an excerpt from my notebook dated 12/2019.
“Not knowing what to do – not knowing what might happen next. I felt fear for my family.”
I think it is 2050, can’t be sure, my mind is a more fuzzy these days.
Anyway, I’ve decided to ‘put pen to paper’ (as my mum would often say) after a long absence from writing. Strangely, the last time I wrote words of any depth, it was just before the world really changed. At the time I had been compelled to write a piece entitled ‘When fear is off the leash’.
In many ways it was prophetic. In my mind I felt unstable. I was catastrophising. I could sense a sinister future, it’s sharp teeth bared directly at me.
That was thirty ‘odd’ years ago. My words told the story of my struggle through 2019, when I really did feel like death himself was stalking me. Turns out he wasn’t actually stalking me. But I felt his presence so close. My whole being was rattled to it’s core. So disorientated, I felt I had been propelled so far out of kilter I wasn’t sure how I’d ever get back to ‘me’.
To say I wasn’t sleeping well, was an understatement. And the days… well, they were filled with waves of anxiety and panic that would wash over me in an endless rhythm.
And that was before the outbreak!
“I’m waking in the night, my heart pounding.
Something is very wrong.Now it’s during the day. Waves of heart palpitations – I am scared.
But it’s all in my mind. It’s fear and now it has gripped my physical self and is toying with me, torturing me.”
Anyway, where was I?
Hmmmm…
Not sure…
Right now, I’m sitting watching the birds flit around the hawthorn. Always brings a sense of comfort to me. A peacefulness.
Ah, there I was.
It was early 2020.
I was living on a barge with my family on the River Avon – such a beautiful spot – birds and hawthorns aplenty. I remember there had been a succession of storms that winter that caused a swathe of flooding, but this had receded and spring was emerging and so were my family.
There had been other unsettling storms of the non-weather variety. The political ones had been concerning, Britain’s separation from Europe left an air of division and hatred. The Climate Crisis was an unfixable puzzle – nations and businesses were deeply entrenched into a capitalist ideology – how could the world ever be saved? There had also been personal struggles within our family – trying to move on from a traumatic attack.
“Weather systems of fear collide, and I’m in the middle in this boat. It’s immense and dark. There is real panic.”
The arrival of this new storm was met with a range of emotions: not least denial that it wouldn’t amount to much. I was wrong about that. The news had been filtering steadily in of a virus. From Wuhan China, I recall. Then it was Europe, matters gained pace. Cases spreading. A pandemic declared.
We watched the suffering of Italy and Spain. The government here was slow to react, suggesting that the population ‘Take it on the Chin’ and let it sweep across and let the people achieve ‘Herd Immunity’. This phrase stuck with me. The people were ‘Livestock’ milked through everyday taxes, and expendable when push came to Acute Respiratory Disorder. The Government were not for the people.
Both myself and my daughter Erin were emerging from our own battles. I felt strength for the first time in many months, she was rising strong too. I felt proud that as a family we had the resolve and tenacity to face this storm together.
We began self-isolating on the 18th March, we wanted to minimise risks for our family and for my elderly parents who would need our support.
The government called a ‘LockDown’ on the 23rd March. Their delay of real action was criminal. I won’t dwell on the politics – it still stirs anger in my now, so best just to listen to the birds and let it go.
We lived on a barge surrounded by nature. The vessel was old, Iron riveted hull. She was our protector. I liked the ideas of superstitious sailors who believe a ship to be a womb (hence a female name was luckiest for a boat). I felt she would hold us safe until we could be born out into the new world.
We had been there 10 years – we had experienced such an intense experience of life (and death) there. Joy and sadness aplenty. Sometimes I hated it, sometimes I loved it.
I was beginning to love the place again – we worked that garden in those first days and made it glorious – well spring also played its part – but it took on a new shape. It was our positive response to a world filled with negative news.
The place had it’s magic back.
I remember the first time I found the secret place by the river. I rounded the gate and felt its magic then – I felt it repeatedly over the years – a growing sense of peace with each step, maybe it was the arching trees that seemed to guard those passing underneath. Whatever it was it bewitched me. A small wedge of woodland. Imposing granite, ancient oaks, and an old stone wall all whispered differently about time.
An old hunting lodge above which overlooked our river and the flat grasslands beyond, it would have been a rich hunting spot for centuries. A grand Roman Villa buried close by, the river and land had drawn and delivered people for eons. This place had been special to many before me.
This land and river bend had been through so much. I almost felt it welcomed my arrival with enchantment. I felt a draw to the place that could not be shifted, and I went through challenges seven hells to desired could not let this place slip by my grasp I would fight for my place whatever the cost. And now in this new epoch, it was showing it did care for us. Living was tougher, but some how better, more real.
where was I…
I had been on a searching for a mooring space – that’s it. I felt elated