Civilisation returns ... with a host of new rules By Catherine Watson
Monday, June 1
The libraries are open. It’s only “Click and collect” at this stage. You can’t wander the shelves or sit inside and read the newspaper, but it’s a start. I write a poem in celebration.
A Library in Lockdown
For a precious week between
the lockdown and the “new normal”
they had this hallowed house
of learning to themselves.
No hyped up teens hung round
the entrance F-ing and C-ing.
Mr Bennett didn’t return the DVD case
without the thing that goes inside.
Mrs Brown didn’t rip out the crosswords
behind a discreet cough or sneak
out the Green Guide inside the
front cover of Fifty Shades.
Monday, June 1
The libraries are open. It’s only “Click and collect” at this stage. You can’t wander the shelves or sit inside and read the newspaper, but it’s a start. I write a poem in celebration.
A Library in Lockdown
For a precious week between
the lockdown and the “new normal”
they had this hallowed house
of learning to themselves.
No hyped up teens hung round
the entrance F-ing and C-ing.
Mr Bennett didn’t return the DVD case
without the thing that goes inside.
Mrs Brown didn’t rip out the crosswords
behind a discreet cough or sneak
out the Green Guide inside the
front cover of Fifty Shades.
The newspapers are folded
neatly, in the right order,
crosswords and TV listings intact.
today’s edition is on the top.
The spines align, the order’s perfect,
from computer science &
general works (000.01) through
to extraterrestrial worlds (999.99)
Every book in place between
Antti Amatus Aarne’s folk tales
and Stefan Zweig’s World of Yesterday,
just behind Markus Zusak’s new one.
It was such a perfect day.
They went home full of
A quiet contentment and
Dreamt contented dreams.
The next morning they
looked around one last time
and saw that it was good.
Remember this, they said.
Then opened the doors
and let the barbarians in.
Wednesday, June 3
I walk with Catherine R and her greyhound Carol at the Mouth of the Powlett. My dog Matilda is still in rehab with an injured leg and has to stay home. Catherine tells me she’s watching a “big” Netflix series: Resurrection: Ertuğrul, a 150-episode historical drama set in the 13th century. She describes it as a Turkish soapie, with lots of amazing costumes “and some over-acting”. She’s up to episode 30-something.
I’m doing my own binge watching, a Scottish series called The Story of Film – 15 hour-long episodes from the early 1900s to now, from Sweden to India and all places between. I’m limbering up for the re-opening of the cinemas, that moment of expectation when the lights go off and an expectant hush falls.
Thursday, June 4
I run into Maxine just after she’s visited her mother in a local nursing home. She is subdued. She tells me that for nine long weeks, during the lockdown, the family were limited to Skype encounters. The nurses would set it up but her mother, who has dementia, never understood what was going on. She would touch the screen, desperately trying to touch her family. The family are now allowed two 30-minute visits a week but her mother went downhill rapidly in those nine weeks. Maxine says she keeps thinking that isolating her mother to keep her safe wasn’t worth the anguish it caused her. “Family is the only thing that matters to Mum now.”
One of my gardening clients rings and asks me if I can bury her neighbour’s dog. “I was going to ask a man but that would be sexist.” I’m digging the hole as directed, trying to avoid tree roots and past dog burials, when I hit and break a pipe. Thank God it’s the stormwater, not the sewerage.
Friday, June 5
The “Eggs 4 sale” signs are down at all my usual roadside places. I try my local café. “We’re waiting on deliveries, but we don’t know when,” Fiona says. The health food is expecting a delivery but it hasn’t turned up. I’m in Aldi when the woman on the checkout tells a customer they’ve sold out of eggs. Yikes! Are eggs the new toilet paper or is it just the cold weather?
No shortage of eggs at Vaughans café and deli in Inverloch, and local ones at that. The cafe is doing a roaring trade despite the social distancing restrictions and requirement for customers to sign in and leave contact details. Extra tables have been set up outside. The sun is shining, it’s the start of a long weekend and there’s a cheerful hubbub.
Dinner with two very dear friends, Gill and Liz, our first since February. We toast the return of … we’re not sure what to call what we’re celebrating. Liz nails it. “To the return of civilisation.”
