Ghostwritermummy

Health is the new wealth

Isolation

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We’re still in isolation. We haven’t been inside a car or turned left out of our driveway or touched another person outside of our household since Wednesday 18th March. We haven’t stepped inside a shop or checked a book out from the library or visited a museum. We haven’t dipped a toe into a swimming pool, tapped a tap shoe on a gleaming wooden floor or splashed a welly boot into the big puddle at the end of the lane near school. We haven’t huddled on the playground or dashed from class to class or lugged heavy shopping bags from trolley to car. We haven’t strayed from the rules even though they’re weighing us down daily, crushing slowly, smothering gently. We’re still in isolation and I think this might be the new normal for us all.

The children have been by my side since the day they were sent home from school with a cough that turned out to be nothing, turned out to be a few nights of watchful wakefulness incase symptoms developed and this ‘thing’ claimed us too. We’ve been together in isolation and hiding away from an invisible dragon breathing fire down our necks, into our bellies and through our dreams. We’re nearing the end of seven weeks like this. Seven weeks! And still, isolation stretches on like a promise sealed in gold. Other countries around the world are lifting their lockdowns and retreating back again, while we hesitate, unsure, unwilling to make a decision we cannot return from. This dragon is not going anywhere, for now.

So, for us, isolation is a picture of repetition. A new routine that sees us wake unenthusiastically kind-of-ready for the day but not really sure it’s worth it. But we stick to it- because without this routine I’ve become so fiercely protective of, we all fall apart. We drift. We feel we have no purpose or no there is no point to even the smallest of actions. We feel that isolation is breaking us.

Isolation, for us, is a safety blanket wrapped around our shoulders on the coldest day. The warmth of the sun as is peeps from behind the clouds. The feeling of new bed sheets when you’re so tired you can barely feel the pillows as you drift away. We’re holding on to isolation.

So despite the early morning starts to fit paid work in before home school, despite the constant obsessing over the best way to deliver a homestyle lesson on forces and magnets, despite the battle over who is going to put their lunch things in the dishwasher, give me the chance to use the bathroom in peace, put their shoes away, FINALLY learn how to turn lights out- despite the new normal, every day battles we’re all facing… despite all of that, isolation is working for us. We’re safe. We’re well. We’re slaying that dragon in our own small way.

Life, Indoors

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Lockdown began officially three weeks ago today, but as a family we’ve been in lockdown since the 20th March. Ordered home from school with a cough, the children have been with me here 24/7. They have been nowhere beyond the fields and nature reserve right by our house. I last ventured further on the 21st March. Since then I have not turned left from our house, not even for a walk around the block. We turn right because there is more to see, more new places to walk, less people and less chance of danger. Less fear. But mostly, w’ere indoors. We’re living a life, indoors.

How the world has changed in just one month. In just one month we’ve gone from roaming the country as freely as time and money allowed, to barely stepping from our doorsteps. I spent my last weekend in the outside world at The Baby & Toddler Show, chatting to expectant parents, working, being around lots and lots of people. Now I cross the street or I herd the children down dips in the country lane when I see other people approaching. I silently scold them for getting too close, or I hold my breath and just hope that we’re all far apart enough for it to make a difference. Now, the mere sight of other people sends a chill down my spine and around my bones.

How the world has changed in just one month. Now we are told that we cannot stop on a beautiful sunny day to have a picnic with loved ones. We cannot visit relatives on Easter Sunday, we cannot pop to the shop for an ice-cream or visit the sea to dip our toes in the icy cold sea. We cannot drive along the motorway without somewhere important to be. We cannot be outside for longer than one hour. Sixty minutes of the outside world is enough, and sometimes, some days, it’s far too much.

How the world has changed in just one month. Now I am the only adult still working. Now I am mum, teacher, worker, loner. Now I am rising early to scrape together some semblance of a day that might keep us all going. Now I am scrolling Facebook to discover how woefully I am failing, how incredibly dismally I am failing. Now I am reading the news, hoping for it to change, hoping for a new headline. Now I am dreaming of a life not indoors.

Life, indoors. We’re adapting. We’re doing well, all things considered, all Facebook updates considered. We’re ploughing through fractions and phonics and place value and ballet lessons. We’re forging ahead with guitar lessons, baking sessions, creative writing and addition sums. We’re advancing on reading lessons and acro lessons. One of us has mastered the cartwheel and another can now read a whole sheet of tricky words. We’re ticking the boxes, we’re staying at home and we’re filling the windows with rainbows.

