ON Day 2 of lockdown, my friend Emma created a ‘positivity wall’. Twenty garishly-coloured bits of A4 paper, stuck together into a giant backdrop for her Zoom video calls to work colleagues sent the message out loud and clear. “We may all be isolated, but let’s focus on the positives of these sad and surreal times.”
Scrawled on these giant pixel-like rectangles were some of the big things like: Health, Community, Peacefulness, Appreciation, sitting alongside those that perhaps you wouldn’t want to share with your team on that Zoom call. “Wearing leggings every day, and sometimes no bra.” Preach, sister. It does seem to be the way forward, and if I had a positivity wall I’d include embrace the nose hairs, ditch the razor and rock the greys.
Truth be told, I could do with a positivity wall of my own. For the last two days I’ve woken up feeling flat. Nothing particularly dramatic, just a bit bleurgh, with a sort of tugging feeling that something isn’t right. In fact, at various points during the last two days whenever Emma has talked about her positivity wall, I’ve fantasised about taking a marker pen, rushing into her house and writing in huge black letters, “It’s all going to hell!” all over it. (Only government rules have stopped me doing this).
On our socially distant walks where she strides on 100 metres in front of me and we phone each other to chat, I’ve wanted to bark down the phone, “Don’t tell me who’s done what on Taskmaster, or how good you are at Words With Friends. I don’t know them, I don’t want to know them, and I have too many apps on my phone anyway.”
We’ve talked about it and we laugh, but this is not like me at all. On Skype calls with friends and family talking to three grainy faces in boxes I’ve found myself reaching out to touch the tablet or phone, yearning for that physical contact that previously I didn’t even think about. My self-diagnosis: I’m missing the hugs. That glorious daily injection of oxytocin is lacking from my life and I’m experiencing the big, mad come-down. No hugs from my dad because he’s self-isolating after a bowel cancer operation or mum who’s with him. No hugs from my brother because he’s in the high risk category. No hugs from friends or colleagues because they are stuck in boxes on my phone and no hugs from my son because, well, he’s a teenager and sadly immune to the joys of a good, meaty hug.
So what should be on my wall of positivity? I’ve leached some thoughts from friends today. One of my favourites is from a flight attendant chum who says as someone who can be in two continents a day, every day, she loves staying in one place – having a routine, cooking and eating nutritious food and being present in the moment. Another said: “Aw, man, I can reach new levels of laziness and feel absolutely no shame in it whatsoever”.
One, who is a key worker, said she loves the fact that her daughters – who would usually niggle and wind each other up – have the house cleaned, tidied and the food on the table when she gets back from work. And another has taken the time away from the daily grind to reconnect with his son and use every day to walk in the wilderness. One slightly nosey mum whipped out the binoculars to spy on her teenage son as he “nipped out for a second” only to see him placing a Playstation game on the ground, withdraw, and then another teenager furtively walk up and replace his game with one of his. Collective sighs of relief all round.
Yesterday brought an impromptu coronavirus moment to my street, which I’ll remember for a while: 87-year-old Sandy’s door, festooned with happy birthday balloons and banners, slowly opened as he walked out into the blinding spring sunshine and we all sang to him, young and old, from far flung places and near, accompanied by an accordion and a concertina. As he sipped a fine malt, and we did wee socially distant jigs and clapped him, he blinked at the huge dumpling made for him by one of the neighbours and said: "Right, who’s for a Strip the Willow then?"
It was a moment of pure humanity, love and joy. It was the perfect moment for the wall of positivity.
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