Saturday, June 6
Matilda is in her own personal six-week lockdown after injuring her leg. For the first few days she was a model patient. Three weeks in, she’s had enough. She sniffs me suspiciously every time I come home from a walk. Today she makes her frustration known. First she rolls in shit. I throw her in the shower but she gets her own back later by quietly tearing strips off my doona cover, something she’s never done before.
Sunday, June 7
During the lockdown I gave up two habits and acquired a lovely new one. I stopped reading newspapers and listening to the radio – COVID COVID COVID COVID was sending me nuts – and turned to books, which used to be solely a night-time treat. Now, late in the afternoon, I make a cup of coffee and sit in the last rays of the sun and read a collection of Don Watson’s essays. Bliss.
Monday, June 8
Valerie is just back from the newly reopened nail salon and thrilled with the result. She usually has long red nails but she’s had them cut shorter and painted pink. “Because of the virus,” she says.
Tuesday, June 9
I call Anne. She and Bob are on the Cowes esplanade enjoying the still, sunny morning. We get onto what we learned in the lockdown. Anne says she found the time to make a story from the diaries she’s kept all her life. “I would never have done that without COVID.” Instead of driving round the shire to meetings, she stayed at home and Zoomed. Their spending dropped dramatically. It was a great time for reflection. And one of the most unexpected results: the planes stopped flying overhead to and from Tasmania. “We were so used to the noise we didn’t even notice it but suddenly there was a beautiful silence.”
Wednesday, June 10
Cate is back line dancing at the Wonthaggi RSL two nights a week and loving it. She had a particularly slothful lockdown, due to the fact that she fractured her foot when Matilda bowled her over on the beach just as the lockdown started. She had to wear a moon boot for six weeks. The day she jettisoned it was the day Matilda injured her own leg running on the beach. Karma, I tell her.
Thursday, June 11
A local rental manager says three tenants in four days have cited a relationship breakdown as the reason for breaking a lease. Despite the stories of families bonding over sourdough bread and board games, for some couples the lockdown meant a little too much togetherness.
Friday, June 12
Beth tells me her 13-year-old son, who has high-functioning autism, is struggling back at school. He dislikes crowds and noise and some of the teachers unintentionally frighten him. Last night she filled in the State Government’s survey of teachers, parents and students on their experiences of remote learning during the COVID lockdown. Beth described how much happier her son was over this period. She would love to see remote learning continue for students like him.
I drive to the city of with a friend who is visiting her husband in hospital. While I’m waiting, I head for a nearby shopping strip for a coffee, my first since the cafes re-opened. I sit at a table outside in the sun, drink a perfect coffee and enjoy the buzz of street life. The small ceremonies of our lives have a new savour.
neatly, in the right order,
crosswords and TV listings intact.
today’s edition is on the top.
The spines align, the order’s perfect,
from computer science &
general works (000.01) through
to extraterrestrial worlds (999.99)
Every book in place between
Antti Amatus Aarne’s folk tales
and Stefan Zweig’s World of Yesterday,
just behind Markus Zusak’s new one.
It was such a perfect day.
They went home full of
A quiet contentment and
Dreamt contented dreams.
The next morning they
looked around one last time
and saw that it was good.
Remember this, they said.
Then opened the doors
and let the barbarians in.
Wednesday, June 3
I walk with Catherine R and her greyhound Carol at the Mouth of the Powlett. My dog Matilda is still in rehab with an injured leg and has to stay home. Catherine tells me she’s watching a “big” Netflix series: Resurrection: Ertuğrul, a 150-episode historical drama set in the 13th century. She describes it as a Turkish soapie, with lots of amazing costumes “and some over-acting”. She’s up to episode 30-something.
I’m doing my own binge watching, a Scottish series called The Story of Film – 15 hour-long episodes from the early 1900s to now, from Sweden to India and all places between. I’m limbering up for the re-opening of the cinemas, that moment of expectation when the lights go off and an expectant hush falls.