Life, indoors isn’t so bad. We’re together, we’re well and we’re enjoying each other’s company (mostly). But it’s not life. It’s not running free with arms out-stretched and grass tickling your toes. It’s not packing a bag full with sandwiches and biscuits and watching the world fly past through the tiny window of a train. It’s not stepping over sticky floors with an elbow in your side and lager breath down your neck as you crane to see the band under the hot strobing stage lights. It’s not all of the tiny things that make up life.

Endless trips to and from extra-curricular events. Tiresome school runs. Ironing on a Sunday night. Putting the bins out on a Tuesday. Trawling round Asda on a Saturday afternoon. Signing reading records. Putting bobbles in hair. Finding matching socks. Parent’s evenings. Parties. Trips to the library. Standing on a cold, wet playground, willing the classroom doors to swing open so you can get back in the car to dry off. Nipping to Nana’s for a proper ham sandwich and a Wagon Wheel. Longer journeys to Nanny’s to measure yourself against the sunflowers in the garden. Chatting to neighbours over the low fence, laughing about the cats having a second home, second bowl of tuna, second set of parents. Play dates, sleepovers. Cub camps, Brownie camps. School trips. Sports Day. Class assemblies. Just standing, still, amongst a crowd and allowing all the busyness, all the people, to simply mill around you and be. Peace in a busy world.

How the world has changed. Life indoors is quiet but there is no peace. There is a constant nagging doubt that we’re doing it all wrong, we did it all too late. A constant fear they’ll send us back to the outside world too soon, too late, too broken.

Life, indoors. It has up days and down days. But it goes on. We go on. Different versions of ourselves, in a different version of the world. But we go on.

Stumbling Into a New Normal

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And so as the schools closed their doors yesterday and shops, pubs, gyms and restaurants are counting up their final day’s takings… we find ourselves stumbling into a new normal. Falling, tripping, diving into the unknown. Because what is going to happen next? Where will isolation take us, if not to loneliness, fear and a future so bleak we can’t see how any light will ever flicker again. We’re at a fork in the road. We have a choice now. We can either do this, do it well, and do it once. Or we can stumble, flounder and do it again, again, again. The messages have been clear all along and now I know it’s more important than ever to get it together. Be together. Think as a collective. Because if we don’t, we’re truly alone.

I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know any better than anyone else. I’m waking early, with too many thoughts flying around in my head. Too much to do and suddenly too much time to do it in. Where are the deadlines, the routines we must follow and the order that defines our lives? If this is the new normal, then I have to work hard to make it normal.

For now, we’re spending lots of time outdoors. We’re lucky enough to have a garden, and access to lots of wide open spaces, woodland and streams on our doorstep. We don’t need to see anyone else when we venture outside, and we know to keep our distance if we do. The odd dog walker here and there, but mostly we’ve got this space to ourselves for now. We’re journalling. We’re drawing. We’re reading. For now, the home learning packs can wait. Our new normal is no school, and that is going to take some getting used to.

So to my children I want to make a promise. That this new normal will become normal. There will be boredom, there will be frustration. There will be sadness and joy, excitement and tedium. There will be time to play and time to work. I will focus my energy on making sure you get to carry on your childhood.

To Eva, your GCSEs are around the corner and how lucky we are that you haven’t missed your chance as so many have this year. You will get your chance to have your shirt signed and say goodbye and sit those exams. You will.

To Luka, year 6 awaits you and I will get you ready for your final year in primary school. Keep reading, keep drawing, keep going.

To Bella, oh how you’ve flourished this year. I’ll make sure those wings continue to open so that you can learn to fly. Keep dancing, keep reading, keep dreaming.

And to Elsie. Your first year in school has been terminated so abruptly and I’m acutely aware that you won’t get the same start in education as the others. I know that being left handed means you struggle to write and you find it frustrating, but you’ve been making such great progress. For now, my sadness at the missed firsts has to be put aside. We’ll recreate a sport’s day at home. We’ll dig out old summer dresses to wear with socks. We’ll put on our own class assembly, school trips and all the other things you were looking forward to claiming for yourself at last. I will help you to read, write, count and develop the same love of learning that your siblings have. Keep smiling, keep singing, keep being you.

This is our new normal and we may be stumbling, falling and weeping- but we’re taking it on none-the-less.

