Diary Entries

We started 2020 with such great optimism, in spite of the terrible fires and drought of 2019 we thought that the start of the new decade would bring better times, our optimism was unfortunately misplaced……… On the 16 March I stopped attending the Gym due to the increasing risk of the Corona Virus, this was the start of our self-imposed lockdown, just before the mandatory shut-down was imposed by the government, my wife Rosemary and I were now a team of two, isolated from our family and friends, so we set about re-organising our life to keep us busy during this lockdown. Before the lockdown Rosemary and I had a busy lifestyle, Gym three mornings a week, U3A meetings on other days and household chores, garden maintenance, shopping and socialising filling in the rest of the week. Our new daily routine now consists of a morning walk for about one hour every second day, on alternate days we do floor exercises to try and keep our fitness up, (well that was the plan but as time went it got harder to maintain). We keep in touch with our family using face-time which we do once a week, it would be nice to do it more often but there is not much to discuss, what can you say that you didn’t talk about last week, it’s nice to be able to see and talk to each other but it not the same as being together, it’s the body language and the sense of being together that really counts, I think social networking is better than nothing but it can’t replace personal contact, or maybe I’m just old fashioned.

Woman with a scowl stretched her arm to maintain the 1.5 metre (naturally, it was less than that) distance as we pass – everyone is a threat or carrier! Then there have been days where complete strangers greet you, something uncommon in our streets. The pandemic has truly brought the best and worst in us. After my meditation/yoga routine, do a few exercises from FitOn. Many benefits of working from home. Now I hop out of bed, my office is right next to it, can keep the distinction between work and home. Spending time with Zoom sessions and podcasts, had almost daily Zoom sessions this week, hectic. Love busying myself at home, Zoom sessions take care of ‘socialising’, sometimes with trivia. Today is library book drop day – so grateful to the rangers. To see this sense of community and service is most heart-warming, go libraries! Have become selective with melancholic news. Donate to Dymocks for books to kids with no access to reading material. Most of the local cafes decided to do takeaway...feel compelled to buy a chai or sandwich. People are trying. Great speaking with Linda in Vancouver yesterday after 30+ years and it took COVID for me to make the WhatsApp call. She emailed and we vowed to do it again! At peace with getting through projects at home. Attempted bread making as love cooking. Will try with cumin seeds and fried onion…can smell it baking already! Weekly movie with Rita as i's Friday, seeing my other daughter tomorrow, yay! Reflect more on how I would like to spend my retirement in a few years – meaningful creativity, continue studying French, reading. My daughters may be living overseas so trips to visit them. Graciousness and greater focus on meaning of life will continue to be my mantra.

Deliriously happy to be working from home. Grateful to be working. The gentle joy of sanctioned isolation. So selfish! Should be tsk tsk-ing about losing the things I love, instead I'm doing the things I love: no small talk in the tea room, no concern for presentation and the shameful secret of neglected hygiene. This is the agoraphobic's dream come true. Covid and it's period of isolation seems to've left everyone in a kind of state of trauma and/or grief, to varying degrees. And, as with any big grief (death of a parent etc) it brings out people's pathologies: whatever pathological psychology was there before the grief becomes bigger and worse. I'm seeing it in many, myself included. My default is to go to ground...which is why being told to self isolate is just gold for me. I've written a song. I'd previously written a couple of poems that were put to music by my guitarist (pre-covid, I was half of a duo that played two evenings a week. It's missed). This one I did all by myself. It's been a relief to not commute and I've spent some of the time playing guitar, learning cords and putting them to these lyrics. And drawing - I've been drawing shells. Both of these artistic pursuits are as secretive as my smelly armpits. It can't be a bad song if no-one else hears it...it will always be the best song I've ever written as long as it remains the only song I've written.

Today I woke up at 8 o'clock. One and a half hours later than usual. Everyone is complaining about Covid-19 and how hard staying at home away from everyone and doing online work is but I see the whole situation differently. Because we stay at home to do work I can sleep in and catch up on all the sleep I've been missing due to waking up early to get to school on time. Instead, I can get my 9 hours of sleep easily and still have time to do my work at night and be at school on time. This situation also relieves me of social pressures like does my skin look ok, what about my hair, who am going to sit with, what am I going to say or how am I going to act. This allows me to just focus on my work and complete it at my own pace but still have time to rest and relax. I've noticed that I'm just a lot happier without having to go out and just feel bad from being tired and all the effort I put into social situations that go nowhere and leave me feeling worse than before. This is just my point of view, but I genuinely don't want to go back. I know I have to but I'm sort of glad this pandemic happened, not because of the virus side of it but the break that we all finally get.

So over the email barrages telling me all the things I can do/should do in iso. My day today (D[isability]1 etc - regular daily medical procedure): up early (D1), fed birds (and me), logged into work, checked on my students -few posts to cheer/prod them; (D2) replied to an annoying email from some staff moaning about slack students not participating - of course they are like me - sitting on the couch binging on DVDS! Reality is some don't have the equipment they need, or reliable access, or are trying to work with five other people in the house also working online on Zoom, or are in the queue outside Centrelink, or scrounging for food and essentials. Some on campus staff need a reality check. (D3) Treated and rebandaged the ulcer on my husband's leg; tried to cheer up a friend having surgery tomorrow - she's a long way from home and worried about her kids. (D4) Had a haircut up the road; (D5) drove to my mother-in-law's nursing home to drop off/pick up her washing - 2 hour round trip. She's fretting, so going back tomorrow for a 30 minute visit; (D6) did the washing straight away to return it then; thought about sneaking her some cheese. Maybe not. Made lunch; set the robotic vacuum cleaner going (she's called Wally - can't always find her); (D7) did some research work; checked my course again; brought in the washing; ordered some sewing equipment online after trawling through lots of useless sites; reported a scam to Scamwatch, (D8) cup of tea, read article about Kant's 'ought implies can' principle, tried to download Covid app again - still can't! Am I 'blameworthy'? Depends on interpretation of his Principle of Alternative Possibilities (seriously???). (D9) Cooking dinner. D10 at bedtime. No time! Sorry.

