There’s a fine fine line between my heaven and my hell. If I tried to describe my idea of heaven there would be the obvious things – blue skies, green fields bursting with fresh flowers, animals happily grazing, clean air, no war. I’d be living with André, the love of my life, and our dog Teddy Spaghetti. We’d be able to continue making our work, although not for money, because there is no commerce in heaven. I’d be able to start my day with a yoga class with one of the most soothing and spiritual yogis that ever lived. And if I wanted to, later on, I could take an art class with a famous artist, a dance class with a member of the Royal Ballet, watch a fantastic musical for free, have time to learn new languages. We’d collectively look back over the memories of our lives and laugh and smile at beach holidays in foreign lands, photos of hugging drunk mates, cousin Tara’s wedding where the whole family were together and laughing.
And this pretty much describes my current reality. I wake up next to the man I love, with the dog I love curled either between my ankles or using my head as a pillow. The Spring sunlight is streaming through my window and on our daily dog walks I soak up the blue sky, the green of the fields and every single daffodil budding into colour, the white blossoms on the trees. Every stranger we pass, albeit at a respectful distance says a friendly hello to us (at least in the nicer of our two local parks they do. In the ‘stabby park’ as I call it, people are still clinging to a traditional offishness and suspicion of one another).
Grayson Perry is offering free online art classes. Famous authors are reading bedtime stories. Stars of stage and screen are performing for us for free from their gardens or kitchens. And I’m even learning a new language while stuck at home.
I had intended to continue learning British Sign Language, as Andre and I had purchased official courses in this at Christmas, and already know the basics. But somehow my brain hasn’t had enough spare lately to learn sign language so far in this enforced isolation. So instead, I’ve decided to teach myself some Millenial, which requires almost no brain power at all and is infinitely more amusing.
My first word… ‘Tommy K’
This means ‘Tomato Ketchup’. Who knew?! Now you can say you have started learning a new language too.
I can continue to make things from home in my studio, but with several of our clients already telling us they won’t be able to afford to pay for the foreseeable future, and new clients coming to the studio currently completely out of the question, we are working simply for the sake of finishing tasks already started and clinging to the hope that one day…one day we will get paid for something again. We still wait with baited breath for any announcement from the Government that might help self-employed people like us.
I can’t actually remember who the last person I hugged was before I was left with only André to hug. Lucky for me I love hugging André. But I love hugging other people too. The dog is having to fill the gaps and has already started running in the opposite direction when I open my arms towards her. I’m starting to feel the strain of enforced isolation, even if most things in my life haven’t changed much yet.
Yesterday my sister, marooned on the beautiful island of Gozo in the beautiful resort of Amchara said to me how much she wished she too had a Teddy dog for cuddles. How much harder this lock-in must be for people completely on their own. And then…I think of the lonely old people without children or grandchildren who might never get hugs anyway…even before all this. How many people out there are there living without any hugs? Prisoners, people with that disease where their skin is really sensitive, people that smell of wee all the time, generally obnoxious arseholes that everyone hates. Does anyone ever hug Donald Trump? Maybe nobody ever did, even when he was little, and that explains a lot.
I suppose even really smelly people might get hugs if they teamed up with other smellies. Or with someone with anosmia, like André. That’s right, André has no sense of smell at all. I could be one of those really smelly people and he wouldn’t know. Some days I suspect I am.
I can clearly remember the last people I didn’t hug, because we were all increasingly aware of the hidden risk of Covid-19 even though the Government were, at the time, playing it down and doing absolutely nothing. I remember not hugging my mum and stepdad when they last baby-sat our dog for us, just before we came down with symptoms. Thank goodness we didn’t. I remember not hugging our former apprentice or as we like to call him, our ‘work son’ Luke, when he came over to help us with an intensive casting day working with a model, just flown in from Spain, who we also did not hug – again, just before we started showing symptoms. But I think a lot about the last time I hugged my daughter at Christmas (now stuck at university on her own in digs) and the last time I hugged my parents (weeks) or my sister (many many months). We are all trapped apart. Who knows when the next hugs will be.
Zoom group video conferencing is helping me to feel connected. A bunch of my old school mates are meeting up once or twice a week in this way, and on a bad day seeing a panel of their grinning faces, like a Generation X Brady Bunch, really lifted my spirits. That human connection, real connection, where your conversation overlaps and dwindles out mid-sentence, and where you talk crap for 40 minutes and if asked, can’t remember what the hell any of you were actually talking about, because it was just ordinary chit chat. No great ‘need’ to have news to call someone up. Just calling to hear someone’s voice, to tell them you love and miss them.
I keep thinking about plagues past. In the days before the internet, before the telephone even, when lovers trapped apart would have to write a letter by hand and wait weeks for a response, not knowing if their beloved was alive or dead or taking comfort in the arms of another. And even before that, the diseases ravaging the country in the time of King Henry VIII. How he locked himself up in one of his castles while Anne Boleyn (when he still adored her) had caught the sickness and was trapped at home teetering between life and death. How terrifying it must have been. The lack of information, the spreading of rumour and superstition even more rife than now. How lucky we are to be able to at least access some up to date information and communicate with, and see the laughing faces of the ones we love, even in other countries.
