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

— @HaggardHawks

The mystery is no more: Coriander. Sorry, Cats! Yay, Karina :) I LOVE coriander.

Second night in my own bed. A nightmare (I woke up shouting, “Help, help!”), but otherwise a long, good sleep. The morning spent with Salieri and coffee, reading.

Cats are the best reading companions, ever! And Salieri knows a good book when she sees it.

We got up just in time for a delivery from Richard Bosman. I ordered online yesterday, and everything was delivery today by noon. Products of the highest quality. I cut up one of the dry sausages into slices as my reward for every three loops of my garden walk this afternoon. The moment I put one slice into my mouth, I was in France, in a small, crowded restaurant, sipping my wine and waiting for my order to arrive. Anyone who has been to France, will know what I mean. And if you haven’t been, I wish it for you one day!

Earlier this morning, while I was ironing, the Southern Boubous in my garden delivered a duet of note. And during my walk, Mozart made an appearance and I found a pretty flower and a lonely little clover in an otherwise empty pot (the resident bulbs will be hibernating until spring).

After the walk, Glinka and I had a cider on the stoep. I bought six bottles before the lockdown. We are now down to three. I think we are doing well. It was a balmy, gorgeous afternoon and it felt good to just sit and relax before some work.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with manuscripts. My own and another author’s (I was asked for a shout if I like it – I am loving it so far). Ordinary is proving everything that I remembered it to be. It is a novel about witches, sort of, so I wore my hat for the writing. Progress has been made.

One of my reviews was published on LitNet today: J.M. Coetzee – Photographs from Boyhood, edited and introduced by Herman Wittenberg (Protea Book House, 2020).

Now, I just want to watch TV and sleep. Perhaps in my own bed again…

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

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

— @HaggardHawks

Wild Earth: I must admit that sometimes I don’t even look at the animals, I just close my eyes and listen to the sounds of the bush – acoustic balm for the soul.

btf

I spent a lot of this day in bed, first in my PJs, then, even after I got dressed, I returned to bed for warmth, comfort and reading. I went outside only to eat curry leftovers in the afternoon sun and to watch the sunset on my stoep while sipping the last drops of the rosé. Obnoxious mosquitoes chased me back into the house.

I am reading a book about sexual assault. In the last four years, I have been reading a lot about the concepts and realities of consent and violation. It is a topic close to my heart, body and soul. Someone can violate you in different ways: physical harm, greed, betrayal of trust, theft – the list is endless. An uncertain future can also be a violation of your dreams. Once someone or something tramples on your integrity (in both senses of the word: “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles” / “the state of being whole and undivided”), life is never the same again. And, if you are strong and can keep your core somehow intact despite everything, you resume your life – routines, ambitions, dreams return; you get on with it. But no matter what, the brokenness continues underneath the surface, too, and it does not take much to bring it to light and to force you back into your own personal terrifying darkness. I think that the pandemic is unleashing into our lives what lurks beneath, and there is a reason why so many of us – especially the survivors of previous violations – feel so heavy.

This is what has been on my mind today. This heaviness.

Yet, I forge ahead. Not much happened today outside my head. But I did design concept drafts of two book covers for Karavan Press. I don’t want to share my amateurish efforts. In time, the designer will transform them into true visions. But here are two fragments of my ideas.

It felt good to work on these, to focus and think about the future.

But the main event of the day was opening a file that has been waiting patiently for me to return when I was ready. Ordinary. Take three. The final take. The novel only needs an ending. It does not have to be imagined, all my notes are there, ready to be transformed into full-bloodied sentences and breathing paragraphs. A few thousand words at most. Then the editing and rewriting. It’s time. It’s finally time.

I am still in love with these characters, their love and their brokenness, and the magic of falling. They deserve to have a chance.

I had pasta for dinner and listened to the President’s speech.

He said that we will “forge a new economy”. Spoke of overcoming and a better future.

What I heard was ‘people before greed’. Please. Always.

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Stay at home. Forge a new world.

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

— @HaggardHawks

Yesterday evening, for the first time in weeks, I returned to my bedroom, to my bed, for the night. I fell asleep without the white noise of the TV, and although I surfaced quite a few times during the night, it was never long enough to consider returning to my lockdown bed in front of the TV. Before the lockdown, I’d slept on the sofa in my lounge for the same reasons: the TV is my sleeping pill, my night guardian. It watches over me. The last time I slept in my own bed was when my love stayed over and kept insomnia and anxiety at bay just before the lockdown. Now, it is just me and the night, and the lockdown bed and vivid nightmares/dreams, but last night I decided to put on my big girl attitude and braved the darkness and silence with only Salieri by my side. (Mozart continues sleeping under the bed, and Glinka likes her red blanket nest on the sofa in the lounge.)

And we did it. I did it! I spent the entire night in my own bed.

One of my neighbours’ alarm went off just after 6am and woke me up. I made coffee, tuned in to Wild Earth and watched wild dogs and hyenas and spiders again. The author Nechama Brodie thinks of “spiders as patron tiny goddesses of writers”. I love that idea, because I have always felt very comfortable around them, Miss Havisham-style.

Monday. The traffic volume surprised me when I took out the bin and stood outside the property, listening.

Salieri and I continued our morning in bed with a new book (only the second non-local title of the lockdown, but somehow connected to local literature, because I first discovered the author at the Open Book Festival and have been a fan ever since). More coffee.

Then some Monday chores and a plate-licking bacon and egg breakfast on the stoep, watching the rain.

Eventually, I sat down at my desktop computer to tackle the emails which have accumulated over the weekend and ordered Book Lounge vouchers for a friend (birthday) and for myself (I want Sifiso Mzobe’s Searching for Simphiwe and can’t wait to read the short story collection). By the time I looked up from my merciless screen, it was time for lunch (the last of my Doorstep Dairyman pies).

My garage door screeched blue murder when I last opened it, so I oiled the contraption and realised that if you don’t use mechanisms regularly, they rusts and suffer. And even though I was very pleased that my insurance company has reduced my premiums on car insurance by 15% because I am not driving Topolino as often as usual now, I know that not driving a car is not good for it. So, today, I decided to go on a short neighbourhood drive just to stretch Topolino’s wheels. It seemed obvious that the best time to do it would be during CapeTalk’s Afternoon Drive show with John Maytham. I never got out of the car, and I kept very close to home, so as not to get into trouble – I know I technically broke the regulations, but the regulations are in place to stop the spread of Covid-19. I did not spread anything, I promise. And if law enforcement officers are reading my blog, please be kind to me and go after the people stealing food parcels and vandalising schools (thank you). Topolino and I did a few loops around the neighbourhood and felt refreshed afterwards. It was a completely different experience to the shopping centre outing last Tuesday. No apprehension, no despair after the excursion this time. We even got to enjoy the views. I don’t have to and don’t want to go shopping until the end of the lockdown, so I can’t use the shop as an excuse to drive the car and keep it oiled and running smoothly.

Admin, and a few more emails in the late afternoon, dinner, and now it is almost time for bed again.

Worried about the pandemic, Nurse Salieri decided to do her own test of her human’s state of health today. The Cats usually do their toilet business in the garden. I keep a litter box for them in the house that stays clean for long periods of time. Rain is the one element that sometimes drives the Cats indoors. Salieri decided to use today’s rain as opportunity to see whether my sense of smell was intact and went to the litter box… I can assure you, and her, that I can still smell things. All too well in some cases.

But I’d rather delight in the smell of coffee in the morning and in the scent of my lemon tree blossoms.

I don’t delight in my sore cheeks at the end of the day and the anxiety that causes the pain. But I am trying to reclaim a sense of balance and to keep sane in this time of sheer insecurity and uncertainty. I know what will make everything better, what will keep me balanced and sane and make meaning out of chaos, but it involves selfishness and self-care and knowing how to say ‘no’ to others; it involves making space and committing and giving in to a longing that never leaves me, but I have managed to put it on the back-burner and to prioritise and nourish others for many months now, and it’s not easy to find the right path. But now, I need to return to my inner self to survive, and thrive beyond bare survival. And to be unapologetic about it. I am almost there…

Megan Ross, author (Milk Fever, among other excellent writing) and designer (cover and typesetting of Melissa A. Volker’s Karavan Press books) whose work I adore wrote on Twitter today:

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

— @HaggardHawks

Sunday morning. Hyenas, lions, spiders and coffee. The wind awakening (I am not a wind person). More coffee with books. The rest of the blueberries, vitamins. The well of indolence overflowing with joy. I got up well after 1pm. But then it was all household action: turned mattress, changed sheets, did laundry, washed the dirty kitchen floor, cooked pasta for lunch.

