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Date
5 April
A fortnight after shutdown, on the first night after daylight savings, the household is on video calls. Kiddo is hand-standing with his trapeze troupe. Partner is meeting the new golden retriever puppy of a friend. I wander between the two. They are here but not hearing. It’s the absent presence we now live.
By 5.40 the sun is glowing apricot between the box trees at the end of the lane. It feels right that we should now be eased into an earlier darkness each day. As if winter is collapsing us more and more into this grand internal life.
10 April
Out walking, my lines of sight have become telescopic. I notice things in ones. The tiny gumleaf embossed in what was once drying concrete. A flower defying two adjacent fence palings. A sentinel cat on a low brick wall. How quickly the mind obeys the isolation order.
23 April
Adaptation has made unfathomable things regular now. Our bodies align automatically on footpaths, in aisles and doorways. We shift single file, wait and pass, reluctant to co-exist within the distance of breath. We look for each other in windows decked with teddy bears, in front rooms that have become offices, in dining rooms that are gyms, through open doors that provide signs of life.
A woman sits on a household wall talking to friends through their living room window. The graffiti below her reads ‘Revolution is a Process’.
30 April
Just after breakfast as I head to my home desk, I hear a guy in the lane call out: ‘Thank you, stay safe.’ I hear it and read it often now – ‘Stay safe!’ Safety is now the imperative of choice. And staying. It’s another phrase for our new vocabulary. Isolation, social distance, quarantine, confinement, stay safe, zoom.
A fortnight after shutdown, on the first night after daylight savings, the household is on video calls. Kiddo is hand-standing with his trapeze troupe. Partner is meeting the new golden retriever puppy of a friend. I wander between the two. They are here but not hearing. It’s the absent presence we now live.
By 5.40 the sun is glowing apricot between the box trees at the end of the lane. It feels right that we should now be eased into an earlier darkness each day. As if winter is collapsing us more and more into this grand internal life.
10 April
Out walking, my lines of sight have become telescopic. I notice things in ones. The tiny gumleaf embossed in what was once drying concrete. A flower defying two adjacent fence palings. A sentinel cat on a low brick wall. How quickly the mind obeys the isolation order.
23 April
Adaptation has made unfathomable things regular now. Our bodies align automatically on footpaths, in aisles and doorways. We shift single file, wait and pass, reluctant to co-exist within the distance of breath. We look for each other in windows decked with teddy bears, in front rooms that have become offices, in dining rooms that are gyms, through open doors that provide signs of life.
A woman sits on a household wall talking to friends through their living room window. The graffiti below her reads ‘Revolution is a Process’.
30 April
Just after breakfast as I head to my home desk, I hear a guy in the lane call out: ‘Thank you, stay safe.’ I hear it and read it often now – ‘Stay safe!’ Safety is now the imperative of choice. And staying. It’s another phrase for our new vocabulary. Isolation, social distance, quarantine, confinement, stay safe, zoom.