I was vaguely listening to the 7am news this morning and heard discussion about a future phased lifting of the lockdown. We heard that it was looming in Italy and Spain and there was even talk of it actually happening here within the foreseeable future. My first reaction was that if they were lifting the lockdown I should get up and get dressed and fetch my coat, then I heard that we septuagenarians would retain our shackles, so contentedly I went back to bed again. I’m becoming used to the shackles and the long lead that lets me wander among the wild garlic now clustering white in the local woods, so I felt quite alarmed at any prospect of an early parole. It hasn’t taken long to become institutionalised and, as I said yesterday, or was it the day before, facing life beyond our cocoon is frightening for this little butterfly. I don’t want to be that busy again and I am genuinely scared of this disease. Back in the Before we were told it was only a mild form of flu. I suppose we don’t hear about the mild flu cases, but we’re all hearing of neighbours being seriously ill for weeks. I don’t want to be shoved without benefit of mask, vaccine or tests into the madness of a Sainbury’s queue.
However, I keep being told that’s not going to happen, and when it does I’ll be more than ready. By then we’ll be desperate to get into a concert or cinema, a pub or cafe. Eager to shake hands, embrace and sit beside someone. It’s difficult to imagine such a social scenario; it seems as sci-fi as a lockdown once seemed. Do ‘The Hunger Games’ feel real, what about ‘Star Wars’ or ‘War of the Worlds’? Imagine Orson Wells on radio announcing that the whole economy was going to be locked down because of an out-of-control virus. Would we have believed him? Corona was a fizzy drink that was delivered in bottles by the milkman where I lived. What we are living is a movie-maker’s fantasy. This was purely fiction now it isn’t. And of course rising sea levels, furious storms, drought and wars over water supplies are science fiction too! The exclamation mark is to denote the fact that I am being ironic, just in case some of my readers are the folk who believed Donald Trump’s recommendation that Americans should inject with Dettol. Was that an irony, or a double irony or just the ravings of a stupid man?
Which brings me to today’s neurosis: Impostor Syndrome – that debilitating sense that one is not properly qualified to be in the position one is in. As the lockdown begins to leak, more and more oldies will be sneaking into the shops and the younger public will of course be more out and about. Life may have some semblance of normality and those of us respecting the guidance will feel less and less comfortable about asking neighbours to shop for us or absenting ourselves from gatherings. The reasoning will be that we’re not ill, that we feel fine, that it’s a lot of trouble for others, that we’re bored. It will seem we’re pretending to be at risk and vulnerable. All of this pre-occupied me before breakfast. Going on to help Sammie with his German definitely confirmed my impostor status.
Now the weather has changed we will re-evaluate the pleasures of being locked down. Grey skies, low cloud and a cold wind soon disperse indulgences such as BBQs and deckchairs on the patio. Back to the rubric of casting ne’er a clout e’er May is out, back up stairs to retrieve the sweater and fold up the shorts and put in a drawer. Back into Limbo where the daffodils hang on in the pots and I wait for the last one to die so I can put in the bedding plants I haven't got. The promise of a delivery from the Garden Centre is as spurious as the promise of testing 100,000 people a day by next Thursday or as possible as the slogan on a Boris Brexit Bus. Or as likely as achieving a delivery from Morrisons or Sainsbury’s. Their vans blazing promises cavorted along The Common today, armed outriders fending off outlaws, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid waiting in ambush at the top of the Dimple. They might as well be Wells Fargo, Securicor or G4S for the chance we have of their ever delivering to us. This is another variant of Limbo - that shadowy space between Reality and wistful thinking.
This evening I had a Zoom chat with my fellow Fishpond Choir members. Nobody made unsustainable promises, nobody told barefaced lies, nobody speculated wildly, nobody stalled or dived and ducked. Instead the conversation turned on the whereabouts of self raising flour, the state of people’s hair and which buttons to press. In these uncertain and tempestuous seas it’s reassuring to dock in the safe and familiar haven of a Zoom conversation.