And then I went to the cinema, lockdown-style.

Popcorn, coke (although I hardly ever do, I bought one small can for the lockdown – it’s something I have when I go out, but don’t buy for home) and the internet link on my desktop computer: MOFFIE.

Paid R150 to watch and it was worth every cent.

When I first heard the new version of “Sugar Man” by Rebekah Thompson from the soundtrack to Moffie, I was mesmerised, haunted. The trailer was promising. And I have seen Kai Luke Brümmer on stage before. He was excellent in the latest production of “Master Harold” … and the Boys at the Fugard Theatre. I have been meaning to watch Moffie before the lockdown, but just didn’t manage on time. Fortunately, it is streaming online. The film is stunning. Very difficult to watch, but necessary. Brümmer is … too good for easy words – and I am not a film critic. Let me just say that he carries the entire film in his face. It’s an incredible performance. I thought briefly of the young Matt Damon, but Brümmer does his own thing here. The subject is some of the worst of what recent local history has to offer – apartheid, conscription, border war, homophobia – you watch with a lump of horror in your throat. But the cinematography is visual perfection. The light, the sensuality, the homoerotic tension and tenderness – it is eerily seductive. The nightmare unbearable. It is impossible not to be touched, not to shed a tear.

I know these men today, they are among my dearest friends and I so wish they would not have to carry this in their hearts.

The rest of the day was spent on Skype with my Loved Ones.

Since we are reinventing the world, can we please leave war as a concept and as reality in the past?

“Cause I’m tired of these scenes…”

3158 | 54

A different kind of horror unfolding. The scars these rising numbers will leave behind…

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

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

— @HaggardHawks

A relatively good night, a very slow wake-up, coffee, lazy morning with Wild Earth and reading. But then the sun began to rise, bringing with it a balmy warmth, and I needed to be outside. Quite a lot of leaves and fruit had fallen from my trees on the path to the front door and on the stoep in the last few days, so I took out a broom and started sweeping in my PJs and my polar bear suit. The lovely neighbour heard me and peeked over the wall, calling out, “Good morning!” I replied and waved, and he said, “I see you are working in your day PJs.” We had a great chat over the wall and decided to meet for a glass of wine later in the day (on both sides of the dividing wall, of course). I continued with my garden work, then had a brunch on the stoep (the last slices of my stale bread, toasted; ham and egg; and peppadews, of course), and then got into my swimming gear and while waiting for the midday sun to pass, I read in the shade of a tree in the garden.

It has only been a few days since my last swim. Despite the gorgeous heat of the afternoon, it was not easy to get into the ice-cold water, but I did, and it was amazing.

In my element.

I have just looked up today’s horoscope for my sign, Aquarius:

“Apr 18, 2020 – Today you could feel overwhelmed with obligations and commitments to others. There isn’t a moment free for yourself, not even for a bathroom break! Clearly, something’s out of balance, Aquarius. It’s time to take charge of your life. It’s wonderful that you have such a giving, generous spirit, but you do no one any favors if you burn out from exhaustion. Take some time to refill the well of your soul.”

Fake news for today, but nearly spot on earlier in the week. I am on Fukitol since yesterday, refilling the well of my soul… Big time lazy.

After my swim, Glinka joined me on my towel for some sunbathing and reading.

It was a slothful afternoon. Because of my wine date with the neighbours at 5pm, I eventually did put on a nice dress and settled back into my reading chairs with a glass of rosé (last bottle, but I thought that this was the day to open it) and the last of my chicken soup for a late lunch. Mozart came to say hello and got interested in the smell of my food, so I shared the last bit with him.

I read and just sat in the garden, staring into the green ahead and the blue above, the soul well brimming with indolent waters. I spotted the place in the grass where my rescue mole disappeared yesterday.

