I feel like I’m in the novel, Catch 22. The narrative is circular and repetitive, much like the days in lockdown.
There’s little to differentiate one day from the other. Nowhere new to go. Very few moments that will be retained in my memory. Another 10 days will make it 10 weeks in lockdown. One day melts into another, melts into another.
This is why time for me in lockdown retains a bendy and stretchy quality. Moments are long, days short, weeks even shorter. Months disappear. There is little to mark the days.
But there’s something lovely about all this space in my head. Ideas for projects, for articles. Indeed, I have more ideas than I do time. I have to factor in that there are days that are good, and days that are not so good. And on the days I’m exhausted for no other reason than this weird existential stress we’re dealing with, I rest. There’s little point in trying to do anything else.
These moods I no longer try and hold and explain and understand. A good day is a good day. A not so good day, well, it’s not so good.
I think when I look back at this, it will be some strange time that I lived through. A time so strange that there are sometimes few words.
Rates are falling slowly, ‘quite slowly’ in government speak. A further 351 deaths, bringing to total to 36,393. This is also the case for those in hospital with Covid-19, and those on ventilators. The rate of infection is either flat or declining, depending on where in the country you are. The R value sits at about 0.7 to 1.0.
It’s likely I won’t be going anywhere for at least a couple of months. Thankfully I like where I live. Thankfully I have lovely neighbours and good friends close by. I’m meeting up with a friend again tomorrow. We’ll wander, we’ll talk, we’ll gossip, all at an appropriate social distance. I’ll take some coffee, she’ll take hot chocolate.
Hopefully next week I’ll manage to catch up with some other friends where neither of us would need to catch public transport.
Here’s to a glorious Bank Holiday weekend.
So that’s it for Day 60. Stay safe, stay well, and stay home!