Waiting for the Heart to Catch Up: the early days of COVID-19

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

We are getting closer to a shutdown in Australia. It’s a strange feeling. I can feel the stress of it in the tips of my fingers and there’s a buzzing on the crown of my head most of the time now, but there’s also a sense of unreality. It’s feels like a movie, one of those disaster films from the 1990’s or 2000’s. You know the ones where the ship is sinking or the volcano is spewing molten lava or when climate change has brought on the next ice age (this one does worry me more than the others, actually), except it’s none of these. It’s not a story. I know it isn’t. This may not end the way we want it to, bitter-sweetly in that perfectly designed, disaster-film way, where the hero dies at the end or else triumphs endorsing the tenacity of the human spirit. And we won’t walk out of the cinema, blinking into the light, and go on with our lives, invigorated because we have experienced a book-ended touch of high drama. This thing may go on long after we mean it to stop. It won’t come with a soundtrack, ramping up the suspense when it means to warn us. Our own personally staggering moments might occur while listening to really bad media, Sco-Mo, Boris Johnson or nothing.

And then there’s the rules of social interaction, which change often. In Australia, we seem to have settled on the 1.5-metre distance rule as we pass through shopping centres and public spaces and four metres in offices and the like, although most people are working from home now. That’s odd, too. The world seems bigger to me with so few humans in it. And when a person steps away from me at the supermarket or keeps their distance, I know I should be grateful for their consideration, but inside it feels like rejection, a lack of trust…lonely. It makes me realise how much I take for granted the people I have never talked to and will never meet. That old dance of humanity, the one where people brush up against each other, is replaced by something less like a waltz and more like an Irish dance.

And then there’s all the people I know without a job, since the restaurants, cafes, cinemas, theatres and clubs have closed. Mostly, I realise how dependant I was on those who entertained and caffeinated me, wined and dined me. I thank them. I want the best for them. I don’t want them to fall ill. The world feels cavernous without them, their bright umbrellas on pavements, their lights in windows at night. We face unusual days. If I were younger, I might be more comforted by social media interactions. I would be more certain, that out there, there is a whole world teaming with people. But right now, if I call out, it seems only my echo will come back.

They tell us there will be further restrictions, if needs be, and I watch the news presenter nod sagely, like she has the inside scoop, and I wonder if she feels the tingling in the tips of her fingers too, the buzzing on the crown of her head. I’m wondering, if she drops the persona when she gets home, and slumps on the sofa with a huge glass of wine and says, “**** me”. I’m hoping she does because then at least we’d have that in common. It’s honesty I’m after. There are plenty of cheerleaders to tell us this upheaval will end, that we are alone together or together alone, that staying home is socially responsible and we need these cheerleaders. Particularly now. We also need to appreciate the tireless and dangerous work of health carers and teachers, police officers, supermarket workers.  But I also need to acknowledge how strange this all is and the effect it has on us as individuals, as families, as tribes. Most of us are not built for this. Up until now, our days were constructed around the physical presence of the people we love, against a backdrop of the crashing and banging, hooting and screeching, riotous sound of our obnoxiously busy cities. This is what we know.

It’s a lot to absorb. The information comes in great swathes. It lassoes my attention and I find myself rooted to the spot in front of the television by more statistics, more future modelling, more prohibitions. There is no lack of reportage, even if it is conflicting at times, but I stutter before it all. My mind is boggled and I’m waiting for my heart to catch up.