A Prisoner in Paradise

I sit out on the deck after midnight. In past years we had parties out here - often in the pouring rain. There would be people sitting, swathed in blankets, shoulder to shoulder on the sofa whilst others shifted around on the edges, trying to avoid the torrents of water falling from the roof.

Tonight though, it’s just me and the full moon. The boards at my feet are like a silver raft floating above the half-lit lawn that slopes away to a drop, where it abruptly ends. Beyond this, the dark mass of the woods looms up, quiet and silhouetted against a radiant sky in which the moon hangs like a dazzling jewel.

It’s strange how, in moonlight, the brightness of things diminishes with distance. This gradation of light, from the clarity of the foreground all the way to distant shadows, brings with it a sense of calm immensity in which the flow of time itself seems subdued.

Earlier, I took my permitted quota of exercise by walking in the woods. It’s a route I often follow and which I never grow tired of. Where the wood ends there is a old stone stile guarded by two trees - ‘the gate of the wood’ as I call it. Just in from here is where the wild garlic is thickest. The path I take back winds itself through a froth of white flowers, climbing slowly to the higher ground before quitting the wood for a high, open field where, on an earlier occasion, I once met a hare. Beyond here the path descends slowly down through green pasture. There’s the church tower - it’s base and the church itself are hidden by trees.

Except for two brief trips to the local town, I haven’t left the village in weeks. There’s a shop, staffed partly by volunteers that is suddenly thriving. Along with the usual essentials they have fresh trout, green vegetables, sausages and cheeses — all locally sourced. Only two people are allowed in at any one time and we are asked to wash our hands before entering.

Back home, I divide my time between staying in touch with people by email and Zoom and keeping on top of our domestic accounts, housework (some), cooking (lots) and gardening. I am reading, both in the true sense of the word and by listening to recordings on Audible. From time to time I release a new post on my blog; I play Pokemon with the grandchildren and read them stories by means of a cunningly mounted phone that permits them to see the book. I am trying (unsuccessfully) to find time for my artwork; I need to develop some designs for the spare bedroom. Down in the cellar, the 3D printer is churning out protective visors for distribution to local hospitals and care homes. Most evenings we watch things on television: Twins, Hidden, Normal People, Succession, Have I Got News For You, Newsnight. Time flies by at an astonishing rate. If it weren’t for Thursday evenings, when we briefly step outside — ostensibly to clap for the NHS but as much out of a desire to say hello to our neighbours — I would be constantly having to remind myself what day of the week it is.

What is the point in telling you all of this? You no doubt have something similar going on — that is assuming that, like me, you are in reasonable health, unstressed, financially secure, light on responsibilities and not prone to boredom.

Of course there are others who have something totally different going on — though, let’s admit it: they’re unlikely to be reading this. For a start, many of them will be too busy — like the people who are keeping the whole show on the road: doctors, nurses, ambulance and delivery drivers, care workers, police, people working in food production, on supermarket check-outs, maintaining water supplies, power and data networks. Many are on low pay. All are arguably at higher risk than those of us who are confined to our homes.

And not all those who are locked down are having a party either. Many are suffering poverty, ill-health, loneliness or depression. Others will have been laid off. Some households - chaotic or abusive at the best of times - will be in crisis. To think that the long, hard years of austerity should have come to yield such rotten fruit.

We hear little or nothing of this world. First hand accounts of life under the pandemic are mainly confined to the experiences of well-resourced, middle-class people.

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the very same restrictions that are causing serious problems for so many are helping compound inequality and intensifying social division. Just when we should be starting a broad-based conversation across all sectors of society, we instead find ourselves increasingly confined to our silos, some cushioned — mostly not.

But what is really shaming is that, for many of us, all of this literally doesn’t bear thinking about. So — and here I must speak solely for myself — I persuade myself that the problem is too big and that, in any case, the pursuits that I follow: the walks in the woods, my reading, writing this piece — are all, in some mysterious way, helping bring about a better world.

Of course, this is no more than wishful thinking.