Day 7 LockDown

2 April 2020

1 380 cases
Recovered: 31
Deceased: 5

Day 7 today, a whole week of the surreal new normal. Sometimes I feel detached, as if I am watching myself in a movie, or if I am having a dream from which I can wake up any minute.

When I studied NLP, one of the basic foundations we were taught, is that it takes 21 days to rewire your brain and your thought patterns. Initial lockdown is planned to be 21 days. I can’t help but wonder what we are going to be like as a people when we emerge from our confinement after all this. What will the changes mean in our actions hereafter?

For me, lockdown is much appreciated extra time with my children and my pets. I have never had the opportunity to just sit with my twins, with nowhere to rush off to, no meeting, no project, no photoshoot, no office. Just sit with them and read, or do an activity. Also my pets – just to share time and love with them. My cats don’t quite know what to do with me around them all day, but my dogs are having a ball.

I find that the office is becoming less and less of a reality. My daughter asked me this morning why I am wearing my sleepy clothes. “It is wakey time, Mommy, you must put on your wakey time dress.” I haven’t worn “wakey time” clothing since I had to go shopping for us for essentials a few days ago. And even then, I just put on what I had to, because I needed to take it off immediately when I got home anyway to sanitise myself before coming into our main living areas.

Work for me now is getting the motivation together to close my home office door so that I can focus as much as I can on whatever my tasks for the day is. I find I have to check a few times to make sure where I am in the week, as the days sort of just flow into each other. I limit my time on social media, because the negativity is deafening. There is nothing I can do about the rule-breakers, I can only focus on doing the best I can to obey the regulations.

I look around me, at the enormous space we have, and I think of how we lived when I grew up. We were two kids and four adults (my mom, my aunt and my grandparents), staying in a two-bedroom flat in someone’s backyard. We were lucky, as the main house’s back gate was our front gate, and we looked upon a street. We shared a bedroom with my mother, and my aunt slept on the couch in the lounge. Sometimes we’d swop if I fell asleep on the couch. Sometimes I just wanted a bit of privacy, and I’d pretend to be asleep. My grandparents would turn the couch around with me on it, so that the back of it was between me and the television set. But I grew up listening to Dallas. I always had a bit of a soft spot for JR Ewing.

Drinking water meant going out to the yard and hanging onto the pump arm. Up and down, up and down, with a trickle of water slowly filling a bucket. Hot water meant a fire in the donkey. It got really really hot, and we learnt quickly not to touch it or go close to it. Cleaning it out the next day before we wanted to take a bath was really a huge mission. Sometimes there would still be glowing red coals. We were not allowed to put water on it, and had to just leave it to cool down naturally.

My grandfather did not handle small spaces well. He’d pace up and down on the sidewalk in front of the gate, singing silly little ditties to pass the time. It irritated my grandmother beyond measure, and she’d call him to come inside repeatedly. He would reluctantly come and sit on his favourite armchair, and call me over to listen to some music with him. Demis Roussos, Bobby Angel, Nana Moskourri – he lovingly handled his records, and allowed me to put them back into their sleeves when done. Sometimes he’d tell us a story, but he would never answer any questions about the war. Those stories were not for children, he insisted. After school came out, we’d run home and sit at his feet and listen to stories on Springbok Radio. My favourite was “Wolwedans in die Skemer”.

Today, when my children want fizzy drinks or coffee, for me it is a no-brainer and an obvious no. Yet, when we grew up, our go-to drinks were either water from the pump outside, or hot coffee from the Hart kettle on the anthracite stove. The coffee was my grandfather’s pride and joy. He’d clean the filter bag once a week, but the rest of the week, the kettle stood in its spot, and the water would just get topped up when it got low, and more and more coffee added to the filter bag. That coffee was strong as anything. Those are the smells I will always associate with my grandfather – Koffiehuis and Rum&Maple tobacco for his pipe.

My aunt, well, that’s another story all by itself. She was allegedly dropped on her head as a baby, and she never quite recovered. She’d sit and hum under her breath, rocking like a baby, or do some sort of craft, like macrame or crochet. The items she made were gorgeous, and she’d give them away as gifts to everyone she saw. She loved hugs, and she didn’t understand the concept of personal space. She really wanted to be very close to anyone. When she walked, it was with a funny gait, with wide legs and long strides, and she’d rock side to side as she moved forward. I’m ashamed to admit that I never understood her as a child, and I felt humiliated that everyone knew she was my aunt. People would point at her and laugh when she went outside.

Here, today, I am grateful that we are able to be together during lockdown, in a comfortable space, with enough to eat and more than enough to do. I am grateful that we are all healthy, whole and able to do what we want within the perimeter of our property. I am grateful that we have a library full of books downstairs, internet connectivity to access information and entertainment, and a pantry stocked with the necessary items to have fun experimenting in the kitchen. We can do this.