A Gentle Thump

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It started with a gentle thump in the stomach. Reading news of events taking place in a country so far from here, it was impossible to comprehend the significance. A gentle thump. What was happening was awful, so sad. What was happening was scary. What was happening was very, very far away.

From a gentle thump to a harder shove as things started to escalate and stories of people dying began to dominate the headlines more and more. Not every day, not all day, but more. It was a harder shove as experts began to admit they didn’t know what they were facing or how to make it go away. The people we all trust to have this in hand were becoming increasingly uncomfortable and the news was starting to shift. The atmosphere was rather more charged. Sensational headlines- surely it was just the media doing what we like to blame the media for doing? Surely here in the UK, in Europe, we’re ok. We’re safe. We’re very, very far away.

From a gentle thump to a harder shove to a very definite kick in the stomach as our little safe haven from far away started to literally crumble. Italy- that’s not so far away! We’ve been there on holiday. We know people intending to visit soon- begins to report their own cases of the virus that has swept through China like a callous, greedy and ruthless boogie man. Italy. Once (and forever) our neighbours, our EU buddies. Our people. Italy begins to report more cases, more deaths, more fear. The same begins to happen in France. Now, France! France. The home of many a childhood holiday. The home of our own little family’s recent holiday. Our literal next door neighbours. Now France were starting to report their own cases. Suddenly its not so very, very far away.

From a gentle thump to a harder shove to a definite kick to a slow, grinding, twisting clench. A clench that does not go away. With every news report, every tweet, every Facebook post, every paranoid instruction to wash your hands, avoid people with a cough… finally it is here. The UK are reporting their very first case, as Italy goes into lockdown. People are told to stay indoors. People are dying. People are numbers now. Hospitals cannot cope. New laws are passed to prevent people from leaving their homes without good reason. The US closes all its borders to Europe, choosing to exclude the UK from its list of No-Entry for a few days only, before we too are closed off. Italy, France, Germany, Spain, so many other countries also closing borders, banning foreign travel, going into lockdown. Now things were all too real, so very. very close to home.

And the slow, grinding, twisting clench that does not go away is here as I read about the speed of its progression through Europe, now the epi-centre of the Corona virus. I read reports from doctors who tell us what we have to come. That we have to act. We need to become global citizens to save the world from this bleak future being set out before us. And so we’re told to wash our hands. Keep a distance from others. Avoid social gatherings. Wait, what? This is 2020! We’re free people. We have our own minds and our grandparents fought so that we could have this freedom! We need to relinquish it.

And so we withdraw. We cannot not withdraw. We take the kids out of brownies, we cancel dance lessons, we tuck our gym cards into a drawer and we wait for further instructions. We listen to the Prime Minister as he gives daily udpdates. First we’re told that anyone with a new cough or other symptoms must self isolate for 7 days. We’re told that the over 70s, pregnant women and those with an underlying heath condition are most at risk and must stay indoors. We all have loved ones that fall into these categories so that slow, grinding clench begins to intensify into a hammering beat within the chest.

From a gentle thump to a harder shove to a definite kick to a slow, grinding clench to a hammering beat… and here we are. New guidelines have been issued for anyone with a cough to self isolate along with their household for 14 days. No play dates, no lunch dates, no trips to the shops. No food because the shelves are bare in the supermarket and the online deliveries are booked up for weeks.

And then my own kids are sent home from school with suspected symptoms. My kids. Mine. Me. Us.

The hammering beat as I realise they are ok, but we are not ok. No real symptoms yet but people are scared. People want answers but there aren’t many to give. People, like me, never wanted their kids in school this week anyway- so when they’re returned to me I’m relieved and happy to keep them home inside our house, away from everyone else. But what next?

Today, schools in the UK are closing. Teachers are going to say goodbye to the few pupils left in the gaping classrooms. A few will return on Monday, but possibly not to the school where they feel safe, secure and happy. Possibly not to the teacher they know, trust and like. Schools are closing until further notice. Done. finished. The end.

From a gentle thump to a harder shove to a definite kick to a slow, grinding clench to a constant, deafening hammering… this is where we’re at. We’re making a new normal in a world that is now anything but. We don’t know how long it will take to emerge into a changed world where we can walk outside to breathe in the fresh air without fear. We don’t know how long it will take before things are under control and we don’t know how long it will take before we have some answers. For now we have each other and the constant, steady, almost comforting hammering beat.