Unfortunately, just before my swim, I had to bury another mole that ended up in the pool last night and did not make it. I think the cats chased it into the water and he/she did not know how to get out. I have seen it happen once before a few years ago and could save the poor thing back then, but it was too late for this particular mole.

When it was time for my rendez-vous with the neighbours, I set up the ladder, and prepared the second glass of rosé (a generous one!) and a book I promised to lend them, and phoned that I was ready.

I sat on the ladder, they on a crate and a car in their driveway and we chatted for almost an hour. Physical distancing at its finest. Some people have neighbours from hell; I have neighbours from heaven, and as long as they are next door, I never feel truly alone.

They gave me a bird nest they found outside my property. It fell off my tree. A work of art, if there ever was one. I can recognise some of the material used coming directly from my garden. Such a lovely thing of wonder. I am sorry it fell to the ground and can no longer be a bird’s home.

In the evening, I had a Skype date with my love. He sent me pictures of the beaver in Berlin, practicing social distancing and being escorted by the police to the nearest dam, where the beaver could go for a recreational swim, as is allowed under the lockdown regulations in Germany. And earlier in the day, we had a good laugh over the penguins in Simonstown. Thinking of these curious animals and the sleeping lions on the now empty road in the Kruger, I love the idea of animals taking over our urban spaces. We shouldn’t go back, let them roam.

Not Eggs, though! If you haven’t seen The Great Egg-Scape by Gary Naidoo, you must!

I love the way creative people are dealing with the pandemic.

And talking about creative people…

I present: actor, director, writer & musician, Roland du Preez:

Today was Roland’s birthday and he celebrated in style with his family in Somerset West. I have known Roland for as long as I have been in South Africa. I have seen him grow up from a wonderful child, through a brave teenager, to a stunning young adult. Fiercely intelligent, curious, funny, loving, he was great to share a house with when he started studying drama at UCT four years ago and came to live with me for a few months. I love the fact that he wears dresses and pearls with pride, and I am jealous that he can walk in high-heel shoes better than I. His creativity knows no bounds, and now that he has graduated with flying colours, and has his first real theatre gig behind him (at the Woordfees just before the lockdown), anyone will be lucky to work with him in the future, once the theatre world returns to our stages, and we can all sit in the audiences and marvel at the magic of it all. If young people like Roland are our future, we are going to be in the safest, most caring, kind hands. This was the drawing that came to me when I thought of Roland this morning: he is the gold at the end of the best of rainbows.

Sorry Roland, but I am not as good at portraits as your Dad. I am so grateful that you and your Family are my Family. I love you all! Thank you for being part of my life.

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others.

“Stay indoor and follow the rules.”

— Pakora, The Great Egg-Scape

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

— @HaggardHawks

James Hendry of Wild Earth entertained us this morning not only with an incredible leopard cubs sighting – too cute for words – but also with his hand- and head stands and colourful socks. His antics made me think that some people just never get bored or boring, no matter what; they always have something to think about, or to do, or to enjoy, or they just like being while doing nothing else. I have been through a whole spectrum of emotions in the past few weeks, but I haven’t felt bored for one second. It is almost as if no matter how long the days get, they can never be long enough to fill with all the things that come my way, even if it is pain or grief. I just wish some of the nights would be shorter, or a little bit kinder.

Last night was another doughnut night, but when I finally fell asleep again, I was in the Kalk Bay harbour, talking about eating habits and diets with a woman I do not know in real life. I felt guilty in my dream that I lost weight (which I have in the last three weeks – anxiety does that to me, sadly). And when I got up, all I could think about was the jar of peppadews I got on Tuesday, so breakfast was a bit strange perhaps…

Salieri and I are loving our latest read, although it is still very difficult to focus and it’s not the book’s fault. I will hopefully manage to finish reading over the weekend and write my review on Monday. In the meantime, allow me to share Salieri’s sentiments about the book:

My love phoned before work, my Mom phoned after a strenuous visit to the pharmacy to get her regular medication, and then my brother and I skyped in the afternoon. The three of them cheered me up endlessly. Krystian sent me this:

I took two.

