OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

As long as it is not 666, I suppose, although no one can predict the future; we might get to Day Six Hundred and Sixty-Six and devil knows what it will unleash…

Tomorrow’s future is written in liquid. I have an idea that those not returning to work and/or not worried about their children returning to school will be on one single mission: booze! In all its manifestations… After reading a New York Times article about how a wine lover lost his ability to taste and smell after being infected with Covid-19, I am thinking that if we don’t go about alcohol shopping wisely in the next few days, we might not be able to enjoy the loot even if we do manage to bring it back home… Something to consider, me thinks. Food and drink remain two of the few simple pleasures that we can still delight in daily. But even a relatively mild Covid-19 infection can take away your sense of smell and taste and with them these basic quotidian joys.

NO, thank you.

My mission for tomorrow is a walk – during the day. Just like that! It is nearly unimaginable. Bliss awaits.

A rather quiet Sunday of work in the morning and the afternoon and laziness in the middle. A long Skype conversation with an Austrian friend in the evening. It reminded me of the Polish saying “Families are best in photographs.” Sometimes. Often. There are lovely exceptions, though.

The afternoon warmth and light were so soothing today that I decided to work on my laptop on the stoep. Mozart and I have developed a new routine: whenever I sit down at the table on the stoep in the late afternoons, he comes to join me and settles on my lap for a while before he ventures out into the garden again, back to his independent, elusive ways.

Usually, one or both of the Cat Ladies join(s) us on the stoep, but Mozart is the only one who wants to sit on my lap. But today, eventually, Glinka gave us this look…

…and I immediately wanted to grow another lap. Being a cat mother can be tricky. Thank goodness I don’t have to send any of them to school tomorrow… (and Glinka reclaimed my lap while I have been typing this post :)).

Lockdown level three is nearly upon us. But our local infection rates keep rising.

And the world across the ocean is burning with an ancient injustice, anger and heartache.

I often think of the title of the late Dr. Paul Kalanithi‘s memoir, When Air Becomes Breath. The ability, the right, the joy of air to become breath – that greatest of treasures – may it be granted to all of us, equally.

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD