaviour despite my husband and the neighbour next to us working from home. The neighbours on the other side lost their jobs. End Part 1.

Across the road in the bushy street I live a sign appeared on the mailbox. The house this mailbox belongs to is obscured by huge eucalyptus and is wild and ever so slightly foreboding. It read, Teddy Bear Hunt This teddy bear was our aunt’s bear. He is quite old - nearly 85. He was unfortunately has lost an eye. Try and find him in the first side window along the drive way. I never did try and find him. The note in and of itself and the mystery embedded in it was enough. It will stay with me forever and I have a photo as a memento. It was a beautiful response to the community call for placing teddys in windows for our children to spot while in lockdown.

Don, 78, & retired. My wife and I have put the isolation time to good use renovating our garden and orchard. At one time we had not left our property for six weeks. My wife, our gardiner extraordinaire, has kept us mostly supplied with vegetables and fruit, and, with a couple of lambs in the freezer we haven't needed to leave. While there have been worries for family in a country that hasn't handled the pandemic well, the technology of communication these days has certainty helped.

The sun is dancing across my screen as my fingers trip over the keyboard in a feeble attempt to touch type (yet another lockdown skill with questionable results).Birds are quite literally chirping as girls gossip over my head, distant laughter echoing through the courtyard. Its times like these, times when you expect someone to burst into song or frolic in the grass that you forget that anything happened in the first place. Maybe it’s the fact that were all clutching so desperately at the tattered remains of normality. The commodity of seeing real faces again or the burst of joy when you find a single door that hand-sanitiser is not mounted to it taking over our sense of reality. People are still sick, countries are still in lockdown, protests crowding streets and yet the sun is shining. How on earth can the sun still shine? Surely there’s some sort of cosmic deal: no picture-book-lighting when society is crumbling, no glorious days when our world is anything but basking in glory. I suppose that’s all we really have to cling to now, the fact that no matter who says what or who infects who, the sun still shines, the earth still turns, life goes on. But for a while there it seemed like we were frozen. Frozen in some twisted form of reality, a dystopian novel bursting from the pages. We stood dead still as hospitals flooded and death rates rose, as politics became nothing more then tired men and women, mere flesh and bone, clinging on to false promises. Our eyes were glued to our screens, minds racing as we watched. All we really can do it watch, watch as the sun shines.