While washing dishes in the kitchen, I spotted Mozart sunbathing in the backyard, and then I saw something moving in front of him. He wasn’t reacting, because he can’t see. The creature heading his way was a mole! The disorientated blind mole bumped straight into the unsuspecting blind cat and both were shocked out of their wits. Glinka observed the scene from the kitchen door and ran out to get in on the action. I dumped the dishes in the sink and followed her to rescue the poor mole. A bit of mayhem ensued, but I was successful in the end. Wearing my thick oven gloves, I caught the mole and put him/her into a bucket and transported the freaked out creature to the front garden where he/she could bury themselves safely into the soft earth and escape all our clutches.

Glinka was not amused; I couldn’t stop laughing.

Nothing much happened for the rest of the afternoon (emails, admin, a little bit of work – latest review finally done and dusted and sent off). In the evening, I made another fire and braaied chicken sosaties to Salieri’s endless delight. She loves chicken.

After several days, my Star Wars plaster finally fell off this evening. Let’s see tomorrow whether another one will be needed.

Best news of today? This!

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

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

— @HaggardHawks

The spoils of my unfortunate shopping excursion on Tuesday. I don’t always do breakfasts, but now the days seem so long that I manage to squeeze in three meals a day. Last night, the usual: a long gap somewhere around 3am. My TV guardian provided comfort and eventually put me to sleep again. I woke up to Glinka snoring softly next to my Marilyn Monroe pillow on the couch beside my lockdown bed in the lounge. Coffee. Live safari, but not for long. A little bit of reading, but I couldn’t concentrate. My mind was restless. On Thursdays, there are some regular chores to get through. So I got up earlier than usual nowadays and I did what had to be done.

And then I walked in the rain, humming the Pina Colada Song to myself. I haven’t moved much in the last two days of utter heaviness, so I needed to get out, and I remembered the emergency rain ponchos that they gave us at the magnificent Starlight Classics concert at Vergelegen – what seems like a lifetime ago, but was the end of February. No Smarties, hearts or leaves, just endless loops around the garden until about half an hour was over. I still keep glancing at my wrist where I used to wear my Swatch, but I haven’t put it on since 26 March.

Mozart never minds the rain, so he was out and about, helping me inspect our catnip/coriander crop. Glinka waited patiently at the entrance to the house for me to walk whatever I had to walk out of my system. Mozart couldn’t see the weird outfit, so he was not scared to be around me, but Glinka was quite obviously trying to figure out whether it was time to start seriously worrying about her human…

This could have been the last of the lockdown days, if the lockdown hadn’t been extended. Somehow, I no longer care whether it continues – officially – beyond the end of the month. I feel that I will extend it for as long as it needs to be to feel that I pose no danger to others or to myself by going out as I used to.

Lunch was chicken soup: today fuel for determination. It took almost the entire afternoon, but I finally finished the review I had been contemplating and writing for several days now. It is much too long, of course, and will need to be cut and edited accordingly tomorrow, but it is basically done.

A better day. Still heavy. My cheeks ache. There is a kind of emptiness in my head now that the draft of the review is written. I opened a bottle of Turkish red tonight, also a gift from my love. It brings back so many incredible memories of our Turkish adventure a year ago when we went into the Aladağlar Mountains in search of the Caspian Snowcock…

Memories are emergency ponchos for a rainy day. And rain, like the lockdown, is what is desperately needed to ward off the drought of an uncertain future.

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

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

— @HaggardHawks

Grief. Belinda Mountain articulated precisely what I have been feeling in this wonderful piece of writing:

“Grieving Lost Things”

Quite a long time ago, I read one of those life-changing books about TCKs (third-culture-kids). I could identify so well, it was shocking. Suddenly, most of my experiences as a refugee child made sense. It was a revelation, a homecoming like no other. I felt understood, no longer alone. There were millions of people like me out there. I was ‘normal’.

In the last few days, I have been thinking about one particular aspect of that experience: that we were not allowed to grieve “lost things”. During those four migratory years spent in different refugee camps and then homes that we carved out for ourselves as a family, there was so much loss – of places, people, institutions, languages, selves – that it was nearly impossible to count. I don’t remember how many schools I went to during that time. I don’t allow myself to remember most people I had to abandon without even saying goodbye. One, two, many. I became afraid of making friends because I knew that I would have to move on and leave them behind. But because it was all part of a necessary, a good, project that we all endorsed as a family – our attempt at a better life – it was nearly impossible to voice pain. The accepted attitude was to get on with it. And we did, brilliantly so. In the end, we found the Holy Grail, the Better Life. And I am infinitely grateful. But when I’d read about the need of TCKs to grieve for the people and things they lose along the way, to have rituals to acknowledge the loss and the pain that accompanies these losses, I thought to myself: IF ONLY. I just wept most nights in secret into my pillow before sleep; and when I cried at school, I told concerned witnesses that it was my “allergies”.

