Always look on the bright side

I started January with a feeling of brightness.

I was excited about starting a new job. I was delighted that one of my short stories was included in an anthology called “Cosmos, Creation and Caboodle”. I felt rested after a long Christmas and New Year holiday that included ten-hour sleep sessions (excluding naps), and I was looking forward to my 49th birthday.

Then, on 06 January there was a so-called attempted coup d’état in Washington, where people stormed the Capitol Building, to cease power.  Some of them were dressed as forest animals and mythical creatures, and some of them were armed.  We all agreed that had a group of black men caused the failed insurrection, they would have been shot to the floor before you could say “Fox News”.  However, as they were white, they survived.

A truly more metaphorical image of the last days of Trump, you couldn’t have choreographed yourself.  Once these people claimed the seat of power, and won their place in the house of democracy, what did they choose to do? 

That’s right; they took selfies.

At that very moment I decided to give up on January.   I said to January “OK January.  I hear you and I see you and I feel you.   I will not engage with you any further, I will simply return to my sofa where I will consume chocolates and films until you tell me it’s safe to do something else instead”.  January shrugged and said, “that’s fine by me” and that’s just the way we’ve been playing it.

It’s all still awful and shitty and rotten, isn’t it? 

You have your own original boiling pot of piss water to worry about which might include home schooling, living alone, working from home, working on site, being unemployed, losing your home, being sick or dead. I don’t know your details; but I know you’ve had enough.  I think it might be quite helpful, at this stage, to just remember that no one feels like themselves anymore.  Everyone feels a little unravelled and unusual and unwell.  For further proof of this, let me just tell you of one of my human-to-human interactions lately, and you can judge for yourself.

I met an old friend on Monday.

I know it was Monday because I was wearing clean clothes.  She was standing in the queue outside Tesco, but I walked past her because I didn’t recognise her with her mask on.  When she called out, “Ruth, is that you?” I remembered her voice immediately.

Annie and I used to teach together a long time ago, but I had no idea she lived in the neighbourhood and I was delighted to see her.  For a second I forgot that we couldn’t hug or kiss, so I decided to high five her instead.  Sadly, she didn’t seem to know what I was doing, so she put her arm up to defend herself.  This change in trajectory made me hit her across her forehead instead.  In fact, I slapped her across her forehead, with the palm of my hand, with some force. 

She was surprised to be hit like that, but then, due to the entanglement of our arms, I managed to pull her mask down around her chin as well.  In the end she said “stop, please stop” and finally I did.

I was embarrassed by the assault, and too tired to laugh at myself, so I said something awkward about preferring to shop in Aldi and I crossed the road and went away.  If the scene had taken place last February or March, we would have just laughed about it and found it quirky, clumsy, and odd, but mostly funny.  Imagine witnessing that eleven months ago: imagine seeing two middle aged-masked-women standing in a queue outside Tesco, in the rain, air arm wrestling!

Now, we’re all too frazzled and nervous to be able to deal with the oddities of human interaction.  After the shop, I went home to my indoors fictional screen people, who I am far less likely to hit over their foreheads, when they are least expecting it.

I’m at the level of lockdown where last night I watched a film called The Lake House with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reaves, because David recommended it in an episode of Schitt’s Creek.  Actually, it was a lovely film, although I didn’t fully follow which space time continuum theory the film was espousing, but a lovely, warm, enjoyable film it was.

There’s a part of me which believes that we are going to live like this forever. 

We will always work from home, children will never go back to large schools, non-essential retail shops are a thing of the past, and socialising will forever take place in parks and at other outdoor amenities.  Now that I’ve accepted this truth, my brain has told my mind that it’s actually all OK.  So deceptive is my internalised coping mechanism, that I hear myself tell people that I love the quiet of Lockdown 3, that working from home was made for me, and that I love a slower pace of socialising.

On my side of the street there is a never-ending supply of chocolate, films and satirical North American comedy on Netflix.  There are Terry’s chocolate oranges and mint aeros, sticky toffee puddings and pancakes with chocolate spread and strawberries.  There are lakes of hot chocolates with marshmallows bopping around on the surface, and there are profiteroles.  There are Belgian chocolate eclairs and individually sized black forest trifles.  It is still winter, so there are warm comfy blankets, hot water bottles throughout the day, and camel hair socks, that tie up around your ankles.

It’s fine here. 

We are OK. 

I’ll see you here next week.