Diary Entries

My wife and I are both retired and live at Dolans Bay. We spend quite an amount of time mucking about in boats along the Hacking River. Weekends were always too busy on the boat ramps and river so we always went out only during the week days. Plenty of parking and the waterways were quite. Since the lock down and extended school holidays there has been a great change. The number of boats out and about in Port Hacking during the week has increased on average about ten fold. People are so restricted with regard where they can go and what they can do many have realised how good and how safe weekday boating is. What a change.

As I sit here thinking about what I am going to write, despite all of the devastating negative impacts COVID-19 has made in some people's lives, lots of positive thoughts come to my mind from this pandemic. This is because being locked up for the past month has felt more like a holiday than a global pandemic. Although it can get boring being locked in my home all of the time, I have realised how nice it has been to spend time with my family, try new things and to just relax. When COVID-19 first started I was very worried about what was going to happen because my mum is a front-line health care worker and could potentially be with people that have Coronavirus. This terrified me because I didn’t know what was going to happen. It is so good to see the support, love and kindness everyone is showing through these tough times, and it shows how much we can accomplish by working together. Think about this time as an opportunity to help others and to reflect on how we can make this world a better place. Because who knows what's going to happen next.

I read something the other day that mentioned that other than fight-or-flight, our bodies have one more trick up their sleeve for stressful situations: play dead. That was my default after being stood down from my job because of the pandemic. I had no motivation to get anything done; I was lost and existing in a haze of Netflix-Instagram-Stan-Twitter-repeat. Giving myself time to just exist, though, turned out to be exactly what I needed. Instead of beating myself up for not getting that six-pack, starting a side-hustle, spring-cleaning my home or changing the world, I took stock of what I have and where I want to be after all this. I pulled out old books that gave me new perspectives, found a new love for my studies, walked the dog in the sunshine in the middle of the day, started making French press coffee instead of instant, started practising pilates, bought myself a new journal, and finally started working with my body clock instead of against it. I’m embracing the fact that I’m not a morning person now, giving myself time to drink my coffee slowly and read. I start my uni work later in the day, ramping up in the afternoon. I stay up later, reading, journaling, watching shows that make me think and feel things. I spend quality time with my brother and my partner, cook dinner and clean up before bed, ready to start the next day organised and fresh. I know the world is upside down and I can’t imagine how hard it is for some people right now. I'm lucky, in so many ways, but especially at the moment, because I can't help but think that this whole thing has been a much-needed reset for me.

En castellano o español es más fácil escribir como ha cambiado la vida en estas ultimas semanas, eternamente esperando noticias diarias de mi madre, tan lejos, en otro continente y nosotros sin poder viajar. La tristeza diaria en la espera de buenas noticias, que mi mami amaneció sin fiebre, que si está bien como ayer. Quizás es uno de esos pacientes que no presentan síntomas. Mis maletas ya preparadas y las de mi hermana también. Quizás podamos viajar en Julio, pero que tal si la frontera de nuestro país permanece cerrada. Quizás podamos viajar cerca de la navidad. Yo se que tarde o temprano mi mami se nos ira para siempre, como dicen es la ley de la vida, para entonces estaremos con ella hasta que se la apague la velita como decimos nosotros. La vida continua sin detenerse, el sol sale en la mañana como si nada ha ocurrido y continuara por milenios con la misma rutina, pero nosotros pequeños insignificantes ya no estaremos aquí. Bueno como dicen los latinos al mal tiempo buena cara y así ha cambiado mi rutina y hasta me encuentro en mejor estado físico por ya no voy a la oficina, salgo en la mañana con mi perro Guau, somos afortunados porque ya no vivimos en la ciudad, estamos cerca de los parques y pequeños riachuelos. He notado como las aves Ibis se ven limpias and pacíficas, no hay basura para comer así es que han decidido como yo comer mas saludable. Saludable en lenguaje Ibis es más gusanitos del estero y en el proceso de extracción de gusanitos oxigenan la tierra. Mi jardín se ve lindo, pero mi corazón se derrite lentamente como la cera de las velas. Yo creo que necesito un café con varias cucharadas de azúcar.

