“Mum, I’d really like to go back to school now.”
I feel her. I feel her deep in my bones. We’ve had the kids home from school since the 17th of March, for everyone’s safety, and it’s starting to bite. We will ignore the fact it’s Saturday, and school holidays, and no one is going to school at all.
I like staying at home usually. I like it a lot. But it’s a lot harder when there’s a pandemic on and you absolutely cannot go anywhere except the supermarket and the chemist. Maybe it’s the backdrop of anxiety; of waiting for the tsunami to hit; of counting the ways we can keep ourselves safe.
(Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands…)
I stocked up on soap ingredients before the major supermarkets put their limits in place, and picked up tallow and coconut oil from the big wholesalers. Of course I’ve been making soap like mad, because we all need to retain our sanity in this environment, and now I’ve only got one box of tallow left. I’m sure that’s going to go down a treat when I need to cross the river (something we’re trying to avoid).
Because what else is there to do but bake bread and make soap? It might sound like privilege, but I have flour and yeast, I have a business, I have a brain which is likely to go all squirrelly if I don’t keep my hands busy.
My bones might fall apart, but they can be patched up with tape and braces. We’re all in a lot more trouble if my brain starts to misbehave the way my collagen does.
So I bake bread, and apple pies, and make soap, and tell the Internet that it’s okay to be doing whatever gets you through the day right now. (Probably don’t kill anyone though, if murder is getting you through the day you’ve got bigger problems than I can help with.)
There’s a lot of one-upmanship happening out there right now. Who has it worst, who is struggling hardest, who can sit at home and read books, who is literally putting their lives on the line. And FFS people, it’s a pandemic, can’t we just support each other? No one is doing okay, I suspect we’re all refreshing the news feeds and twitter as best we can, trying to keep our shit together. Stop with the culture wars, and pitting people against each other.
Pandemics are rough. It’s a traumatic event, unfolding so slowly we don’t quite know what to do with it.
Give yourself permission to bake bread, or sleep, or scream into a pillow. Whatever works. Honestly.
