I'm not sure it's a good idea even to think about what is happening to the planet's social framework. Apart from ast trips to get the groceries at 7 in the morning, I haven't been anywhere for 7 weeks.
I've been forced to think urgently about being dead, since I am in a high risk group. But to be honest, it hasn't changed anything. I have bulbs growing in pots and a beautiful hanging geranium, a thriving new plant (a dipladonia with extraordinary trumpet-like, dark red velvety flowers) on my window ledge, and can find enough to do without going anywhere, though it's hard to be creative when one's stuck with one's own company all the time. Even writing has become a chore.
That said, I'm always alone and have learnt to live with myself (more or less). I notice that I do what my mother did to keep going. It's a challenge she lived with. She had no choice, and neither do I. I also have her painful arthritis and wish I had been more sympathetic in those days. She took 2 aspirin every morning to combat the pain and stiffness. I find I have to resort to a painkiller when I get to the point of almost entire stiffness.... like mother, like daughter.
But I no longer suffer the painful homesickness that used to plague me. The people I was homesick for are mostly dead or have forgotten me anyway and most of the UK is 'foreign' to me. I have no home in the UK. I don't belong there. Thanks to the corona virus, even if I had the cash to go back there, I wouldn't. I am tied to the status of 'foreigner' I had long before the corona virus came up.
I never thought I would commit myself on paper to having lost my roots. Did I find some here? Yes, if children and grandchildren are counted; no, if we are talking of friends, since I have never been able to feel German and never wanted to be in a group of like-minded since I don't really know any.
The chorus I restarted after 2 years abstinence brought back people I know. I have to ask myself if what started out as a fun idea can ever really get going again when this lockdown has run its course. Can I even summon up the creative energy to do it? Time will tell, I expect.
It isn't staying at home (in the small world I have created for myself behind the locked door of my flat) that bothers me, but being compelled to 'self-isolate' as if I didn't do that nearly all the time.
By writing these lines, I have reorganised my thoughts - put them on record I suppose.
I've been forced to think urgently about being dead, since I am in a high risk group. But to be honest, it hasn't changed anything. I have bulbs growing in pots and a beautiful hanging geranium, a thriving new plant (a dipladonia with extraordinary trumpet-like, dark red velvety flowers) on my window ledge, and can find enough to do without going anywhere, though it's hard to be creative when one's stuck with one's own company all the time. Even writing has become a chore.
That said, I'm always alone and have learnt to live with myself (more or less). I notice that I do what my mother did to keep going. It's a challenge she lived with. She had no choice, and neither do I. I also have her painful arthritis and wish I had been more sympathetic in those days. She took 2 aspirin every morning to combat the pain and stiffness. I find I have to resort to a painkiller when I get to the point of almost entire stiffness.... like mother, like daughter.
But I no longer suffer the painful homesickness that used to plague me. The people I was homesick for are mostly dead or have forgotten me anyway and most of the UK is 'foreign' to me. I have no home in the UK. I don't belong there. Thanks to the corona virus, even if I had the cash to go back there, I wouldn't. I am tied to the status of 'foreigner' I had long before the corona virus came up.
I never thought I would commit myself on paper to having lost my roots. Did I find some here? Yes, if children and grandchildren are counted; no, if we are talking of friends, since I have never been able to feel German and never wanted to be in a group of like-minded since I don't really know any.
The chorus I restarted after 2 years abstinence brought back people I know. I have to ask myself if what started out as a fun idea can ever really get going again when this lockdown has run its course. Can I even summon up the creative energy to do it? Time will tell, I expect.
It isn't staying at home (in the small world I have created for myself behind the locked door of my flat) that bothers me, but being compelled to 'self-isolate' as if I didn't do that nearly all the time.
By writing these lines, I have reorganised my thoughts - put them on record I suppose.
No comments:
Post a Comment