Scenes from a Toronto breakfast table as Covid-19 weariness and, just maybe, boredom and anxiety begin to show. And then Bill Taylor passes by an Ottowa branch of No Frills for the 13th episode of his lockdown diary. See the whole series here ...
Time is no longer of the essence… a conversation over breakfast yesterday:
Lesley: “That National Theatre thing is tomorrow, not today.”
Me: “Really? I thought it was showing on Thursday, not Friday.”
Lesley: “Isn’t today Wednesday?”
Me: “No.”
(Pause)
Lesley: “Ah.”
Reality check: did I say the other day that I wasn’t losing much sleep? This’ll teach me. Add eight lousy hours to the tally.
Out of nowhere – sudden wakefulness. Keeping my eyes closed does nothing more than give the mental pictures a screen to flicker on.
A flood of thoughts. What’s happening, what has happened, what will happen. What we’re doing, what we’ve done, what we should be doing.
Enough? In time? Too little? Too late?
Close the dog parks. Close the playgrounds. Stay off the hiking trails, stay two metres apart. Stay out of stores unless you absolutely need to be there. People aged 70 and over, stay home.
No gatherings of more than 100… no, 50… no, five people. Your friends are only your friends any more if they’re way over there.
I’m fine with that. I appreciate what the immutable “they” are trying to do. But shouldn’t they already have done it? In the middle of the night, every measure they announce, every restriction they apply makes my subconscious wonder if they aren’t working in arrears:
“This just changed, therefore we’re doing THIS to counter it…”
Shouldn’t it be, “This might change or this is quite likely/more than likely/inevitably going to change, therefore we’re doing THIS in an effort to head it off.”
I have no real idea of the science, the reasoning, the logic. But it looks sometimes to my bleary eyes as if, having discovered the horse has escaped from the barn, they’re now chasing it across the fields, carefully closing each gate behind it.
Nothing for it but to get up before the sun and start writing. And then drink coffee, hunker down for the day and try to stay awake until the proper time for sleep returns. And hope it does. Tomorrow is another day and, all things being equal, I’ll be bright-eyed and bushy tailed once more.
Which, while I’m being honest, doesn’t paint the most attractive picture. Sorry ’bout that.
Let’s try at least never to be down-hearted for long. It occurs to me that, given the likelihood of those who recover from COVID-19 having immunity for at least a period of time if not forever, they could be recruited to drive buses, deliver mail and work in stores. Jobs that involve close contact with people.
No reason why Sophie Grégoire Trudeau should be excluded. I can see her now in an Ottawa No Frills, restocking shelves and telling customers that her husband – “he’s the Prime Minister, you know” – says, in both official languages, don’t hoard.
A modest enough proposal.
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