Lessons From Lockdown

Memories of March, April and May 2020

It’s Sunday afternoon towards the end of March 2024. It’s a beautiful day outside. I was outdoors a little earlier and it was feeling quite warm. The daffodils are blooming, the crocuses are still flowering (although very slightly past their best now) and the birds were happily exploring. The way the sun was shining on the garden transported me back four years to THAT year.

After a really good start to 2020, doing lots of things that I had planned to do, we celebrated my Dad’s birthday, took a family photo and then we went into lockdown at the end of that week for two weeks. It seems laughable now that we thought two weeks was even a possibility! The weather was incredible during that period. My camera reel is full of all sorts of memories, including screenshots of news headlines, photos of the TV as HM Queen Elizabeth II gave her “we’ll meet again” speech, the news that Boris Johnson had been hospitalised and then was in intensive care, the VE Day anniversary celebrations among many other “events” that I really felt I wanted to document.

I have photos of the garden, which was in a bit of state at that time. I had the remnants of my old shed piled up in the place my raised beds are now and there were piles of wood and tree stumps piled up behind that. I began to clear that space as a way of breaking up the day. My neighbours would sit in the lane behind our houses each morning, each in front of their own gates, tea/coffee in hand and chat. I sat and recorded video of me singing different songs at the piano. I created various pieces of artwork. I watched the musicals on the channel “The Shows Must Go On” on YouTube. I did more family tree research. I made Sunday dinner for myself with Yorkshire puddings that turned out pretty well! I went for a walk and took a photo of Granda at his back door when he came outside to talk, socially distanced of course! We added phrases like that to our vocabulary very quickly. “Stay safe” suddenly became the way to sign off emails and phone calls. We quickly learned how to use Zoom and video chats to keep in touch with people. Oh and I had visitors. Small ones with long tails who decided my kitchen would be the best place to find food and warmth in that weird and wonderful time. I have video of my Mam explaining how to set the mouse traps! My camera roll in April includes a lot of screenshots and photos relating to Apollo 13 as it was the 50th anniversary. I started to watch a film every evening and so there are photos of the DVD boxes and the list of the films I made in my Bullet Journal. There are rainbows - real and painted. There is video of the Thursday Clap for our Carers. There’s the wasp nest that I discovered in my shed (thankfully abandoned!) and the homemade bunting for the VE Day anniversary. There are photos and videos of the squirrel who took up residence in the lane that year alongside photos of the freshly cut lawn in my garden and next door’s after I’d figured out exactly how the lawnmower worked!! There is a photo of the book I read, mostly outdoors in the yard and thoroughly enjoyed, in my week’s “holiday” before I went back to work at the beginning of June.

It was the weirdest of times but it provided a lot of space to think and dream. I loved the solitude, although I did actually miss people more than I thought. Perhaps it was more the idea that we weren’t allowed to see people that made me miss people more. The chance to stop was something that we are rarely afforded. Life is crazy and busy. We move from one thing to the next in some kind of frenzy much of the time. Work is often incredibly busy for many people. I remember writing that I didn’t want to go back to the way things were once things returned to normal. However, it’s almost like that time didn’t really happen. We thought masks would be around for years and social distancing would be an almost permanent way of life, but we very quickly returned to the old state of play and the “new normal” wasn’t really around for long for many of us. Being overly busy and having to do everything right now has very quickly returned. So while I sit and reminisce on those few months when the sun was shining and the road out the front was eerily quiet, I wonder what I would actually like to retrieve from that time.

I often dream about a different life without all the pressures of work and the demands on my time. I dream about being able to just live in a permanent holiday state, being able to get up when I want, work on projects around the house, tend to the garden, go for days out, go shopping, etc., etc., but I’m very well aware that without an enormous lottery win (which as I don’t play would be a miracle) or some other huge windfall, that’s very unlikely to ever be what my life will look like as bills need to be paid. But it’s a dream I can live during the holidays which isn’t such a bad thing. In some ways it makes those weeks feel more special because they are where I feel most comfortable and most like… well… me! Perhaps that’s the bit that I would like to hold onto from 2020. It was a time where I could be myself. No people around to judge or to make me feel like I should be doing things in a particular way. Everyone was navigating that time as unchartered waters as we’d never experienced anything like it before. We all did what we needed to do to get through it. I was able to make music, create art, garden, dance (yes, really!!), read, watch a film every evening, discover, learn and just be me, completely and freely.

As we head into the next quarter of this year and weather warms up, the sun (hopefully) shines more, and I’m able to enjoy a few breaks from work, I really want to enjoy the time I have away from my job and just remind myself who I am once again.