Rainbows on Sundays

I used to love Sundays.

Sundays would start with hangovers and coffees but drift into brunches and newspapers effortlessly.  Sundays would involve walks around the city to buy innocuous items such as garlic presses or plant pots.  Sundays might have pints and toasties in Grogan’s and late afternoon chats with friends.  Sometimes, Sundays would have visits to galleries or museums. Sundays could, if you wanted them to, finish up with take-away dinners and films at home, or any slow variations of the descriptions above. 

I’m not sure I love Sundays anymore.

Now that I spend on average 22 hours per day in my home, being in my home isn’t the treat it once was.  Sunday is now just part of the blob of time that has morphed into itself, and proof indeed of the law of diminishing returns.

Sundays at Level Five bring challenges. 

Although, in my opinion Lockdown Two is so much better than the original.  When they said we were moving into Level Five I raced out and bought provisions for the new situation. I bought some cosy warm curtains, eight books, a Bialetti Moka, a meditation cushion and some vanilla scented candles.  These may not sound like the items one would normally buy to prepare for a humanitarian emergency disaster, but I swear to God, that meditation cushion has been a game changer. 

I love my home, I love working from home, and I think I’m quite good at entertaining myself when everything is closed.  Even so, even I may be running low on ideas as we move into the 8^th month of Virus Hide and Seek. I still have my Spider Plantation to maintain, of course, and all the online courses I’ve signed up to.  I love reading and watching season after season of almost anything, and I’ve developed a fondness for documentaries. 

But when is it going to end?

A lot of people claim they love working from home, but when you ask them to explain why they do, they tell you all the things they didn’t like about going to work instead.  They didn’t like the commute or the open plan office, they found the office distractions annoying or found the building too damp or too cold.  I love working from home for its own sake.  I love the comforts of not wearing shoes and socks and the never-ending supply of tea, toast, and snacks, and I love being able to work to my own flow.  Nevertheless, another disappointing thing about the pandemic is that it has removed the joy of Sundays, now that working from home, and Sundays look and feel the same. 

It’s impossible isn’t it?

It’s simply impossible not to mention him.

It’s simply not possible not to mention Donnie Trump.

We all know that Donnie is a symptom of a much more hideous disease. 

Perhaps when he’s not permeating our collective memory with his rants and his tweets, we might be able to find out how and why he was elected not just once, but nearly twice.  Why are some women, people of colour, and working class people voting for a man who clearly hates them?  What emptiness does he fill, what questions does he answer, what hope does he promise?  It seems to me that the only way we can ever find out is by asking them, rather than by continuously shouting at or laughing at them. Perhaps when all the balloons are depleted and the campaign decorations have been put away until next time, we should ask them what’s been going on?

Maybe they’ll be able to tell us, this one time, before it’s too late. 

I wouldn’t want to be Biden right now.

I doubt that Biden wants to be Biden as he inherits the Biggest Kingdom of Crap in the history of the States.  Lord knows it’s always tough starting a new job, but where is he going to begin?  Will he start by trying to return children to their parents at the Mexican border, or will he try and ensure health care for patients with Covid instead?  Might he have a look at some of the environmental issues Donnie made a mess of, or should he look at the horrendous prison-for-profit system first?

Good luck Biden, good luck.

What I would suggest is that Biden makes his working from home area as comfortable as possible in the White House.  Might I suggest he invest in some cosy, warm curtains, a Bialetti Moka, a meditation cushion and some vanilla scented candles.  This will get him started and they’ll be purchases he won’t regret. 

Alternatively (if he can) he should spend time looking at rainbows.

I saw one Sunday when I was walking along the city and it changed my mood dramatically.  I was quite grumpy and irritable beforehand, but as soon as I saw the rainbow, I felt happy and calm.  Rainbows are such beautiful mysteries of refracted light and I love how they are optical illusions you can photograph!  I love that they have no purpose or evolutionary role to speak of and that even though we can just see the arcs, they are perfect, never ending circles.  They appear for a while, their vivid colours so clear to us, and then they disappear without trace.  Our ancestors believed them to be magical, and perhaps they weren’t wrong about that.  I know that whenever I see one, I feel better inside, and I love pointing one out to a friend.

Look Biden, there’s a rainbow!