Entering Lockdown
The UK is entering effective lockdown today. Public space socialsing is over for the foreseeable future.
The various impacts are a kind of exaggeration of changes I was starting to make as part of my recent life-shift so now is a good time to focus on those home-based habits.
I could probably write separate posts about each of these things, but for now, some lists!
Things I am most going to miss, off the top of my head:
Takeaway coffee, omg.
SWIMMING, even more omg. My body’s structure is going to change.
Brunch with friends at the cafe in the park.
Gigs.
Quiet afternoons in coffee shops.
some of my colleagues
Things I am going to do while on lockdown:
more of the things I love, given that the bulk of my weekly activities lists are made up of things that are home-based and/or solitary: writing, music, studying, creating.
plan/research/train for my future career switch. share skills where I have the opportunity.
save money: for as long as I’m getting paid, I’m saving money on commuting I’m not doing, gym memberships I can’t use, food I can’t do and trips I can’t take. I’m going to look for local causes to help as well as build up savings for whatever comes next.
eat really minimally. I’ve had a revelation about how much I was eating compared to how little I really need - that goes for spending money on food as well as calorie consumption. I’ve got about 30lb to lose before I would say I can safely jog and jump around doing workout videos; til then with no swim or gym I’m going to be limited to really long walks so my priority has to be on reducing my intake. This is a major shift for me because I’ll need to embrace the calming sides of isolation in order to overcome the need to eat when I’m nervous.
enjoy living in a really lovely home. I love this flat! keep it clean, keep working on throwing stuff out and making it a super nice environment to be in. relax more.
build up some really incredible daily routines, around the things I love to do as well as the things I want/need to do to stay healthy and sane.
read some of that big pile of books…
It’s a totally different kind of life. I don’t think any of us looked at 2020 and saw anything like this coming. I hope I develop more of a sense of social responsibility, I hope I look for continuously better ways to connect, I hope I can find something to believe in. I hope I can allow this time to make me better.
Found someone, he said:
I want you to feel special.
I want to take care of you.
I will hold you for as long as it takes.
You take me just the way I am, and I’ve never met anyone like you.
I was too scared to tell him I loved him.
Uncertainty
I am not the queen of calm in uncertain times, to say the least.
I take pride in being less risk-averse than my parents, but it’s a meagre accolade.
HOWEVER,
Last year I did something I rarely do, and made a gut decision, overnight, to move house.
Leave my beloved flatmate and my home of 7-plus years and go out on my own.
Not because I had a particular reason, but because it felt instinctively like the right thing to do. Even though it was the hardest thing at the time.
And one thing led to another and I developed a strange feeling of being led. Nothing was the way I had thought it was. Everything was up for grabs. Everything was more beautiful, more comforting, more amenable in this new place than I’d ever have imagined. My anxieties melted. I embraced the feeling of not knowing what the future held, in the belief that what it held was better than what I could have possibly imagined.
So… I quit my job too. For good reasons but not really knowing what I would do, only an inkling.
And a month later here we are and the entire world is not what it was. 140+ countries reporting cases of a new virus. Official advice against all international travel. Half the world working from home. A world I could never in my wildest dreams have foreseen. Testing, uncertain times for pretty much everyone. And yet here and there, opportunities. Time. Ways to show solidarity. New definitions of humanity. Love. The ultimate test of a belief not quite faded.
Perpetuity
Today’s pondering was about how beauty keeps recycling itself.
I can’t believe, sometimes, the frequency with which moments of beauty present themselves in our lives. I’ve been to so many places where I’ve thought, “this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen” only to go on to the next trip or the next walk and be rewarded with more stunning views, or an inspiring chunk of sky, and light and colours and all the things that for me make up beauty. I’ve taken more photos than I could ever have the time to truly appreciating.
I think it’s the same with anything you create too - if you create a song or a book or a painting or even a moment of live performance art that becomes an unforgettable experience for other people, then that’s something that continues to exist perpetually, an inject into the world, an increase in beauty or truth or learning.
It’s an endless stream of beauty, existence.