A diarist's reflections on a Covid diary, six years on
By Jillian Durance
January 2020
Standing at the front gate we could not see the house, that’s how dense it was. Fires incinerated the forest and devoured houses in faraway Mallacoota. Smoke from East Gippsland descended around New Year. It seemed - at first - so much like the mists we loved, the sea mist floating up from the Inlet on summer days, or the mist of autumn filtering through the sunlit slopes and purple valleys, but this pall, a strange greyish-yellow, would sit with us for days, leaving a bitter taste in the mouth, smarting eyes, destroying sleep. Were there flames nearby we did not know about? It tainted the tank water so that we couldn’t drink it. We showered in smoky water for days. Smoke was the colour of our summer.
January 2020
Standing at the front gate we could not see the house, that’s how dense it was. Fires incinerated the forest and devoured houses in faraway Mallacoota. Smoke from East Gippsland descended around New Year. It seemed - at first - so much like the mists we loved, the sea mist floating up from the Inlet on summer days, or the mist of autumn filtering through the sunlit slopes and purple valleys, but this pall, a strange greyish-yellow, would sit with us for days, leaving a bitter taste in the mouth, smarting eyes, destroying sleep. Were there flames nearby we did not know about? It tainted the tank water so that we couldn’t drink it. We showered in smoky water for days. Smoke was the colour of our summer.
Thus began my recollections of that momentous year. As much as I love revisiting the past, these entries in the diary of 2020 only cause a painful wondering about a time I can still not quite comprehend. Oh yes, it was okay for some of us in our South Gippsland seclusion, as long as we could eliminate the suffering of others from our thoughts.
And despite the fact that I had children - and grandchildren - marooned in the city, I seemed to do quite well at it. In fact ‘switching off’ is a skill mastered long ago, well honed by growing up in a large family and rather chaotic household. (At least that is what I prefer to tell myself, rather than entertain the prospect of having to admit to a complete lack of empathy.)
What else can one do but enjoy one’s good fortune?
10 April 2020
We are two months into our awareness that an extraordinary event has gripped our world. 86,506 cases worldwide. The virus spreads from a cough, a sneeze, a note sung into the air, a touch of a contaminated surface that your hand could transfer to your mouth, nose or eyes. It makes every human transaction seem immediately threatening. A few cases of what was first called the ‘corona virus’, and then codified into ‘Covid 19’, creeps into our consciousness. It becomes a disaster of untamed, unknowable proportions. By Easter the traffic has stopped; no-one rushes down the highway to the Bass Coast beaches; Stage 3 restrictions mean that everyone has to stay at home. On Easter Day the death toll stands at over 50 in Australia, out of 6,000 cases.
Reading this now unsettles me: was it that contagious? Were we given the facts? How were our lives informed by our ‘newsfeeds’? What would have happened if we had not been ‘locked down’? ‘Lock down’ was to become for some, especially children, simply ‘normal life’.
And the issue of vaccination with all the restrictions placed on those who chose not to ‘comply’ became a contentious and divisive one in many workplaces, communities and families (including my own). But here I was in the hills recording the delights of the autumn harvest:
2020 is the best year for tomatoes. After the hot, smoky, fire-stricken days of early summer we have good rains and enough warmth for the tomato plants to thrive. Slender stems droop under the weight of Roma, Black Russian and Rouge de Marmande. That cool climate heritage tomato, with its segmented flesh invites our fingers to break open the juicy red flesh as we would a mandarin. Best year for apples too. By early April half have fallen to create a bumpy carpet on the gravel, big globes of crimson, magenta, maroon, cherry, berry, crimson, candy, scarlet, ruby. All shades of red cluster along thin branches dragging them ground-wards like overweighted earrings hanging from earlobes.
Really? What was I thinking? Six years later, the tomatoes were unremarkable, the zucchinis puny and pitiful, and the apple harvest the lightest in nearly three decades. I guess any form of diarising can give you a perspective at least.
3 May 2020
I no longer hear the Shrike-thrush. But know she will return soon. After sudden reversals and contradictions in our outside’ life, wearing masks, not travelling beyond a five kilometre radius, not seeing friends or family, this ‘new normal’ creates a world so surreal it is hard to recognise as mine. But life here seems steady and unchanging, reliable.
Could it be that some of us may be actually good at coping with contradictions and disconnects. Or just not see them?
25 May 2020
Late autumn is also the time of Bogong moths who announce their arrival from the cooling Alps with a flutter of wings at the windows, as if drawn by the light inside. Why do they seem so few this year? Just an occasional thudding against the glass. There are fewer - their population had declined by as much as 95 per cent due to drought in the breeding grounds further north - but if it were not for being cooped up from Covid, I might not have noticed.
The good news is that this year I have seen a few more, but later; they were still fluttering about in mid-June.
And so the diary goes on in its seemingly self-absorbed way. I talk about ‘our splendid isolation’! A phrase that almost embarrasses now.
Could it be that Covid writing is akin to writing about the war? Walter Downing’s memoir of his life as a soldier of the Great War, To the Last Ridge, is not just a graphic ‘blow by blow’ account but has a real sensitivity and astonishing perspective. It was highly acclaimed at the time, but I wonder how many veterans could bring themselves to read it.
Unlike the diarists of old, I will not be seeking to publish my Covid diary, certainly not when the wounds of this time are so close, so raw.
Jillian Durance’s memoir, Nothing We Liked Better, will be published in September.
And despite the fact that I had children - and grandchildren - marooned in the city, I seemed to do quite well at it. In fact ‘switching off’ is a skill mastered long ago, well honed by growing up in a large family and rather chaotic household. (At least that is what I prefer to tell myself, rather than entertain the prospect of having to admit to a complete lack of empathy.)
What else can one do but enjoy one’s good fortune?
10 April 2020
We are two months into our awareness that an extraordinary event has gripped our world. 86,506 cases worldwide. The virus spreads from a cough, a sneeze, a note sung into the air, a touch of a contaminated surface that your hand could transfer to your mouth, nose or eyes. It makes every human transaction seem immediately threatening. A few cases of what was first called the ‘corona virus’, and then codified into ‘Covid 19’, creeps into our consciousness. It becomes a disaster of untamed, unknowable proportions. By Easter the traffic has stopped; no-one rushes down the highway to the Bass Coast beaches; Stage 3 restrictions mean that everyone has to stay at home. On Easter Day the death toll stands at over 50 in Australia, out of 6,000 cases.
Reading this now unsettles me: was it that contagious? Were we given the facts? How were our lives informed by our ‘newsfeeds’? What would have happened if we had not been ‘locked down’? ‘Lock down’ was to become for some, especially children, simply ‘normal life’.
And the issue of vaccination with all the restrictions placed on those who chose not to ‘comply’ became a contentious and divisive one in many workplaces, communities and families (including my own). But here I was in the hills recording the delights of the autumn harvest:
2020 is the best year for tomatoes. After the hot, smoky, fire-stricken days of early summer we have good rains and enough warmth for the tomato plants to thrive. Slender stems droop under the weight of Roma, Black Russian and Rouge de Marmande. That cool climate heritage tomato, with its segmented flesh invites our fingers to break open the juicy red flesh as we would a mandarin. Best year for apples too. By early April half have fallen to create a bumpy carpet on the gravel, big globes of crimson, magenta, maroon, cherry, berry, crimson, candy, scarlet, ruby. All shades of red cluster along thin branches dragging them ground-wards like overweighted earrings hanging from earlobes.
Really? What was I thinking? Six years later, the tomatoes were unremarkable, the zucchinis puny and pitiful, and the apple harvest the lightest in nearly three decades. I guess any form of diarising can give you a perspective at least.
3 May 2020
I no longer hear the Shrike-thrush. But know she will return soon. After sudden reversals and contradictions in our outside’ life, wearing masks, not travelling beyond a five kilometre radius, not seeing friends or family, this ‘new normal’ creates a world so surreal it is hard to recognise as mine. But life here seems steady and unchanging, reliable.
Could it be that some of us may be actually good at coping with contradictions and disconnects. Or just not see them?
25 May 2020
Late autumn is also the time of Bogong moths who announce their arrival from the cooling Alps with a flutter of wings at the windows, as if drawn by the light inside. Why do they seem so few this year? Just an occasional thudding against the glass. There are fewer - their population had declined by as much as 95 per cent due to drought in the breeding grounds further north - but if it were not for being cooped up from Covid, I might not have noticed.
The good news is that this year I have seen a few more, but later; they were still fluttering about in mid-June.
And so the diary goes on in its seemingly self-absorbed way. I talk about ‘our splendid isolation’! A phrase that almost embarrasses now.
Could it be that Covid writing is akin to writing about the war? Walter Downing’s memoir of his life as a soldier of the Great War, To the Last Ridge, is not just a graphic ‘blow by blow’ account but has a real sensitivity and astonishing perspective. It was highly acclaimed at the time, but I wonder how many veterans could bring themselves to read it.
Unlike the diarists of old, I will not be seeking to publish my Covid diary, certainly not when the wounds of this time are so close, so raw.
Jillian Durance’s memoir, Nothing We Liked Better, will be published in September.