Most of us have started to lead quieter lives at home and others have had to be on the frontline dealing with coronavirus in a more serious way. These times have been hard for some and for others they have enjoyed finding their own space and routine.
It’s important to reflect and think about what we have learnt and what we might change when we slowly start re-joining our communities. We have put some short stories together from staff and members, on how they are coping during this time of lockdown and it is amazing and inspiring to see how we can all adapt and help each other through some tough times and how we can create strong communities together.
Kristina, CEHL Admin Co-ordinator and Communications Assistant
Working from home and homeschooling has been far more challenging than I had ever imagined. My children are in Grade 4 and Year 7 and have had their own challenges in adapting to being at home all the time and not being able to socialise with the very thing that brings them great joy in life – their friends!
We have spent time organising the house to accommodate for everyone working and have also spent a lot of time investing in what our routine will be. I am extremely lucky to have my job and to have such a great employer that supports our new environment and has really shown great care in how they deal with their staff, always checking in with me to see how I am going.
It hasn’t been easy, but I am grateful for my job, my family and the house that provides protection for us.
Sarah, Liberty Co-op member
My counsellor told me about an article she read, the research suggested some people are quite resilient and remain fairly positive throughout lockdown, some get very depressed, but the majority feel a dissonance between the emotions of happiness and sadness, a constant ride of joy and despair, they are missing stability. I am one of these people, up and down constantly, sometimes excited or grateful for the joys of lock down: seeing more stars at night, feeling our earth sigh with relief as people stop travelling around, always keeping busy.
I'm enjoying having my twelve-year-old at home with me, it gratifies my protective nature, even though the constant gaming is driving me mad, and I see how desperately bored he is. He manages to game, yet also lay in a kind of yoga nidra on the couch, awakening only to eat and drink, balancing a plate of six tacos on his chest! He shovels in huge meals, and his feet grow bigger every day. Afraid of sunlight, like most teenagers, the lounge room is now stuffy and dark.
I watch the news, and the sadness rolls on. Deaths in Brazil, America, all over the world. Riots in America, and time for reflection on Australia's own racist attitudes. This time for reflection is sometimes overwhelming. Sometimes I stop laughing, stop singing around the house and enjoying the free time reading or writing, or getting along with housework year old housework. At night, the insides of my stomach drop, with either trepidation or a feeling of great sadness for all the lives that have been lost. I forget about feeling positive, go to bed, but then wake up loving the morning all over again.
A yoga studio I have never been able to afford, The Yoga Creative, is now offering unlimited online classes for ten dollars a week. Inflexible, and a lover of wine, butter and meat, I persist regularly because I enjoy it. During the classes, I feel a deep sense of relief, not quite bliss, but a definite sense of letting go. I took up these classes when I left my co-op home in Thornbury, to stay with my sister for some weeks in Ballarat during lockdown.
Along with the yoga, every morning I would take a short walk to a train crossing in a Ballarat back street. I would usually chat on the phone to my best friend since high school. We would tell each other what our counsellors have suggested during these times, laugh about getting older and our weak bladders (that we like to blame on childbirth but know is really from anxiety). We talk about growing up in Brunswick, nights in teenage bedrooms, smoking and drinking wine, listening to Nina Simone, believing we were so sophisticated in our little bodies with smudged red wine grins. We compare our cleaning and exercise routines, she tells me how she is singing again, I lie about how much I write. We compare menstrual cycles and admit our neuroticism’s. We are in awe of our youth, how we slept outside of a bathroom on the floor in a housing commission flat in Scotland, anything to save money so we could travel more together.
I spent years at university and nearly completed two novels, the second of them prying into the darkness of mental illness. Strangely and hopefully, I see how bad they were now. There will always be darkness and there will always be light. We just hope that they shift in and out of each other: my novels didn't shift. Even though I barely read non-fiction, much preferring to read a good novel, finally, I see that writing non-fiction articles is a way better option for me.