Diary Entries

Because of my age, my boyfriend tells me that I mustn’t go out, so I am now housebound, an involuntary ‘houseboy’. My rewards are that he does all the shopping, and we do, however, go for a half hour walk later at night, when there is virtually no one around; we wear our face masks, just in case. For someone like me, living in Darlinghurst and used to plenty of activity all the time around on the streets, it is now an uncanny sight on these walks through the darkened city, of so few cars and all those empty buses going by, a few similarly-masked people walking along on the deserted footpaths, and the only other movement being the food delivery riders, like hunched ghosts peddling by in the night, their packs of much anticipated tasty morsels suspended on their backs. My gym is closed, so I am getting fatter. This is partly because of less exercise, but also partly because I have taken to trying out new recipes to fill in all that unexpectedly available spare time. But all it has given me is a spare tyre. As a way to overcome the isolation, a group of us have started exchanging jokes and videos about the epidemic. Most of them are very funny, although some of them are clearly ‘Not for Public Distribution’. Some of us have also developed a ’book swap’ group. We post lists of what we have just finished and what is available, and those of us who are still allowed out [the ‘youngsters’, those in the fifties], do the deliveries. Technology helps. With two smart phones, an iPad and a laptop in the apartment, my partner and I are managing reasonably well, and my friends are just a What’s App away. We will survive.

Part 2: Autumn 2020 Still reeling, spinning in this great sadness, the strains of a distant virus veer us towards an autumn of austerity, anxiety. Towards a ring a round of facemasks, a handful of sanitiser. No symptoms, no symptoms So many, fall down! In the blink of two weeks, the budget and the imperative are in reverse: From “Evacuate! just leave home! To “Isolate! Just stay home!” Just stay on the line at home! (Do not line up at Centrelink!) Pollies pontificate, calculate, finally COLLABORATE! Obediently the people self-isolate! From their stage, heads of state Postulate. Self-congratulate! Bump elbows, shake hands! “Didn’t they just say…?” Ours is not to reason why? Ours is not to make reply. Ours is but to” …try not to die! Don’t forget to wash your hands mate! Before you thumb through the scripted flipchart of ‘Canned Responses to Difficult Journos'. “Hang it all, surf’s up in Bondi!” Beach is closed! Ours is but to …self-isolate, ruminate, procrastinate. Teach our children, debate the merits of yet more screens. More screens, but no screening for the virus, yet! Panicked, people hoard loo rolls, pasta and rice. “Stop it! Just stop it! It’s unAustralian”. Profiteering politicians hoard oil. Store it! We’ll store it in Trump Barrels It’s for Australia! In collective insanity we vacillate now racked by global grief, now laughing hysterically at bald faced hypocrisy. But mostly, we feel loss. The acute loss of those who die ALONE. A loss exacerbated by the callous disregard for the common man and the uncomfortable, fidgeting silence across the Atlantic. Season upon season of sadness we isolate, hibernate, separate. Separately desperate we medicate on caffeine and wine. Trying not to whinge and whine, for we are the lucky ones. As it turns out, today we are the lucky ones!

In early March 2020 Coronavirus seemed a far off threat. I pondered what it might mean for my future and contemplated what seemed the unlikely possibility of my workplace closing down and the loss of my casual frontline customer service position. Today I applied for Jobseeker.

Seasons of our Sadness Part 1: Summer 2020 It seems overwhelmingly endless, our Season of Sadness. Dazed, we spin like children on a merry-go-round of rings and rings of fire and hosepipes full of water, smoke clouds and ashes and trees raining down. We hardly notice as spring melts into summer. A summertime where the living is uneasy, flames are jumping and the temperatures are high. Unsettled we watch, wide eyed we wait. Our nostrils filling with the acrid smell of smoke, our eyes with tears, from the brown haze that hovers over everything, as the trees rain down. All spring and summer long the cry echoes from state to state “Evacuate! Evacuate! Evacuate!” And all the long while the pollies deliberate, ruminate, speculate. Carbargo residents irate with hands-in-pocket leaders who procrastinate! Can’t they see? Don’t they know? Fitsimmonds and the firies are our heroes now! Surrounded by megafires and hosepipes with no water. Exuding smoke and ashes, a hundred homes burn down. Lives destroyed around us as a hundred homes burn down. Apocalyptic, summer casts a black towel of terror across our shoulders as voracious flames lick at the salty waves of holidays. Abandoned, stranded, vulnerable we take to the water. In fires past we counted only human homes, human lives lost. This spring, this summer when the trees rained down, our collective conscience tells the toll of helpless beings whose feathers and bones lie washed up on the shores of inaction. Our inaction. Our missing in climate action.

