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We’re just finishing Week Four of ‘lockdown’. It’s a blue sky day here in Sydney- unusually warm for Autumn. The sapphire harbour is devoid of cruise and cargo ships, airplanes have been replaced with Rainbow Lorikeets, the normally chock-a-block road to the harbour bridge is lightly freckled with vehicles. It reminds me of the Sydney I grew up in. It was a simpler, slower time where kids ‘swam’ under garden sprinklers.
Some say that ‘we’re all in this together’ but depending on your support and finances some are more ‘in this’ than others. Many of us have lost our jobs. Yet life goes on. My elderly mother broke her hip, my daughter had a Zoom birthday, my son’s far away. A friend of mine is constantly checking her temperature because she says ‘I have the worst combination of vulnerabilities- menopause and hypochondria.’
Despite our differences we’ve also shared a lot in lockdown- in particular the tides of emotion. At first, we were almost festive, like the entire nation was heading off on a camping holiday. But then very quickly anxiety grew. With the barrage of change and uncertainty people stopped acknowledging each other in the street- as though a shared smile could spread the virus.
Today we’re smiling again as there’s talk of easing restrictions. But there’s also talk of an oncoming economic depression. Seems we’ve endured the python section of the game only to now face the quicksand.
But as yearning grows to get life back to normal some are also wondering just how great that ‘normal’ was. For many it seems that this stressful, confusing, financially uncertain period has been such a rare period of connection that it reminds us of a time we didn’t know that we’ve been missing ever since we were kids under that sprinkler.
Some say that ‘we’re all in this together’ but depending on your support and finances some are more ‘in this’ than others. Many of us have lost our jobs. Yet life goes on. My elderly mother broke her hip, my daughter had a Zoom birthday, my son’s far away. A friend of mine is constantly checking her temperature because she says ‘I have the worst combination of vulnerabilities- menopause and hypochondria.’
Despite our differences we’ve also shared a lot in lockdown- in particular the tides of emotion. At first, we were almost festive, like the entire nation was heading off on a camping holiday. But then very quickly anxiety grew. With the barrage of change and uncertainty people stopped acknowledging each other in the street- as though a shared smile could spread the virus.
Today we’re smiling again as there’s talk of easing restrictions. But there’s also talk of an oncoming economic depression. Seems we’ve endured the python section of the game only to now face the quicksand.
But as yearning grows to get life back to normal some are also wondering just how great that ‘normal’ was. For many it seems that this stressful, confusing, financially uncertain period has been such a rare period of connection that it reminds us of a time we didn’t know that we’ve been missing ever since we were kids under that sprinkler.