I had become allergic to loss.

I think I still might be allergic to loss. I know very well how to “get on with it”, despite everything, always. It often bothers me that I simply cannot fall apart. There is a survivor’s instinct in there somewhere that refuses to give up, ever. I learned how to do it as a ten-year-old and the lessons have stood me in good stead over the past thirty-three years. But after André’s death, I also learned that there is just so much that one can take before the abyss arrives and you stands at its edge, contemplating how much can your sanity still manage before you take a step into the darkness. Something broke irrevocably five years ago, and it continued breaking for a long time afterwards into smaller, sharper pieces. The only way to survive the breaking was through articulating and acknowledging that I wasn’t coping, of allowing grief to take over – the howling, snot and despair of it all – and allowing other people to help me through listening, caring, being, understanding. Through rituals of grieving. I am so grateful for the people I have in my life, friends and family, who were not afraid to pick up the pieces, no matter how sharp and dangerous. To love me unconditionally.

Yesterday, my wise friend Erika wrote to me about the world “reopening again” in the near future, and that future feeling “like an eternity” away. She said: “We do know that it won’t be the same again, but we also know that the good things like love and friendship will.”

I am broken. And dealing with the uncertainty of the present – swinging between the loss of a way of life and gratitude that it isn’t much, much worse; and understanding that we need to do this because we are all in it together for a good cause – is dredging up the grief of a lifetime, most of it unacknowledged, and I know that this is not the time to cry alone in secret into my pillow, to pretend otherwise. This is the time for honesty and grief and rituals and love and friendship. The latter two will be the same no matter what. And they can hold one even if one is broken…

I had a huge gap in my sleep last night and watched CNN for a while before switching to a TV series I like and falling asleep again.

In the past, I’ve found it is impossible to call some people – evil people – by their names. It is almost as if by evoking their name you acknowledge that they might be human after all, but by calling them something else you reflect on their evildoing. I feel like that about the Tangerine Troll. And every time I see him on TV, I realise that we live in an Era of Gaslighting. You look at this mess and think: it just cannot be, it cannot be that this is our reality, that a psychopath of such calibre is in one of the most powerful positions in the world, at a time when we need compassionate human beings to guide us through the chaos of the present.

It is hard not to despair. To sleep through the nights.

Once I managed to fall asleep again, I dreamt that I said “good riddance” to an evil being I once knew. The moment I managed to get rid of the horror, it started raining soft cushions and teddy bears from the sky, and I ran around my garden trying to catch and hug them all. Yes, Dr Freud, I know.

It wasn’t an easy day. I read a bit, got up eventually, executed a few household chores, sat down to my computer to reply to the accumulated emails in the New Contrast‘s business manager inbox. How heartening that there are still people interested in taking out subscriptions, even now! Thank you. The André P. Brink Literary Trust has to deal with pirated copies of André’s books that are available on the internet in PDF form. Whenever I think of how little some people think of the work that goes into writing a book, I just want to shrivel up and continue writing for my drawer only… Karavan Press had another manuscript submission today – a lovely one I am very excited about, no matter how low I feel otherwise. I planned to write a review today, but managed only a few sentences. My spirits were broken by another list of lockdown books that people are reading with only one (out of several) titles by a local author. What are the chances of our survival without the support of local readers?

At the end of the day, there was only one thing to do: light a fire. Despite my dispiriting shopping excursion yesterday, I have a few nice things in the fridge (including chicken soup that I cooked yesterday to heal the soul) and new toilet paper! The fire itself was soothing. A steak, some red wine, a stunning sunset. Another day.

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

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

— @HaggardHawks

I am writing earlier than usual because there is little else that I can do right now, apart from wanting to crawl under my winter duvet and not get out until Day Twenty. Or Twenty-One.