The Covid-19 has been a new and traumatising experience for me. My school stopped and I couldn't get visits from my family. I was worried about family and friends because they might get it. At school, I was stuck on my unit everyday. We had to wash our hands all the time.

What Isolation looks like to me through the covid-19 pandemic. I am sitting in my room thinking about this covid-19 and I see on the news everyday people are all in isolation. They are not allowed out to they get test results. People are not allowed to ride, walk, drive around with over 3 people. This is what isolatron looks like to me in lockdown, we have to use sanitisers every day. You have to keep your room clean. I'm sitting behind these concrete walls and I am imagining I was out and I was riding my dirt bike. It makes me feel free not locked down. This button in my room is blue, when I press the button it turns off my TV and my light. In my room ,I have a table and a seat. One day I was in a Unit wearing a green shirt, then I got moved to another Unit and they have dark blue shirts. On the outside, I don't wear a collar but in here we have to wear a shirt with a collar. Every boy in the centre have to wear Dunlop shoes. Being in here made me feel safe, cause I'm away from the covid-19.

Before the pandemic, my brother and my dad had moved away, and they were going to come back for a while on my birthday. Unfortunately, due to the travel ban, they couldn't come down. They said they would come as soon as they could to make sure they could still celebrate my birthday even if it was a little late. I really hope it all ends soon, so I can go back to school, and see my brother again. 2020 hasn't been the best year, but maybe it'll get better, and everything will go back to normal and just the way it was before, because I don't think I can last much longer stuck inside. I hope everyone stays safe inside,

Hello to the reader My name is Jasmine and I live on the 7th floor of an apartment building in Wolli Creek. I have lived there for all my life but I have always hoped to move to a house and get a dog. When Covid-19 became public, I had just started year 7 and was getting to know people. Then suddenly we all had to go home and stay home, not meeting new people or talking to anyone other than my parents and little sister. It's quite hard to do my work at home with her jumping on my back and pulling my hair all the time. The worst thing about covid-19, in my opinion, is that this is my first year of high school. Isn't the first year meant to be about making friends, meeting new people, getting settled for the next 5 years of learning? I had made 4 really good friends and was about to try and make more, and annoyingly I can't even talk to anyone in private anymore, not to mention making friends. and this goes for anyone doing anything. I feel especially sorry for children starting pre-school and kindergarten, who have just started a whole new stage in their life. Once they start to go back again, it will be the same as before, meeting everyone again. That also goes for anyone who was trying a new job or doing anything big. If you have read this far through my entry, thank you for paying attention to my words. I know these are hard times, but we can do this! Humans have survived up until now, we can survive this too. Don't loose hope. Yours, Jasmine 😉 (✿◕‿◕✿) PS. Don't be sad about this because sad backwards is das, and das not good.😜

My name is Kate and I am currently 12 years old. I live in Rockdale which is where i lived for all my life since I was a baby. I go to a high school in Kogarah which is just a few minutes away from my house. My school is called 'St George Girls High School'. During COVID-19, I just stay at home ,unfortunately, doing school work but at least I don't have to go out with those germs. I sometimes have a walk around the block so I don't turn lazy and I go back home doing skipping or hula-hooping. During the holidays, I slept a lot until 10am and then I played on my phone and I was living my best life. The weather was good so my mood was 100% happy. I also played some piano and learnt a few songs including BTS Epiphany and 'River Flows in You' by Yiruma. He is my favourite pianist also including Beethoven. After the holidays, I went back to online school learning which, to be honest, is much more better than real school learning since I don't have to carry my heavy bag all the way to school and I can eat during my lessons but the bad side is that I can't see my friends. I miss my friends and teachers and sometimes, I hope I can come back to school again.

Dear Reader, This is my second entry, but I have realisied something I failed to write about before. Life is an adventure. It is wonder. It is beauty. Live it. Feel the wind in your hair, the pounding of your feet on pavement as you run, hear the rain pattering on your roof, the laughter of the moment. Because that’s what life is made of; moments. Be grateful for all you have, and stay hopeful. ‘Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.’-Suzanne Collins. Life is a gift, a precious gift, and remember to look around at everything you have every once in a while. We all have someone who loves us, don’t take them for granted. We all get opportunities, take them. Every sunset, every sunrise, every leaf, every person, every word, it matters. It all matters, that’s what I’ve learnt from this.