Someone gave our local statue a new look.
I think it's fair to say we have been somewhat hoodwinked by the planet at this point and that Mother Nature is schooling us on who is really in charge around here, having finally reached the end of her tether with humanity pissing all over her back yard. Who can blame her?
Anyway, it is only April and here I sit, isolated (physically), bewildered by the state of the world right now and trying to imagine what 'normal' life will look and feel like when this is all over, because it genuinely seems that we will never truly go back to how things were. We cannot. The game has changed.
We thought 2016 was a fucker of a year, when we lost Bowie, Carrie Fisher, George Michael, Alan Rickman and my wonderful father-in-law and the Brexit referendum shocked everyone and Trump was elected. All. In. The. Same. Year.
But now it seems that 2016 was a dry run for something much, much worse. Who knew?!
Watching any news channel at the moment is an ordeal. None of the news about this disease (I shan't say it's name because I think we have all heard it at least a million times too many by now and it might behave like Voldemort and draw strength from it) is easy to digest. It is terrifying, significant, weighty and simultaneously gripping because none of us alive right now have seen or experienced anything like it. This is a life defining moment for all of us, and those that survive it will never, ever forget what it did to us and how it changed our lives.
My heart goes out to people who have lost someone, or more than one person, to this virus. Especially because at the moment that will often mean having lost a loved one without having been with them when they slipped away. Grieving in isolation, tormented by the ravaging hideousness of that raw emotion without any standard support mechanisms, without human touch and comfort, without the process of closure defined by a funeral and a wake - at least not one like we are accustomed to.
I reflect on losing Nana last year and how much harder that would have been if I was unable to get on a plane and head back to the UK and physically be with my family, to be comforted in their presence and hold them close and celebrate her life together. It was one of the hardest things I have ever been through, and I never thought, less than a year later I would be feeling gratitude and relief that it happened last year and not this year because of the different and highly distressing experience it would have been.
I feel guilty for this gratitude and relief. We are, of course, programmed to feel guilty when we don't have it as hard as others. Unless you are a sociopath of course. But I note, on social media, where everyone is living their "social" lives right now, there is even more anger and angst and vitriol than usual, and tragedy everywhere, and fear. And I, personally, just want some of the screens I am limited to interacting with (instead of people) right now to not be full of negativity, but to be radiating hope and finding silver linings, and celebrating how people are supporting each other.
So, I have had a cull and blocked or unfollowed a lot of people. They were probably people I should have removed a long time ago (some mood hoovers for sure), but in some respects, this crisis is making decisions easier than they ever have been before, in the name of self preservation.
I have been working from home for around 3 weeks solidly at this point and my god I miss my team, our beautiful campus, I miss walking between meetings, I miss being able to wander into town at lunchtime, I miss the general freedom that we have when things are ok and there isn't a bloody pandemic raging. There are things I never knew I took for granted (all the things listed above for a start) and which I will try earnestly to not take for granted ever again.
For me, I realise how incredibly privileged I have been in my career, especially over the last 4 years with University of Adelaide, where I have had many opportunities to connect with global partners and visit them and work with them, some of them (mainly in the USA) multiple times. I should have been preparing right now for a visit to UC Davis in Sacramento. Just saying those words seems like an insane notion at the moment. This is problematic for me, because I know, logically, that it is going to take a long time for business travel and the higher education sector to recover from what is going on right now, and that means a removal of one of the main sources of joy in my role for an unspecified amount of time.
I am so very proud of my team, who are always a source of joy and support and who continue to make me laugh on a daily basis. We have always, as it happens, engaged with each other fairly socially outside of work hours (on messenger and the like - we have had a team spotify playlist for a couple of years) so adapting to slack as the 'official' channel for this has been pretty smooth, it just feels like we talk 24/7 now because all that happens after business hours is we switch format from slack to messenger and carry on. And the banter is still there, thank god. The last month has been insane in terms of workload, but we are all coping admirably and trying to cut each other some slack (arf) when it is needed. if anything, I would say our productivity has gone up.
And I realise how many hobbies I have neglected over the years and which I am now able to dig out, resurrect and remember why I liked them in the first place. The callouses are back on my fingers from picking up the guitar, I am finding time to play PS4 (and I have awesome friends who have lent us a whole heap of games to play), I am doing zumba a few times a week as exercise (on the Wii), finding time to read and bake and cook more (though I have never stopped those things) and when I get chance there is a blanket to finish crocheting and a scarf to finish knitting. It could be so much worse.
Who knows what the rest of this year will look like, I am trying to rationalise that nobody can know and that we just need to count our blessings and abide by the guidance to keep isolating and thank our lucky stars for science and all the people doing the incredible research to find a vaccine and keeping the front line of health care going. They will be remembered as the heroes in all this.
If nothing else, 2020 is the year when we were all forced to stop, adjust our lifestyle, remember that humans are not omniscient and all powerful, appreciate the things we have, slow the pace and try to support one another. It is not easy or enjoyable, but we will come through this at some point and look back and remember that year when we did the impossible and defeated a virus together. Imagine the afterparty. Imagine that.
So stay safe and do the things that help your mental health right now, there really is a light at the end of this tunnel, even if we can't quite see it just yet.
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