The first morning of the lockdown I bring my toddler for a walk so she can nap in the buggy. The streets are empty. I turn a corner and see another mother pushing another lonely buggy across the road. She waves at me and I wave back. We don’t know one another.
I have three young children. My elderly parents are very vulnerable and as I live close by, I provide support for them. When the schools closed, I decided to isolate my family to minimise the risk to my parents. While the more serious measures didn’t affect us so much - we were doing most of it already - it means we have been in lockdown for almost two months. The days of no friends, no family, cancelled plans, are all marked off in pink highlighter on our wall planner. The pink stretches across the spring months.
My children are happy. The school sends work home for my older two but I pick and choose what to do. They play together all day. They bicker less, their imagination has taken them off into their own worlds. I try to become the arty mother I always thought I’d be, but rarely had the time for. Some days I succeed. Most days I feel I’ve succeeded because the children have been unproductively happy.
My husband works from what is now called the office. Separated by two doors, he can work and the children aren’t constantly reminded of his out-of-bounds presence. We can’t believe our luck that we have this multi-functional room in an otherwise little house. Out of sight from his computer’s camera, the laundry still hangs. Likewise, our little triangles of lawn and patio have become our playground, park and cafe. It is all we need.
While he is shuttered in the office, my work continues - more intense and more visible, to him at least. We bicker less now, too. We get the best of each other, not just the morning rush and the worn-out evenings. All our little jokes and observations are made to each other rather than to the people we no longer see during the day. Tempers sometimes fray, but we laugh together more.
The middle child has learnt to cycle a proper bike. Our 2km circle becomes suddenly more explorable with the two-year-old pulled along, hand in hand, on her tiny scooter. We pass by other houses with other children’s art in the windows, other families with buggies and scooters and smile, say thank you for moving out of our way.
Another mother, a stranger, asks how am I keeping - as if we’ve known each other forever. Her three children playing around her, we say to each other the very same things we are ourselves thinking. Thank god for the weather. Good days and bad days. There’s a lovely change of pace. It’s hard though. Hopefully the nice things will stay when this is all over. The silver linings. We all hope this, don’t we?
So much has changed, and there are things I have to block out of my mind because it’s too upsetting and there is nothing I can do to help - but the good things are so much more.... present. Has the birdsong always been this loud? When did the cherry blossom become some abundant? Magnolia seems to be everywhere, irises and arum lillies in the gardens we pass by. The warm afternoon air comforting as a blanket, the sea water rushing around our ankles on the beach is colder than ever, shocking us back into our bodies. We squeal in pain and delight.
My children are happy - that is my mantra. And I am too, although some days it is harder to convince myself of it. There are moments of intense worry, fear, loneliness. Those moments pass, and I am content again. I tell myself that I have all I really need under my own roof and in my own arms, sleeping beside me in my own bed. This is what I try to hold on to.
