Chapter 12

2020 COVID-19 – April 15

We have adopted a strict do one thing a day policy** that we used previously in the first few weeks of having a newborn. Bringing a brand new baby home can feel like a crisis (a joy crisis but still a crisis) So undoubtedly a global pandemic is a literal crisis (minus the cute toes and joyous miracle of life)

(*I acknowledge my privilege for even being able to say that.)

So each day we aim to do ONE THING ONLY. Big or small you just need to complete that one task then give yourself a break after. You’re likely to end up doing much more but without the mental and emotional pressure of stressing out about productivity during a crisis.

Sometimes just being alive is enough. This is certainly one of those times.

I take fewer and fewer walks these days. Sometimes if at all. In our house – and likely exacerbated by living downtown – the DEM in pandemic is omitted leaving space mostly for panic.

One of the adults in our home is – perhaps not wrongly – convinced that a neighbourhood walk will deeply and immediately infect us all with the corona virus. I am not that adult, but for sanity I comply.

During a very brief dog walk last week I saw some people social distance lining up outside of the local church bakery, people patiently waiting to buy scones and some other warm smelling baked goods.

Someone was singing the most pathetic, off key rendition of the Beatles ‘I wanna hold your hand” in a mournful, whispery way. It seemed more like a plea than a tune.

Perhaps the soundtrack of humans in isolation is the desperate need for physical connection and hot cross buns. I doubt the Beatles intended that hit song to be sung quite like that. But really any song about human connection feels poignant right now. Even if performed poorly.

I keep having a recurring dream that we are all floating far away from the shore. In the same dark water, but in different tides. Some days it’s lashing vicious waves about, others it’s ominously calm like meting ice on the surface of a lake and recently it’s the feeling that the water is slowly retreating and the shallow will soon return.

The shallow. Like that heavily played song from the movie A Star is Born starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. In which their body chemistry in every subsequent live performance makes you wonder how they are not in some passionate tryst.

I find the most remarkable part of the movie/song (which I might have fallen asleep during) was when the Lady Gaga character gets pulled onto the stage and they started singing together for the first time.

How did they both know to sing ‘“in the sha sha sha-all-all-ow“? Truly a mystery intertwined in fantasy because never before or since has anyone pronounced that word Shallow in such an awkward way. Oh, Hollywood.

I don’t know which tide of the dream we are in right now but all I can keep reminding myself is to keep floating. Everyday, keep floating. We are still far from the shallow.

Keep floating. I love you all.