Shelf of broken dreams

What a day, what a week, what a pandemic!

This week in Ireland our three-party coalition government announced the budget for 2021.  Our country has a deficit of 21.5 billion euro which is why we’ve decided to borrow money from the European Central Bank and spend, spend, spend!  Clearly “borrowing money” is the new “saving money” and I’m more than happy to watch this gamble play out in real time.  It’s like me walking into my bank saying, “I have absolutely no money at all, please give me a million euro” and my bank manager responding with the question “why don’t I give you a billion euro instead?”

Spend, spend, spend – your money, not your time!

No sooner had the government informed us that we should be spending as much money as possible to keep the economy alive, they told us not to spend time with family or friends in our own homes.  At least, I think that’s what they said.  It’s hard to keep on top of the instructions at this point.  I believe one of the three men in charge told us that the previous rule of having six visitors per visit, per household was now reduced to zero per household, if you are in a Level Three or Level Four area of the country. 

Or perhaps it was the other way around.

In fairness to the government (and that’s the first time I’ve started a sentence this way), we know what the rules are.  The rules are thus: spend as little time with as few people as possible if you want to decrease your chances of picking up the virus, or passing it along.  Those are the rules.  Those have always been the rules.  Those will always be the rules until we invest in a more equal society.

So spend, spend, spend – your money, not your time!

It’s tricky to spend money in a pandemic.

What do you spend money on once you’ve paid for food and shelter?  The cinemas, indoor restaurants and pubs are all closed, it’s pointless buying new clothes or shampoo, and taxis are death traps.  You can’t go on holiday, the internet does everything else and even I can’t spend that much money on chocolates and confectionery.

Some people have been talking about Covid Fatigue this week and the fact that they are hitting the wall.  I think those people are so optimistic.  Imagine thinking we’re half-way through this thing and imagine thinking that one day it will all be over?  I’ve resigned myself to the idea that I am going to spend the rest of my life watching the lives of others through the internet and group chats.  I am doomed to experience everything either at the wonky table in my living room, or here on the sofa.  Everything I ever see will be through the camera of your machines and I’ll never dance in public to a Prince song again!

Humans love to name and classify things, don’t we? 

We say to one another, “that is a white cloud” or “that is a grey squirrel”, but I don’t have a name or description for what I feel right now. It’s not depression or anxiety or existential sadness, although there are shadows of those things nearby; but I think what I’m feeling right now is…under the weather. 

It started on Monday, when I heard from some Mongolian friends and this set the tone for the week.  I was delighted to hear from them, of course, but as we organised a time and date for a reunion Zoom, it made me kind of wistful too.  I revisited Ulaanbaatar, through Google Earth and visited the university where I used to teach, the Lion’s Bridge and the Wrestling Palace.  As I hopped up and down Peace Avenue I realised how much I missed travelling to new and old places and I craved just one day on the road.

Then I felt angry that Europe isn’t asking Mongolia for advice on Covid management and containment seeing as they currently have zero deaths from the disease.  Mongolia of course, has been containing outbreaks of the bubonic plague since the Middle Ages, so they have a long history of experience they could share with us.  Every summer one or two people die from the plague, but it never leaves the region and they have a wonderful control and understanding of the disease. 

Perhaps we should ask for their advice? 

You should go to Mongolia if you ever get the chance.  I loved living there and learning the things I did.  Even when it was so cold that the water bottle in my bag would freeze or my eye lashes stick together, I loved every day in the land of the eternal blue sky.

I’m just a little bored and mixed up and under the weather, at the moment, and tired of being told, to spend, spend, spend – my money not my time.

I feel like the photo at the top of this week’s blog.

It’s a photo of a corner shelf in my local Tesco and I’m fascinated by it.  Who would decide to put all these things together?  Why would you have all those things in the same place?  Some chocolates near the tooth brushes close to baby food and pot noodles?  Why are those hula hoops there and what is the 18 piece dinner service doing near the floor?  It’s the shelf of confusion, the shelf of broken dreams, the shelf of no clarity and forgetting.  Who stocks this shelf, for the love of god, and what kind of monsters are they?  This shelf has been organised by a mean hearted tyrant, and it very much symbolises the current thoughts in my mind.

Still I’m happy to see you this week, and I hope you know that you’re doing OK.  Week after week of this, month after month of this, season after season of this, you are doing OK.  I’m giving you a little time lapsed hug right now and an appropriate kiss on the cheek. I’m nodding in your direction and telling you once more, that you and I are doing just fine.