Thursday 19 March

It's Day 4 of lockdown and everything is slightly surreal. Within these four walls, one could believe that life continues almost unchanged. The daughter who said she would NEVER want to homeschool is getting on with online school in a more or less cheerful fashion. And the man who needs to get out of the house at least 6 days out of 7 in order to swim, hike or run is managing to find movement in gardening, and weight-training, and the odd stair-running challenge.

It's true that I am cooking EVERY dang day and, never one for the mundane routine of domestic chores, I am somehow finding a sort of grounding in this repetition of preparing and sharing food in the middle of the day, when we are usually scattered. And yes, we have to take ID with us when we go out of the house, even to walk to dogs. And only one of us can go out at a time (we heard that people have been fined for having more than one person in a car, even). Yet, perched here on our hillside, we are in other ways quite separated from the realities in the town below.

Only when we go out for groceries does it become obvious how weird everything is. In the supermarket there are security personnel enforcing the approved distance between those shopping, and at the checkout there is tape on the floor to mark where to stand in the properly punctuated line. The store staff are masked and gloved, wearing an air of tension that betrays the way the last days have worn them down.

The streets are eerily quiet and feel like the set of some dystopian movie. It feels strange that the symptoms of hayfever have begin to kick in; surely such banal realities should be suspended at such a time? It's tempting to view the people who are out with suspicion: do they have a valid reason to be out of the house?

Back at home, siblings we don't usually hear from call us. Somehow this shared experience invites connection in a way that floods in Mozambique, or almost fatal accidents in South Africa never did. In spite of this imposed isolation,  ironically we feel more connected with some people than we did before. We are invited to join groups on Facebook and distant friends call or text to check in.

Somewhere in the middle of the twin realities of isolation and connection, and of familial normality and community chaos, we exist together as a family. We bake bread, we read books, we do workouts, we play games, we make love, we play music, we create gardens.