TOTALLY OVER COVID "I'm totally over Covid!" Said the pretty girl into her phone. I came home and told my beloved, Who said, "She isn't alone." At the risk of becoming a moaner I'm totally over corona. I'm feeling just like the phoner, Who certainly isn't a loner, Becoming bovine or bovid - We're Totally Over Covid. SEE http://balconyfever.com

One day a long time from now I hope to have kids and when that time comes I want to be able to tell them of the year 2020. That it started with bushfires that tore through Australia, then the next thing I would remember is self-isolation and Covid-19 Hopefully by then I would have published my first book and I would tell my children about the first novel I ever finished. 'I was in high school,' I would say to them. 'I was bored in the classes that I had to have over Microsoft Teams because the world was in self-isolation due to a pandemic, the first one in about 100 years.' I would pause and they'd ask questions and I would try to remember more clearly. 'Everyone had told us that this was a great time to do something. I would see the world outside, people were running and sometimes I would take out on my shoes, but end up never doing anything. I got bored, bored of Netflix, bored of the constant news of Covid. So I wrote a book to distract myself from my anxiety and loneliness,' I would say this, but the young kids would want to know about whether anyone came back from the dead as Zombies and I would laugh, nod and maybe tell a made up story of a zombie apocalypse. I'd tell them about them about the novel I wrote and about the videos we saw of the empty cities around the world. I would tell them about the hope everyone had in the middle of this crisis that the environment was able to repair itself so fast. I have a lot of stories, real and fiction, but this experience is our story.

This moment in time. Imagine being stuck at home with nothing to do for reoccurring months. Just twiddling your thumbs and being bored to death. Oh wait, that’s what we’re experiencing today. Days drain on and on. It’s like we’re robots repeating the same thing every single day. Eat, sleep, repeat. People might say that a nightmare is a creepy clown chasing you or being cornered by zombies. But when I think of a nightmare, I picture the coronavirus as today’s spooky story. Well, maybe that is a fair bit exaggerated, but it isn’t the most pleasant thing in the world. There is 3.76 million confirmed cases and 264 000 deaths of the virus in Australia today. When will this end? Well, will this end? Fortunately, the spread has slowed down. I have learnt many things from this experience. One of them is to not to take things for granted. I miss being able to go out and enjoy myself at any place, not just essential services! My mind can’t make up which direction it’s going in. Is it the road to boredom at 200 km/h? Or is it on the relaxed road? Then will it take a U turn and land on school tension and stress road? But it’s okay, my brain can use a little traffic jam now and then. I would tell my future self to enjoy exploring outside, travelling to places and spending time with friends. Because out of nowhere a virus might appear.

Not that long ago I made a diary entry because I had felt like this coronavirus was such a nightmare, however, now I am looking back to it and it isn't so bad to what it actually is now (in the future). 20 March 2020 "Hey diary, since 2014 the relatives have come to Australia and they loved it. This year our trip over there has been cancelled due to this conflict in COVID. The whole of Italy is in lockdown and I haven't been able to sleep properly because of how worried I am. In another 2 months I will be turning 13, but yet again I don't know whether it will be cancelled. Year 8 is different... I guess a nice kind of different, but one thing I need to know at the moment is that things do get better... Later diary." Well after reading that you would never of thought about what we are going through only 2 months after! Now I am waking up at 8:55 in the morning and quickly getting ready before school starts, crazy right. Well, you are right I guess. If I were to make another diary entry to match the other one it would go a little bit like this... 8 May 2020 "It's me diary, but this time I'm here writing because I read my other entry and... I just don't know, right now at the minute I'm writing for my English task and I'm at home! Yesterday our car lost a battle fighting against a kangaroo and I still don't know whether I'll do anything for my 13th birthday in 11 days. We have had our good things like being a happy family and staying safe from coronavirus. But I guess sometimes things get worse. Later" But imagine without...

Life is bleak. A disease that started thousands of kilometres from us that we never thought would affect us is now forcing us to stay home and away from others.

I am a working mother of 2. When the Covid-19 crisis hit in January/February 2020, my anxiety levels went through the roof. Both my children are in primary school, I work in administration in a High school and my husband works in Medical Centre IT. Schools in NSW didn't close. We are open for essential workers, and as I am expected to go into work everyday with no work from home option, nothing has changed for us with this crisis. My anxiety is extremely heightened. I am using as much protection as available to prevent infection. We have masks and gloves but the children do not wear them at school. Washing hands has become a requirement at every possible opportunity. When we arrive home at the end of the day we change our clothes and wash our hands and faces. I wash clothes every day and am acutely aware of what we touch and I have become OCD with cleaning the house and doorknob hygiene. Most of the world is in isolation with work from home options and boredom videos and 'things to do in quarantine' filling the internet. I long for this. I want the quarantine. I want to be at home with my children, keeping them safe.