By all accounts we’re not out of the woods yet. The news is full of doom-laden prognostications, whatiffery about the future and our political masters making decisions ‘on the hoof’ so to speak.
We live in an atmosphere of discombobulating ambiguity, our spirits buoyed or dashed by every press release. There’s nothing certain but uncertainty. This is what we call ‘the new normal’.
Actually, most of us are just plodding on resignedly, “living and partly living” as T.S. Eliot put it. The parameters of the individual’s world have shrunk. My social life has contracted to the morning trip for the papers, the once-weekly supermarket run and the (mercifully open) hairdresser’s. Bin collection day is the highlight of my week.
Looking at things in a positive light, I’m spending less – if you discount the astronomical phone bill, my sole means of sustaining much-valued friendships. Except we have little to say to each other since no-one’s been anywhere and in my case, done little or nothing. Yes, there’ve been spirit-boosting occasions, rare as hen’s teeth. Here, an outdoor coffee, there, a socially-distanced lunch where I’m reduced to silent awe by accounts of how others have improved the shining hour.
The parable of the wise and foolish virgins pales into insignificance beside accounts of alterations, renovations and re-decorating; re-designing the garden, baking, jam-making, learning Italian; mastering technology, playing bridge online, joining a walking group; working through a reading list and volunteering. What paragons of virtue they are! I’m listening, sick as a parrot and dreading the polite inquiry, “And what have you been doing with your time?” Well, in desultory fashion, I’ve wiped down the paintwork in two rooms, got exhausted and abandoned the rest. End of….
To be honest, I’ve been pleasing myself and luxuriating in leisure and laziness. I toddle through the days doing the minimum to keep the house germ-free, closing my ears to my mother’s mantra, “Half-hearted equals half-done.” Ever a weak-willed procrastinator, I have elevated doing nothing to an art form.
Sod’s Law decrees the morning I take a lie-in, a delivery van arrives at stupid o’clock. The electricity man must tramp through the house to read the meter in the garage and silently calculate the number of empty Wine Club boxes (so handy for storage) therein. Ditto the boilerman, who’s a bit of a wine buff. A relative with legitimate right of entry will unexpectedly call, to find the kitchen in chaos and neither biscuits or cake in stock for the statutory cuppa tea, because, in the absence of company, I’ve scoffed them myself.
My grand plan for a ruthless wardrobe cull has stalled long since. Begun in May, it got as far as the evacuation of garments, shoes and handbags into the ‘good’ spare bedroom. Floor, bed and furniture have disappeared under a tsunami of stuff, still unsorted, while I decide what I can’t do without. In more reflective moments I think, if (God forbid) anything happens to me, there’s nowhere I can be decently laid out and Daughter Dear will kill me over again for leaving her with a whole handlin’.
Concern has been expressed about the long-term effects of this cursed pandemic upon our mental health. Despite having had the finest spring and summer in a decade, we’ve lived in shadow and a state of unrelieved tension, forced to re-evaluate everything. Personally I’ve been little incommoded by the whole debacle – apart from minor irritants like repetitive strain injury from removing my glasses because my mask steams them up and I can’t see the goods in the supermarket, then replacing them in order to read the prices.
Covid-19 has brought out the best and the worst in people. Hardest hit are the impetuous young, reared to instant gratification, incredulous that this should happen in their time and straining at the leash for fun and freedom. We (ahem!) mature citizens possess our souls in patience, prepare to sit it out and keep on keeping on, knowing that all things pass… eventually.
