Diary 9
Friday 27th March
I’ve continued with my program of re-reading. What I’ve noticed is that now I have so much more open time I tend to read more slowly and with greater pleasure than before. No longer is it a case of just-got-to-finish-this-paragraph before I have to run an errand, pick up a kid from school, or anything else that one can imagine from our days before the virus struck. I can take more breaks, think about what I’ve just read, savor it. The result has been that it’s as though I’m reading a whole new book. Middlemarch, my current read, is far funnier than I ever recall it being in the past. It is positively wicked, the way George Eliot addresses the reader in a ‘masculine’ voice, while all the time knowing that the majority of readers would always be women….
To be fair, I’m a great believer in re-reading. So much of my time used to be spent reading swiftly for meaning, to get the main ideas, so I didn’t drown under the weight of words. Obviously that’s not a great scheme when reading actual literature, the good stuff, but the old habit persisted. I feel richer, now.
I’m also aware of the strange nature of privilege. I can write about my enforced leisure as I have here, and yet be aware that many people are frightened, stressed, despairing, overwhelmed and sad. People are dead who died alone, because relatives were not permitted to be with them in their last hours. Funerals have been anonymous, with nowhere for mourners to weep, or get supporting hugs. None of the usual rituals that help to manage loss are available. We don’t even see the funerals on TV. It’s as though the dead have evaporated. Those who are affected in this way are stressed in case they might be next, in case they’ve passed on the virus, in case they can’t pay for food, let alone funerals and medical expenses.
People are being broken. And we aren’t seeing that, because there’s no media coverage.
If you’re lucky enough to be well, if your family has not been hit with the virus, if you have adequate food and shelter, be grateful. Be very very grateful.
