This was written some time ago . Reflects a moment/ moments in time early corona virus time in WA. Found it languishing in blog and waiting to be cut. Am putting it out as is warts and all as I think it’s honest if wordy, and makes some still salient points 4 months after the crisis here in WA seems to have dissipated

In my newly assumed mode of sending off blogs directly ,minimum agonising and minimum fiddling with edit.Hopefully we wont be,like Shakespeares ancient, sans everything at the end of this period of isolation and social distancing.Hopefully we will not be sans conscience again .But I’m not naive enough to think that the world will become a spiritually and ethically transformed place.We are human after all.I cannot write on behalf of the universe.I can only write much closer to home.In fact at home.I want to document some of the circumstantial and purposeful changes made within my part of the household from about the middle of March 2020.

Cooking .Although I was cooking before ,now there is no possibility of going out ,especially to our weekly whole family catch up at the Fremantle Markets .I distrust take away ,so cooking more and more ,and tackling new recipes as it gets boring doing the same old healthy ,vego food .In fact it is getting boring cooking each night anyway .My fervour for cooking a while ago when I was focussed on growing food,eating unprocessed ,exercising regularly and exploring different types of exercise is languishig .I suspect because the crisis of illness and treatment has passed .With the wider threat of CV I can as all humans do I relax into old habits.Also it’s winter and my appetite is returning but not my sense of taste,so sugar and high carbs are great.

Gardening .At the end of the summer I had decided to pull most of stuff remaining out.The tomatoes especially had not justified the money, time and effort spent on keeping them going and the few small unappealing fruits on the drying branches did not warrant anymore attention.But I have had to try again,attempting to recapture the old magic of anticipating the first shoot or leaf to pop up.The first part is the best.Rather like pets.Sweet when little and then they become a burden as well;pets have to be fed and walked and taken to the vet.They cost money and time.As do vegie gardens

Efficient food shopping: Efficient but limited. Using a standard supermarket as in the early morning there are few people and it is safer.But vegies from supermarket are not very satisfying.The texture and taste contributes to my diminished interest in preparing food.Also of course in this time of social distancing there are no longer friends to cook for.There are none of those family dinners where we pooled scrumptious recipes and sat around talking and drinking while the kids did cartwheels and wrote stories or drew.Those evenings with their fun and closeness have exited stage right as the CV has entered centre stage.

Find another supplier and stop winging .

Lets look on the Bright side: Nevertheless I’m not spending time going to various places for vegies,or meandering my way through Op shops(Op shops deserve a blog all of their own ).We are saving about $50 a week not doing the morning walk up to our local cafe for coffee and muffin.Take away coffee ? Well its Ok occasionally when one just has to grasp some semblance of the old ways ,and needs to talk to someone other than oneself and husband .But its not the same ,we all know, as sitting down at a table in the sun, grabbing the paper of someone to flick through and then watching the passing walkers and cyclists ,and even the cars on the highway.I’m not wasting time though,no lengthy sit at coffee or extended walk.Now its coffee at home in the newly arranged back garden:paving swept,pond improvised, flowers ,some veggies

All the paraphenalia surrounding Thompson lives removed until it finds its way back.Like the shovels and remnants of washing that has blown off the line, rotting cuttings sitting in jars of black liquid ,bits of paper that have missed the bins .There are various things to be thrown out (only now there is no Resource Center) : malfunctioning goods, broken furniture ,old mattresses .So they have had to join their mates in the rapidly filling back room.

PS also my store room -all this healthy eating requires tins of chic peas and tomatoes ,lots of beans and lentils , assorted flours ,brown rice -Im sure you know -and there is no room for lots of loo paper or sanitiser!!

Transportation and Communication

Yes its a pleasure to walk across the highway now and not have to dodge cars on my way to the beach .Can we discover that we can do without cars ,or at least that we dont have to drive everywhere ,And we dont have to have a car for each member of the household

I see a lot more people walking just in my neighbourhood, and certainly more people are stopping to talk .There are people sitting on their walls with a drink in their hands ,all socially distancing but chatting with a neighbour on a wall across from them People are a lot more eager to talk, especially women .There are small groups of children playing games outside on ovals or lawns supervised by parents and mostly moving apart .Families are looking for way s of getting their children outside and away from technology for part of the day .

All this is good.I hate to qualify with another statement -but Fremantle and its surrounds is not a typical suburb:it is predominately middle class with a mix of older people and younger families and laid back ,alternative lifestyles Many of us walk and cycle anyway and are involved with the community.We are so lucky with our surrounds -beach and river and parks .We do not live cheek by jowl in a small one bedroom apartment in a crowded city trying to survive on little money ,and unable to get out .

To Conclude :

Perhaps the biggest change these last few months has been communication

The community I live in has changed for the better in that people are moving around and relating more closely to neighbours.For me personally the social distancing and isolation has had a flip side .There have been positive changes :the focus on life here at home ,getting jobs done ,more writing and reading ,less restless moving around and more targeted activity ,a greater reliance on figuring stuff out on my own .looking at my thoughts instead of moving on to be distracted.

The flip side is that the relating via technology or at best via 1.5 m apart is an emotional separation.The more I don’t speak face to,face,laugh,argue ,touch or hold the wider the gap.This is especially true with grandchildren.

Perhaps the thing I miss most in CV time is the hugging .

So I have my teeth ,my eyes are extra sharp at the moment ,and I and many of us here have if not everything ,much more than a lot of the rest of the world Lets be thankful.Let me be thankful .Maybe I can learn to think emotion into those air hugs .

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