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

— @HaggardHawks

I am getting lost in books, reading several simultaneously and editing one when it is time to work. Being able to focus feels like a blessing again right now. Those 497 recorded deaths yesterday, the sixty thousand excess deaths I heard about today, all the reported new infections and the news of a friend’s closest family member fighting for recovery after being put on a ventilator is all very difficult to process.

I woke up with a headache today and immediately panicked, but then I realised that it is that time of the month and that it was perfectly normal to feel this kind of awful, and I just lay there with Glinka purring on my chest and relief washing over me.

Nadia Davids wrote today: “I’m so weary of being wary of and for people. It’s impossible, exhausting, this low-grade constant simultaneous fear of others and the fear that you may in turn be a danger to them.”

I read, worked, swam, sunbathed with The Cats, walked with my love. He is cooking dinner for us as I type. Tomorrow, I want to spoil us with a new dish I discovered in one of my favourite cookbooks this morning. I try to focus on the everyday pleasures, on words and stories, on light and warmth – everything else feels too overwhelming to contemplate right now.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

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

— NICD