In 2020 we learned how to not hug. It was something strange for us humans. Always tactile, needing to embrace, and suddenly one day it stopped. We learned how to social distance, which was strange at first. Separate yet bound by a collective experience. The slogans and propaganda were fast. “Stay at home, stay safe, save lives... download the app, get vaxed, we are all in this together...” We listened. We obeyed. We complied, like the good human beings that we are Once upon a time the world was normal. Now it’s not.... The End.

Well, it's certainly interesting, all the shit that's been going on. I was just minding my own business, trying to get through year 12 like every other HSC student, and then we hit the pandemic. You know, when I said that I didn't want to go to school anymore, this is NOT what I meant. I meant I wanted to wake up, holding my HSC in my hand and acceptance letters from universities. What I did NOT mean was to have to try to learn about the nature of light through a blur of tears, sitting at a desktop at home. What do you MEAN, dsinθ=mλ? But, there have been the plus-sides to schooling from home. Namely, Nintendogs. During English at school, I would usually be scribbling notes frantically, trying to jot down the assonance in this specific line, or the metaphysical imagery of the underlying metaphor in that. Now, I can just walk my dogs and win Nintendogs competitions. Who knew that T.S. Eliot poetry could be so fascinating? School aside, it is eerie. Walking into the retail shop that I work at on weekends, seeing the Perspex around the registers, all the signs for social distancing and aisle number restrictions, and the hand-sanitizer bottle that is legitimately tethered to the desk so that people don't steal them. It's a scary new world, and I don't know where we're going to be left when this all blows over. The losses are inconceivable, and the world will genuinely not be the same after this, and I'm not saying that to be a dramatic dystopian protagonist. I don't think we're ever truly going to go back to normal, at least not when this is in living memory. Even when it's not, it should serve as a warning. Beware of the 20's.

This current point in time is strange. Never would I have thought I’d be experiencing a pandemic. Now, I do online learning. I don’t necessarily like it, because days are too short and I feel like I’m drowning in work, though I’m not. However, this isn’t what I’m going to ramble about, because I’m sick of hearing about Covid 19. This morning, I slept through my alarm and no one came to wake me, so I missed my first class. I made a steaming cup of Joe, forgetting to pour a small volume of almond milk. “aaah!”, I yelped after feeling the wrath of Satan unleash on my tongue. Very simply, I burnt my tongue and I’ve been enduring it. With my coffee, I decided to make toast. As I was shaking some cinnamon onto the buttered bread, a decapitation occurred. It was a gruesome crime scene! And I knew I had to conceal the accident before the police arrived. My chest filling with anxiety as I frantically cleaned up my involuntary manslaughter. To my luck, my mother caught me red-handed discarding the evidence. Right there and then, she interrogated me, not letting me leave until the truth was exposed. I sinned. Thinking on your feet is difficult, especially as my mother knows me well, she can tell whether it is the truth or not. I blamed my pet bird on it. I lied, claiming that the small, thirty-gram budgerigar had flown across the room to the kitchen and spilt the cinnamon. Unfortunately, he had an alibi; the cage was locked, and he was calmly staring at the bird in the mirror. I wasn’t sentenced. Just let off with a warning, to remember to vacuum the floor and apologise to the adorable creature that chirps all day long.

I slowly peel my eyes open as they are struggling from the lack of sleep during this quarantine, most nights I lay awake contemplating. How surreal it is, to be experiencing such a rare pandemic, almost lucky yet unlucky. At least we will have stories to tell our future children, "Mummy tell me that story about the time the world went into quarantine." It doesn't feel real... like an unfunny prank. They say it only feels real after you get it, but then it's too late to go back. I close my eyes again... I'm biting into a sandwich and bored out of my mind, I find myself enjoying the sandwich. I taste everything, the sweet notes of the bread, the tanginess of the cheese melting into the saltiness of my ham, the umami coating my tongue in goodness. I think quarantine is getting to me. I find myself quite cozy on the couch, getting ready to catch up on Netflix yet everything seems so quiet, I can hear the 'thump' in my chest, I can feel my blood pumping through my body, I can still taste the sandwich and the juice that washed it down, I can smell the fresh air that the window is letting in. Usually I am too busy to notice these little things, but I am starting to appreciate them. Or maybe quarantine has made me go insane. I think a bit of both. Stay safe during these times x

Well, here I am; writing because a pandemic virus has literally taken over our lives. I can't seem to fathom that this year will eventually be taught in schools in future history lessons. If I ever become a grandfather, I would be able to sit down on my rustic chair warming my brittle fingers with some warm tea, preaching to my grandkids that I was alive "back then." No. I wasn't alive during the world war's, but yes, I was alive when the world was taken captive by the deadliest virus in history. I guess it seems pretty stupid that they might also teach that this was a year my home country, Australia, fell into another one of its droughts. Except for this time, it was a toilet paper drought - providing a whole new definition for the land down under. While people are suffering in hospitals, struggling to breathe. I'm here whingeing when my next vaccination shot is going to take place. Well, if you've gotten this far into my rant on life in 2020. Thank you. Thank you for listening to some random person on the internet ramble on about life. I hope you are doing well. I hope you find a light in what seems to be darkness right now. I hope you are happy :)