How I laughed speaking to my old school chums, when realising in our small group of eight, that at least three of us had had the same idea to open a ‘virtual pub’ and populate it with friends, and organise pub quizzes, karaoke nights, and themed fancy dress parties. There’s something incredibly Enid Blyton about a bunch of ex-grammar school girls getting everyone organised to boost morale.
‘Top Five Percent!’ we used to crow in mirth, taking the piss out of the mantra of our headmistress past, Mrs Blackburn, who encouraged us always to behave not only like intelligent young ladies but also leaders and all round good eggs. No surprise that a few of us have been trying to rally together the old gang to form some sort of Malory Towers style virtual ‘dorm’ for our own mental wellbeing.If we weren’t all in our 40s and tired by 9:45pm we’d no doubt have organised virtual midnight feasts by now. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if by the end of this lock-in we’ll have composed and recorded a peppy and motivational song about it all, getting our children to play along on the recorder.
Rather different to the modern day ‘influencers’ who were, at least until one of them entered hospital with Corona virus, encouraging their followers to lick toilet seats in public places to rebel against any sane advice to keep clean.
It’s true that no Government anywhere in the world, as far as I’m aware, specifically told their countrymen to NOT lick public toilet seats. But there really are some safety rules you’d think you’d be able to skim over. You’d think. But then these influencers could well be the surviving offspring of a generation of people who tried to dry their pets in microwaves, because nobody told them they shouldn’t do that either.
Unfortunately this virus isn’t particularly thinning out The Stupid or even The Unkind (both would have been very welcome to the human race) but seems to be particularly targeting the ‘weak and vulnerable’. For several weeks I threw imaginary rocks at my TV every time some spokesperson from the Health Authorities or Government or even just peppy journalists told us ‘not to worry, the people who are dying are mainly just the weak and vulnerable’. Or ‘People with underlying health conditions’. Oh goody gum drops.
That’s me, that is. And I can quite assure you I was not and am still not, despite what you’ve been led to believe, some crusty relic of a slug-human dragging myself along the ground by my fingernails hoping to be put out of my misery. No Sir! I had every intention of living a long and relatively productive life, creating art made from people’s boobies and retiring to the Italian countryside with a goat called Mrs Miggins. Even after Brexit had completely buggered my retirement plans and Mrs Imaginary Goat Miggins and I were consigned to festering in the English countryside together instead, I still figured I’d make it a few more decades and had a lot of stuff I wanted to do before kicking the bucket.
If, like me, you fall into the ‘old or vulnerable’ category, I’m sure you’ve been equally pissed off with the idea that we’re all expendable chaff to be separated from the toilet-licking wheat that I STILL see congregating in parks despite the Government lock down rules. And you might also be pissed off with the conflicting advice you are being given about how to handle your extra challenges.
I’ve read that my asthma increases my chances of serious complications from the virus. I’ve read that my high blood pressure puts me at 6% risk of death. I’ve also read that my blood pressure tablets make the virus ten times stronger. I’ve also been told NOT to stop taking those tablets. I’ve been told to reduce my blood pressure naturally by reducing stress. FAT FUCKING CHANCE MOTHER FUCKERS!!!
And yet I DO try. I do my morning energy rituals, my daily hypnotherapy, my mindfulness and appreciation exercises. I get on with work that I enjoy that I may or may not get eventually paid for. I keep to a good bedtime routine and healthy diet. I call friends and family. I laugh a lot. I practice the new language I’m learning to improve my accent… ‘Tommy K….Tommy Kaaaaaayyyy’. But, like most sane people, I am fairly frozen with fear and anxiety right now. I have to look after my marbles really carefully. But the collective marbles of the nation are spinning a little out of control these days and I wonder how long we’ll keep it up before it becomes a carnage of naked people, smeared with their own excrement, running wildly through the street singing Kanye West songs and stabbing each other with umbrellas. I must admit that right now I don’t particularly feel very looked after by the powers that be. And I’ve never been remotely convinced about the marble-wrangling of those at the top. But one thing I do know…
No matter how crazy I feel, I will never ever EVER be licking a toilet seat. Not even if Jason Mamoa had recently sat on it wearing nothing but baby oil and a grin.
I will be trying to maintain my normal as much as possible. Stuck inside (very luckily) with André and the dog, working hard, watching Netflix when I’m knackered, calling my mum for a mum-fix and my daughter for my kid-fix, pretty much like I’ve been doing for years and years.
I may cross the road to avoid you if I see you out when I’m walking the dog. We can pretend for our mutual sanity that it’s nothing to do with a killer virus tearing society apart and agree politely between ourselves that it’s because you smell of wee wee and I don’t want you to hug me today.
You ALL smell of wee wee. And everything you touch smells of wee wee which is why everywhere I go and in everything I do I need to keep washing my hands. But we can still be pen pals, so it’s OK.
Until you all learn to wash properly and not lick toilets, please stay safe, look after your marbles, hug your dogs, and see you on the other side.
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