Since I last wrote, life has started to feel a little more normal.

We are still in “lockdown”, but many of the restrictions have been eased.  Crucially, we are able to see our friends and families again, albeit at a distance, outdoors, and certainly not in large groups.  But still, that alone is a very valuable something.

The death toll has continued to grow, but is slowing.  For the most part, society seems to have accepted both the challenge – and the need – to be socially distanced, and this is helping.  Businesses and hospitality outlets are there for us once more and we each draw comfort from the familiarity of this.

The smell of pizza by Faversham Creek and the ability to take it home with you.

The technician booked in to come and do the repair.

It still remains tough for everybody, especially health workers; and leading on from my last post, I do not see fit to draw any kind of comparisons, or surmise that there is anyone out there who is not still battling against the pandemic in some way.  But here are my own personal thoughts and reflections, which may resonate with others.

It’s perhaps only now, when the lockdown – in its strictest form – is a thing of the past, that I realise how huge and how difficult those few weeks in March and April were.  Weeks without seeing anybody I love in the flesh at all.  Weeks when telling a random stranger in passing that he had a cute dog was the limit to the social interaction I had away from a screen.  When 8pm on a Thursday was a rare opportunity to see evidence of life outside the window.  When I felt naughty just for looking through my parents’ living room window whilst dropping off some items.  Weeks when I knew that no matter how hard I was finding it all; millions had it worse.  Weeks of feeling like I didn’t have the right to feel sad about any of it because of that.

In June, we might be able to see people again; but the problem hasn’t gone and neither has the emotional friction.  We still can’t go in to or stay in anybody’s homes that aren’t our own, so if your family and friends live hours away, which is the case for most people I know, this doesn’t really make a lot of difference. And unless your loved ones live either with you or within walking distance, that purifying cry, hug and bottle of wine (actually, sod it, make mine a Buckfast) which we want – and deserve  – to share with them will also have to wait.

And it’s because of things like this that the current time feels somewhat purgatorial: neither a beginning nor an end, but a wobbly drawbridge between the two, where we’re still very much afraid of falling off, and so are treading with caution.  Yes the end does now seem in sight, but by now we are all much the more weary from carrying our individual little suitcases of trauma to the point where our hands are really starting to hurt.  Many are bereaved.  Many are without jobs.  Many have seen their relationships fall apart under the pressure of lockdown.  Many are lonely.  And many others have just had way too much time to think.

And at a time when we are so much in need of coming together; we are learning – through incidents unrelated to the pandemic – how fractured we still are as communities and societies.

And that just makes this sad situation feel even sadder.

I still very much believe that there will be massive positives – globally- to come from the various struggles of 2020, which wouldn’t have been possible without them, but it feels far too early and uncomfortable to be looking at it that way just yet.  Nonetheless, it’s good to keep that in the back of our minds.

There has to be some good to come from this.

There will be some good to come from this.

Until then, I’ll be keeping myself occupied with good books, good music, online quizzes (becoming a pro – as are you – and her – and him – and them), YouTube videos about the twenty flavours of Pringles that I won’t believe exist…

…and dozens of air-hugs.

Song of the Day:  Thao & The Get Down Stay Down – Pure Cinema

Everything about this – the song, the lyrics, the video – is simply breathtaking.