Diary 35

Wednesday April 22nd

The signs of our changed life are subtle. I noticed today the small piles of objects at the kerbside, the household items people are leaving out as freebees. It’s unusual to see so much mid month. Then it occurred to me that even if some people are cleaning out their basements (there’s a particular ‘look’ to such items) quite a few of these abandoned articles seem to be the remnants of those who are moving. The young people who perhaps rented a room, who worked in Cambridge, and would be seen on the buses most mornings – those buses that now run empty – are leaving their rentals now the work has dried out. They’re moving home, perhaps. They certainly aren’t here anymore.

And perhaps that’s not an altogether bad thing. Perhaps young people will start to think about whether they want to rent one room, at high rent, in a shared apartment, and be overworked. Living far away from friends and family may seem like ‘freedom’ for a while, but sometimes the psychic costs can be high. Perhaps this is a time when we can all revisit what we expect from ‘work’ and consider how we want to live.

We can do our lives better – if we choose to.