Thursday, June 4
I run into Maxine just after she’s visited her mother in a local nursing home. She is subdued. She tells me that for nine long weeks, during the lockdown, the family were limited to Skype encounters. The nurses would set it up but her mother, who has dementia, never understood what was going on. She would touch the screen, desperately trying to touch her family. The family are now allowed two 30-minute visits a week but her mother went downhill rapidly in those nine weeks. Maxine says she keeps thinking that isolating her mother to keep her safe wasn’t worth the anguish it caused her. “Family is the only thing that matters to Mum now.”
One of my gardening clients rings and asks me if I can bury her neighbour’s dog. “I was going to ask a man but that would be sexist.” I’m digging the hole as directed, trying to avoid tree roots and past dog burials, when I hit and break a pipe. Thank God it’s the stormwater, not the sewerage.
Friday, June 5
The “Eggs 4 sale” signs are down at all my usual roadside places. I try my local café. “We’re waiting on deliveries, but we don’t know when,” Fiona says. The health food is expecting a delivery but it hasn’t turned up. I’m in Aldi when the woman on the checkout tells a customer they’ve sold out of eggs. Yikes! Are eggs the new toilet paper or is it just the cold weather?
No shortage of eggs at Vaughans café and deli in Inverloch, and local ones at that. The cafe is doing a roaring trade despite the social distancing restrictions and requirement for customers to sign in and leave contact details. Extra tables have been set up outside. The sun is shining, it’s the start of a long weekend and there’s a cheerful hubbub.
Dinner with two very dear friends, Gill and Liz, our first since February. We toast the return of … we’re not sure what to call what we’re celebrating. Liz nails it. “To the return of civilisation.”
Saturday, June 6
Matilda is in her own personal six-week lockdown after injuring her leg. For the first few days she was a model patient. Three weeks in, she’s had enough. She sniffs me suspiciously every time I come home from a walk. Today she makes her frustration known. First she rolls in shit. I throw her in the shower but she gets her own back later by quietly tearing strips off my doona cover, something she’s never done before.
Sunday, June 7
During the lockdown I gave up two habits and acquired a lovely new one. I stopped reading newspapers and listening to the radio – COVID COVID COVID COVID was sending me nuts – and turned to books, which used to be solely a night-time treat. Now, late in the afternoon, I make a cup of coffee and sit in the last rays of the sun and read a collection of Don Watson’s essays. Bliss.
Monday, June 8
Valerie is just back from the newly reopened nail salon and thrilled with the result. She usually has long red nails but she’s had them cut shorter and painted pink. “Because of the virus,” she says.
Tuesday, June 9
I call Anne. She and Bob are on the Cowes esplanade enjoying the still, sunny morning. We get onto what we learned in the lockdown. Anne says she found the time to make a story from the diaries she’s kept all her life. “I would never have done that without COVID.” Instead of driving round the shire to meetings, she stayed at home and Zoomed. Their spending dropped dramatically. It was a great time for reflection. And one of the most unexpected results: the planes stopped flying overhead to and from Tasmania. “We were so used to the noise we didn’t even notice it but suddenly there was a beautiful silence.”
Wednesday, June 10
Cate is back line dancing at the Wonthaggi RSL two nights a week and loving it. She had a particularly slothful lockdown, due to the fact that she fractured her foot when Matilda bowled her over on the beach just as the lockdown started. She had to wear a moon boot for six weeks. The day she jettisoned it was the day Matilda injured her own leg running on the beach. Karma, I tell her.
Thursday, June 11
A local rental manager says three tenants in four days have cited a relationship breakdown as the reason for breaking a lease. Despite the stories of families bonding over sourdough bread and board games, for some couples the lockdown meant a little too much togetherness.
Friday, June 12
Beth tells me her 13-year-old son, who has high-functioning autism, is struggling back at school. He dislikes crowds and noise and some of the teachers unintentionally frighten him. Last night she filled in the State Government’s survey of teachers, parents and students on their experiences of remote learning during the COVID lockdown. Beth described how much happier her son was over this period. She would love to see remote learning continue for students like him.
I drive to the city of with a friend who is visiting her husband in hospital. While I’m waiting, I head for a nearby shopping strip for a coffee, my first since the cafes re-opened. I sit at a table outside in the sun, drink a perfect coffee and enjoy the buzz of street life. The small ceremonies of our lives have a new savour.