< Back
Date
I am feeling like a caged animal. Unable to roam. Surveilled by lurking, menacing police. Missing swimming at the Olympic pools in western Sydney, seeing the friendly cafe owners in Granville and Lidcombe for my post-swim coffee. Resentful that I can’t travel interstate, to Newcastle, beyond 5 kilometres from my home. Cynical and suspicious about policing: telling my daughter to “move on” from the beach (sitting on the sand alone) whilst ignoring people, crowded, maskless at the outdoor gym or the maskless people yacking, milling, waiting for coffee. Impatient for life to return to normal. Worried that tracking, surveillance, erosion of civil liberties will continue; vaccination “passport” will be legislated; another outbreak, mutation or new virus will plunge us back in to the abyss. Resent the erosion of free will: I was sceptical of vaccinations, hadn’t had one since childhood, adamant I wouldn’t have a Covid vaccination. Gladys’s and Dr. Kerry Chant’s daily press briefings and their urgings that, “you must get vaccinated” convinced me, as if by osmosis. When this is over, I aim to not put off things until tomorrow, to travel as if there is no tomorrow, take a year off work. I am looking forward to not working in the office; working cheek by jowl, like caged chickens in an office is solid destroying. I think I would tell my future self about this period is, thank god it’s over.