 Book mark and hand-wipe sachet. We're all set now. Reflections from a home front: 2 Last night, I was reflecting that two weekends ago I was in earnest email consultations with some fellow committee members about whether we should go ahead our annual Philippa Pearce Lecture – this year with extra centenary celebrations and a short play. With heavy hearts, we agreed that we would cancel the event at the end of March. Back then, it felt like a hard-won decision; now, there would be no discussion. Then the husband pointed out it wasn’t two weeks ago; it was last week. So it was. Last weekend is a foreign country. And we are in exile. The changes to our lives over the past seven days would have unimaginable at the beginning of the months before, and each day the walls have closed further in. At the same time, in a kind of equal and opposite reaction, the rate of response has also been extraordinary. During the WW2 commemorations I was struck by how people then pulled together, doing what they had to do. And I worried that we are now so used to our individual freedoms, so self-sufficient in so many ways, so cocooned in our digital bubbles, that if we were to face anything comparable we would simply crumple. But our human resilience and resourcefulness has come to the fore and everyone has swung into action. There are online choirs, book groups, museum tours, worship services. Churches and other community groups have set up schemes to keep in touch with the housebound and deliver food and support. My neighbour has initiated a WhatsApp support group for our street (I now know more of their names than in 20 years of living here). And in hand-sanitiser news, the husband received a letter from his old Cambridge College, which enclosed a bookmark and individual hand-wipe sachet. Quite touching in its way. I’m struck, too by the speed at which all this seems to have become bedded in. You would not know from the way the weekend papers were talking about The Closures that it was a days-old phenomenon. Meanwhile WFH has taken its place amongst FOMO, HTH and the rest in what must be record time. Me, I feel as if I’m struggling to keep up and my mind is working overtime to process it all. It feels very like when there’s been a death in the family. Every morning, as I have woken to the sun seeping round the edge of the blind, I’ve had that micro-moment where you remember what day it is, then get a vague recollection that something awful has happened, then immediately recall what it was and that it’s a day in which someone you loved is no longer in the world. Periodically during the day, too, I’ve had to pinch myself, metaphorically. As life as we knew it unravels, we've all suffered loss. Whilst we sort of knew the existing order was under increasing threat from various directions, we now have to adjust to the fact that an apocalypse really is now at hand. (Interestingly, though, the Greek word at its root, apokalypsis / ἀποκάλυψις, means a revealing or unveiling of things previously hidden.) Today’s poem is part of my attempt at adjustment. You can hear me read it by clicking on the play button. The State We’re In
The writing’s on the wall And across the ceiling. It’s a house of cards And no one is dealing. We’re home alone, Sleeping rough. That knock at the door Is likely the wolf. The rubber hits the road; The road hits back. The wheels have come off And there’s no beaten track. We’re off the map And way up the creek, Without a paddle And springing a leak. Worse things happen at sea. They never said what. We're all at sea now, Like it or not. Here be dragons … And here … Don’t stop! There are dragons, in fact, All over the shop. We’re facing the music. We’re taking our chance. Wait – there’s still music? Yes, there’s still music. It’s time to make music And dance.
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Text and images © Debbie Pullinger