Transformations
Fuschia Macaree - Alone Together
Fuschia Macaree - We’ll Get Through This
I love all of her work and suggest a scroll through her website. Creatives Against Covid19 is also superb if you’d like a print to remember this odd time, whilst also supporting great causes to help those who are more vulnerable than usual, which is to say very vulnerable.
There are a few things I’ve noticed, now that I look back, that have changed and become normal. When I say normal I mean commonplace and acceptable. There have also been changes that feel more fundamental and spiritual.
One of my rules, or points of guidance, that I have come to understand as being important is - regular work, regular holidays. There have been days when I will try to wedge in a holiday during my lunch hour. London can be very kind in this aspect. Sometimes this will mean slowly indulging over a dish that takes me back to Asia or the more childlike holiday of eating chips and crisps and ham baguettes and diet coke and a pudding at 12.15pm on the otherwise non event of a Wednesday. Or the holiday from sensible financial control, so yes I will buy that dress and yes I will get a decent bottle of wine. Though of course the holiday I really want involves travel. I am forever creating travel itineraries. My brain will whirl and dance and become hooked. I will delve into how one might get from New Delhi to Mumbai via train with a weekend somewhere beautiful kissing both metropolises. I will go further, I want that moment - that click - that will flash bright in my memory forever afterwards. I look more closely at Jaipur - that city clothed in pinks and Raj wealth. This will not do, I need more. I will turn to a book to understand what I might be missing. Didn’t William Dalrymple spend a hot summer chasing a monsoon? Not quite, it was Alexander Frater. By now I understand that my imagination has found it’s earthly form. By the final act, before I even burden myself with getting to Heathrow (Piccadilly line, only those not paying go via Paddington) I will have food tours, a litany of walking routes, place names, a wardrobe, books and appropriate music pristinely catalogued across scribbled on paper and Google documents. Regular work, regular holidays.
And so goes travel along with work. It is difficult to do more than daydream now. The holiday that I am craving is really lunch with my family and friends, perhaps somewhere gentle like the South of France. I’m hoping Mum does her thing with red peppers, I want my Dad to behave exactly like my Dad, I want faces I recognise going through well rehearsed conversations and for everything to be just how it was. Effectively, I want a holiday from the vacant car park that is my current day to day reality. I have, of course, also daydreamed of returning to New York for a bank holiday, perhaps enjoying Lisbon again with Ryan and yes, I looked at flights to Asia. But none of it is sticking quite as it used to.
This follows on to another lost pleasure. Normally my reading holds an escapist quality, the whiff of the adventure of otherness. Much like the allure of going through someone else’s bag - I enjoy the quality of a different perspective, though of course - to continue the analogy - we all have much the same things in the pockets and corners of our lives. The differences are subtle and created through perspective. I have reflected back that a lot of my current reading feels more earthly, familiar and mundane. I don’t escape into books, rather I return to myself through them. The travel is minimal, both literally and figuratively.
And then, as noted, there are the commonplace transformations. Our days are drastically de-peopled. The interactions we now have are purposely created and planned. This is not, I thought, how normal socialising holds forth. Sometimes I prefer it. All the world's a stage, with a captive audience. It is difficult, I have come to understand, to interrupt people across screens. So instead you must listen and give voices space. People seem more open to being there, with the full knowledge of being able to leave. Much of that socialising is now done from our own homes, which feels quite nice. Perhaps I am only speaking from my viewpoint. I can also reflect that this sort of socialising doesn’t feel too dissimilar to what being in a pub entails. That is one of the things about a pub - the pub is the sociable third person, the benign guest happy to let you shine. If the pub were a person it would be the much adored god-father, it would be Lenny.
What else? I do not seem to be demanding so much of others. What with it being pointless to do so. But then again I do genuinely love the home I am trapped in and the person here who cannot leave me. Which yes, does sound catastrophic and odd. If one anxiety has gone it is in anticipation of how coming out of this togetherness will feel.
And then - of course - there are the other changes. Breakfast has emerged as the great victor, which reminds me of an apt quote of Julian Barnes describing us as ‘the land of embarrassment and breakfast’. Baking and homespun meals are now routine. Shopping, I understand, has gone. We no longer require public transport or our own cars in order to work (though of course, none of us workers ever did actually require these things).
If I was to conclude I would struggle. I’m sure there is a thing about change - something pithy - like you should only look back to see how far you’ve come. I definitely think we’ll look back at the connections we made, despite obvious separation, and wonder how we can maintain the love and community it created. I’d like that.