Nineteen began with Wild Earth: a rare butterfly, baby elephants, and lionesses covered in blood after a kill. Coffee, some reading, a shower, a white lion on my lovely neighbours’ roof – spotted through my bathroom window.

I did something really stupid and clumsy last night: poured boiling water on my hand. It’s not bad, it could have been much, much worse, but it basically made my left hand super-sensitive to touch. Had to wash dishes this morning and myself under the shower with basically one hand only.

For many years now, I have had a packet of Star Wars plasters in my first aid box. I hardly ever need them for real injuries, and they would definitely not be of any help with the burn on my hand; they are solely there for invisible wounds. Sometimes it helps just to put on a Star Wars plaster anywhere on your body to know that the Force is with you and that all will be well in the end, one day, in a galaxy far, far away.

Two pieces of writing moved me deeply this morning:

and

“Our Own Small Version of Paradise” by Richard Zimler

I feel honoured to call both these wonderful writers my friends. Reading their words today made me remember – again – what a treasure writing can be, every word a gift of solace and understanding.

I have been thinking about touch a lot since the beginning of the lockdown. It’s not pleasant, but not too difficult, to live without sex for a few weeks, especially if you know how to be creative about it, but to do without a loving touch, without hugs, without kisses – that’s tough. Please read how beautifully Paul writes about this absence in the lives of all of us who cannot be with the people we love.

Then, two quotes from Richard’s piece: “Any way that we can get through this crisis without hurting others or driving ourselves insane seems like a good solution to me.” And: “Heaven is a place where the most soft-spoken people win all the arguments.”

Like a gentle hug, the soft-spoken words of these writers wrap themselves around my soul and keep me safe. Thank you.

It might not have been a good idea to venture out into the world today to do my shopping for the rest of the lockdown while already feeling slightly vulnerable. But my list was ready and I just wanted to get it over with. I drove to the nearest (1.5km) small shopping centre that luckily also has a pet shop. It was wonderful to get into Topolino, but from the moment I left the house, I was apprehensive – the state of my nerves reminded me of facing a difficult conversation or having to pass an exam. I was nervous. A few cars were also on the road in my area, but no real traffic. I had to cross one big intersection, though, and there were three hawkers still selling their fruit and veggies. A traffic cop stood next to me at the red traffic light and then just drove on. I have never seen the parking lot of my small shopping centre so empty, nor have I ever been able to park so near its entrance; what surprised me the most was that there were still three parking attendants at hand, assisting shoppers. Surely the shopping centre could pay them to stay at home? There weren’t many shoppers there, and most were wearing masks, but there was very little respect for the need of physical distancing in the aisles. It took some time to find everything I needed and to manoeuvre around the other trolleys without making much contact. No problem in the queue, but just before me, I saw a nurse from a nearby hospital, with her face mask pulled down around her neck, rubbing her nose with her fingers while she was paying for her groceries at the counter. I was more worried for her than for myself. I left the centre with despair creeping into my heart. I wasn’t even able to enjoy the ride and the views on the way home. I was just extremely relieved to be back home, and I knew that only a crisis will make me leave it anytime soon.

Mozart in one of his nests this afternoon.

I unpacked, washing my hands a million times, my left hand burning like hell in the warm soapy water, but I didn’t care. Fuck dry April: I poured myself a beer and sat a long time with the Cats in the garden, realising – again – that this is going to be our new normal for a long, long time. And it’s only going to get worse.

Today, one of my small, but not irrelevant, income sources dried up. I was told that they would keep my texts on file and publish and pay for them when it was feasible again, but because the texts are book reviews of local titles I decided to give them away for free. It’s not even a drop in the ocean, it’s a speck of dust in the drop in the ocean, but right now I will do anything I can to keep the book industry going, somehow. I am healthy. I have a roof over my head. I am growing potatoes in my garden. There are new lemons on my lemon tree. The Cats can hunt. And I have enough booze to last me through several lockdowns (not even counting the white wine that I keep for my guests only, and you know what they say about desperate times…). Another promising author wants to publish with Karavan Press. And my friend Debbie sent me the most exquisite concept drawings for the cover of a book I hope to publish later this year. I cling to this hope.

Fortunately, the box of my Star Wars plasters is full.

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