Spacious Solidarity Blog: Day 11

I finally get a full night’s sleep. I don’t even get up to pee.

I’ve been dreaming about sailing. But it’s all wrong. The boat won’t obey the laws of physics and keeps doing the opposite of what it’s meant to do. It’s somehow filling with water. Now it’s capsizing. My dad’s with me again.

We give up and decide to have lunch at a busy restaurant on a pier. As our food arrives I remember coronavirus. People are sat too close. I walk away.

Yesterday a friend suggested we try walking in the morning, rather than the late afternoon. They’ll be less people out. The air will be fresher, less pollen floating about.

So we head out around 9am. She’s right, the park feels much more spacious. On the way we pass a construction site still clambering away. A train goes by. Life is still happening. People are still working and still need to get around.

I think of the essential workers and send out an instant prayer that they can stay well while moving about, while doing their jobs, while keeping it all going. While saving our lives.

My sisters posted a couple of pictures on Facebook. One’s of her with gifts from friends; a homemade face mask and homemade lavender hand sanitizer. Another friend’s sent her a care package of hand sanitizer, paper towels, toilet paper, and chocolates.

She tells me they’ve escalated the protocols at the hospital. They have to put their masks on before walking through the door and can’t wear head coverings with their PPE (personal protective equipment).  She’s planning on wearing her surgical mask under her handmade one and spraying her head with the hand sanitizer when she leaves each day.

Later on she sends me a picture of herself in full PPE. Her situation finally hits home and I realise I’ve been in denial. She’s on the frontlines of this thing and the reality is she could get sick and die and I may not ever see her again.

That’s not me catastrophizing, that’s the reality. I can’t fully let it in, so I swallow my tears and distract myself by scrolling through Facebook and eating more chisps (Brimarican for chips/crisps) and chocolate than is appropriate even by apocalyptic standards.

Later on I’m on the phone with a friend who runs a Buddhist retreat centre. She’s been sunbathing while preparing words of encouragement for her community. They’ve been getting on with doing all the things they can’t usually do when the place is full of people.

She wants to bring her 83 year old mum, who is an extrovert and on her own, to live with her for the duration, but there are risks. I hold back from lecturing her. She’s old enough to make her own decisions. And so is her mum.

In the evening I’m hosting the first session of a six-week meditation course on Zoom. It’s hard work getting used to not being in a room with people. I’m missing the intimacy.

But there are also benefits. Young mums have joined who would otherwise not have been able to. People appreciate not having to commute.  

We stop halfway through to go out on our doorsteps and clap for the NHS. I step outside at 7:57 and notice a handful of people on their stoops, others hanging out their windows. I wave hello to a neighbor across the street and she remarks that there aren’t many of us yet.

All of a sudden I hear the sound of clapping, like a wave crashing on a beach, making its way up the street. We all join in. There’s whooping and whistling too. It goes on for about 5 mins.

Back on Zoom I finally feel connected. We’ve been going around, 20 of us, saying why we’re here and I am struck by how different we all are and also how similar. I send them off with clear instructions to meditate every day and take good care of themselves.

We stay up late on our laptops. My partners snowed under with work and I’m winding down from the class. I’m into more chisps and am nursing a glass of red wine. When we finally go to bed it’s almost midnight.

I remember as I’m nodding off that I’ve started to use hashtags and that the most trending one today was #love.