A note on 2020

It’s hard to reach back to those days before lockdown. We had just returned from a family trip to Uruguay for a family wedding. It was the last wedding on the beach at Jose Ignacio. Just six days later, another one would be shut down by the police, after the virus had been reported in the capital.

We live on an estate in London. Four windows face out to the canal in Little Venice. And the rear four look out to the centre of the estate. The passers-by had been less frequent in those final days before Boris called the lockdown. The air hung with a heaviness. Not everyone was wearing masks, but people didn’t want to be near each other; we could see them hugging to opposite sides of the pavement, when walking by.

At first, we thought we’d escape to the country. But finding the house filled with lots of people, children, and struggling to find a corner to work in quietly, we knew that our flat, even without the promise of green, would be the only place. We could quietly fill the day with work – and look forward to a short walk around the block; retracing steps through familiar streets but in an opposite direction.

Inside we found new structures to our day. A meal plan written out and stuck behind a magnet on the fridge made use of all we bought in an ordered weekly shop; stuffed into backpacks, so that our arms could be free as if the walk home, weaving others, was like climbing a mountain in the Himalayas.

Wakeup call at 6.30 sharp – would allow for my usual HIIT or Pilates class followed by my pseudo commute to the office, which was now positioned in the corner of the kitchen and comprised of a computer and a tower of books: notepad, diary and a novel. The camera faced a pleasing background for zoomers, my plants visible so I could introduce them (Franklin and Peggy) in case there was a lull in the customary ‘Hello’ and ‘How are you doing?’ as we waited for the virtual meeting to be fully attended.

Soon the new normal will fall into place.

Autumn has now arrived. And though there were pinches of summer. A long afternoon in the park, a weekend in Cornwall, a heatwave that stirred us crazy – it feels like we were robbed of time.

Suddenly, it is December. We know that Christmas cannot be, as cases rise and rise, but we hope for some kind of miracle. But it is less than a week away and our prime minister, Boris Johnson, goes to address us and sternly tells us that a new strain has been discovered, more contagious than the last and that Christmas is cancelled for millions. I scream inside. And phone my mum.

I know that we cannot drive to Cornwall to visit my parents and see my brother’s new baby. Instead, we must stay in the little world we have built, now populated with more and more houseplants and trees, a way to bring the outside in. I see videos on twitter of hundreds of people escaping the city on packed trains and together in cars driving out on the motorway and down to country lanes and houses hidden down long driveways, undiscovered. My friends, many of whom have tried to be good but have relented rules with parties and dates and dinner parties that I cannot judge; have fled too to their homes with their parents in the countryside. But we stay with our little tree, stuck in his bucket, and wrapped with lights, and think of those who cannot leave or have chosen to stay. The carers and doctors and nurses. We stay because of them. And because it could be someone else father or mother or loved one at risk if we do. Because we know if we all play by the rules, maybe this whole ordeal can be over sooner rather than later. And because we are not arrogant enough to think our pain and isolation and loneliness is more worthy of rectifying than anyone else’s.

One week into January now and after a two-person new year’s, we are bored. Our structure has crumbled, and we find ourselves acting like chimpanzees making noise just to be heard by one another. Of course, much has been learnt by this year: we do not know what lies around the corner, we must say yes to every invitation, it’s the little things that make us happy and that we cannot take our world for granted. The planet is precariously in balance – a balance which makes us fragile too. These are my lessons of 2020, churned together through these countless hours. All we can do is hope that when we can eventually emerge from all this, we will be better for it. We have to believe that is so. All trials and tribulations build character and make us stronger.