Sunday 14 March 2021

Map out of lockdown, mid-summer's day 2021 and musings on many matters

A mini-blog/reflective journal, from a self-confessed air-head.

Map out of lockdown, mid-summer's day 2021 and musings on many matters

Photo by Harley-Davidson on Unsplash

(Do you ever get the feeling I've reached 'M' in the alphabet?!)

Photo by Zhen Hu on UnsplashOkay, that's a few too many 'M's, strictly it should read 'Roadmap out of lockdown', and "many matters" is most definitely an exaggeration.  But, call it all artistic licence.  And the onset of giddiness about the prospect of actually having a social life and activities outside the home again later this year!

As I write (it's 11 March, just after publishing my 'L' post), the government's 'roadmap' out of this latest lockdown is talking about lifting (hopefully) all restrictions mid-summer's day, 21 June 2021* (*okay, it actually reads 'no earlier than...').

This will be dependent on rates of infection & etc between now and then.  But it is a ray of hope for a return to some sort of normality, which had started to seem like something which had gone entirely out of reach for a while there.

...

And it feels significant, to me, that mid-summer's day is the date I'm looking forward to (or thereabouts).  It's always been one of my favourite wheel of the year holidays (even before I really knew of the wheel of the year).  This year I've an extra reason to look forward to it, for the new found freedom.

I've been very fortunate that I've not been in total isolation at all during this whole crisis.  I've had my husband and my cat, my friend a few doors down has been available at numerous times, I've seen colleagues (in a designated 'cohort' or 'bubble') in the office.  Psychologically, once I learned to manage some early anxieties, and start resisting the perceived need to work overly hard, I've fared relatively well through this whole thing.

I've also been on my full salary this whole time, so financially we've been managing (although I wish I could also say that the money I've saved on commuting daily has been set aside in an account or something; sadly our landlords have taken a slice and the rest appears to have evaporated, due to the inflated costs of groceries and our increased household bills, I guess).

But even though I've weathered this past year quite well, even I am now craving a return to normality.  It's made me realise that I should've made the most out of the temporary relaxation of the restrictions last summer.  I'd been quick, last March, to complain that it felt as though 2020 had been stolen away, it was a non-year, life was 'on hold'.

But the most exciting thing I then did with my free time in the summer was sit on the front lawn in the sunshine (well, in the shade actually, as I can't sit in direct sun -- but enjoying the warmth, anyway).  I would've attended Pagan Pride in mid-late August, had it gone ahead, but sadly they made the decision to cancel it in 2020.

As soon as I get the opportunity I hope to embrace life, to the fullest (for a given value of 'fullest' -- see below).

The bit I've got to manage between now and then is the personal physical restrictions I'm also saddled with -- my long-term ill-health, and consequent chronic spoon-shortage.  It's going to be a challenge, because I've been trying to find ways to manage this problem for literally in excess of a decade.  But if I want to be able to get out there and do stuff, I'm going to need the energy to do that (and not crash the following day, particularly if that happens to be a Monday and I have to work).

I'll also need to work out how to balance the fun stuff I'm hoping for with the un-fun stuff I'm anticipating.  Such as protests and demonstrations against the government's predictable redoubled austerity measures, which is always draining as it generally involves travel and sometimes marching whilst waving a placard or some such thing.
And then there's my environmental activism, too.  Plus, I'll need to sustain a certain level of household maintenance, which takes up a lot of my energy at the best of times.  This paragraph has exhausted me just thinking about it!

Joking aside, these are all legitimate considerations and it's going to need a certain amount of mental energy, deciding which things I should prioritise (and not giving myself a hard time if I opt to sit out of a given demonstration or protest for health reasons).

The other reason for wanting to embrace life at this point is another M word: mobility.  I still have a fair to good level of it at this point; but it's possible I'll experience a decline as time goes on.  Little things are already getting harder, like the other day when I stepped up on the toilet to reach something and had a momentary fear that I couldn't get back down by myself (something I'd have done without even thinking about it just six months or so ago).

I guess there's another M word that applies here, too: mortality.  But I'm a self-confessed air-head, so that's much too serious a topic (and one which, frankly, I don't want to think too much about).

Well, I'm ever the optimist and I've a little bit of time to try to come up with some solution before lockdown is finally entirely over (OK Google, find me a miracle cure!  Ha!)

For now, for a while longer (and I'm really okay with this), it's still a case of:-

Stay safe stay home save lives
Stay safe, stay home, save lives

Photo credits, main body of post (all photos, other than my own, from Unsplash):  'M' by Zhen Hu; sunny road by Simon Rae; aerial trees by Rog Shafi ; aerial trees ii by Aaron Burden; sunny forest by Casey Horner; Stop HS2** placard by Ethan Wilkinson; wildlife by jean wimmerlin [sic]; ostriches = my own work (they may in fact be emus); candle and message by Sandie Clarke; bonus tree photo by Zsófia Vera Mezei.


**If this Stop HS2 placard was your artwork and you wish to be credited for it (or have it removed), please let me know in the comments.





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