When the lockdown order came, we had been expecting it. These are unprecedented times people are saying, but then that is starting to sound trite even after a week of it. It all came so slowly and then all at once. A week ago, I was still going to work, I think now. A week ago the kids were still in school. A week ago, we could go to the pub. Writing about it now, in the midst of it feels melodramatic. We can't go outside except for essential goods and that suddenly feels normal after only a day and half of it. Now we say things like, I hope there is bread in the supermarket, but if there's not, we'll manage. We feel like things haven't gotten that bad, that they could still get worse, but that we could still be okay.
I went to Sainsbury's in Selly Oak on Saturday afternoon to get Yoko a card for Mothering Sunday and some other things, some fruit and veg and some bread, whatever we could find. People were not panic buying, but there was no toilet paper and some of the refrigerator cases had blinds pulled in front of them because they were empty. I got apples and bananas and cucumbers and found a card for Yoko, although I didn't know what to buy. There were no bagels at first glance, but when I got down to look in the bottom shelf, there were two wholemeal bags, and a man, seeing me on the ground asked me to get one for him. I gave him the one I had, and he said, Thanks ever so much and then Oh, no, these are wholemeal my wife isn't that healthy. I took both of them thinking, is there any time for that now, for not liking one kind of a bagel over another.
I ran on Sunday morning, twelve miles up the canal, and finally, the weather was good — crisp and clear air and the water from the canals reflecting up in the underside of the bridges. I passed people running and had the sense that the air they were breathing out was the air I was breathing in, that I was closer to them than I had ever been aware. I ran under Galton Bridge and when the watch ticked over 6 miles, I turned to go back, thinking that the lockdown order was coming and this might be my last run for a while.
You want to think back to remember some happiness from the past. What had it been like to be able to do anything and choose not to. What were the concerns about money, about planning for the future. What had stopped you from doing anything.
I ran on Sunday morning, twelve miles up the canal, and finally, the weather was good — crisp and clear air and the water from the canals reflecting up in the underside of the bridges. I passed people running and had the sense that the air they were breathing out was the air I was breathing in, that I was closer to them than I had ever been aware. I ran under Galton Bridge and when the watch ticked over 6 miles, I turned to go back, thinking that the lockdown order was coming and this might be my last run for a while.
You want to think back to remember some happiness from the past. What had it been like to be able to do anything and choose not to. What were the concerns about money, about planning for the future. What had stopped you from doing anything.
Before all of this, we had been paying a woman forty pounds for fifty minutes to help us talk to each other and make sense of where we've found ourselves at this point in our lives, like Tom Sawyer and Becky having unwound kite-line as they ventured into the cave. For years and years, we've unravelled it, heading deeper and deeper into the dark, and when asked to pull on it, to remember the way back, the line's gone slack. I pull and pull hoping at some point it will become taunt, that it will finally catch on whatever we anchored it on. And then what's the point of catching on that anchor, of finding a way back if the tunnel collapsed at some point. You can say you never should have come in, you never should have started, but none of that matters now. We are where we are, sat in the dark together.
I ran again this morning, joking as I left about government-mandated exercise. The girls are all in high spirits, watching films, and chatting with their friends on the phone. Every night they make a presentation about their days, which are clever and funny and then we read the Hobbit out loud and I obsessively check the news on my phone, until I am completely mad. We go to sleep and then wake up and maybe we will think about the future at some point, about what it is we want, about what love is, really, about what we want. For now, it's just another day. The sun has come up and for now, we can go into the garden and sit in it and be grateful.
I ran again this morning, joking as I left about government-mandated exercise. The girls are all in high spirits, watching films, and chatting with their friends on the phone. Every night they make a presentation about their days, which are clever and funny and then we read the Hobbit out loud and I obsessively check the news on my phone, until I am completely mad. We go to sleep and then wake up and maybe we will think about the future at some point, about what it is we want, about what love is, really, about what we want. For now, it's just another day. The sun has come up and for now, we can go into the garden and sit in it and be grateful.