The cowpats of lockdown

As lockdown continues I've been struck by how much mine and my husband's emotional experience of lockdown seems to be travelling along the same timeline as that of other people. When I posted about lockdown lethargy, lots of friends said that yes, this was exactly what they were experiencing at that same moment. Meanwhile, almost everyone I spoke to at the end of last week agreed that the sixth week of lockdown was a real doozy.

In our household, last week saw every family member - including the ten-month old - regularly dissolving into bouts of distress. The ten-month old spent a lot of time asking to be put down and then face-planting the floor in despair at being put down. My husband hid in The Library (his home work-space) a lot, and I believe took to working on the spare bed in there, buried under duvets in a throwback to student days. I cried a lot and ate an entire packet of 'Squashies' in a single sitting. Us two adults found ourselves struggling with a sudden mutual dislike of on another's company, which was somewhat unfortunate given that we didn't exactly have anyone else to socialise with. Then, just as suddenly, the storm passed, and this week we've felt neither lethargic nor tearful, and returned to our habitual enjoyment of one another's companionship - though the baby is still clingy, and the duvet-nest has apparently become a preferred working space for my husband. 

Speaking of having a weight on my back...

For me, week six in lockdown made me think of Duke of Edinburgh expeditions (stay with me here!). On the two Gold expeditions, teams of students walk 50 miles or more over the course of 4 days (3 nights). The middle two days were, in my memory, the worst. The first day you are fresh, and excited, and striding up and down hills in the Lake District with a massive backpack feels like a novelty. The last day, you are sore, blistered, and aching, but you also know that you'll be hitting the finish line very soon, and can look forward to the imminent prospect of food not cooked on a camp stove, a shower, and putting the damned backpack down at last. In the middle days you have neither novelty nor the promise of sweet release to help perk you up. You are just trudging. Sometimes you can be perfectly content trudging - look at the landscape, breathe the air! - but sometimes one of your teammates misreads the map and you climb the wrong mountain and you say some rude words and storm off down the valley to get to the right mountain and skid on a cowpat and cry.
 
Right now we are in the middle days of lockdown, and last week was a wrong-mountain, slipping-up-on-a-cowpat sort of time. The frisson of novelty has worn off, and the question of when and how this will end (if end is really the right word) is still up in the air. The post-lockdown hugs, visits to friends and family, being able to have coffee in a coffee shop or lunch in a restaurant, are all too distant to lighten our steps towards them just yet.

This week, at least, I am trudging fairly happily. I'm tired of having the weight of lockdown on my back, as I'm sure many are, but me and my team-mates are getting on well again, and I've calmed down enough to stop and enjoy my surroundings. Until the next cowpat.

Lockdown Lethargy

So far I have experienced this lockdown in distinct emotional stages. There was the initial stage, when we went so suddenly from 'social distancing' to full lockdown, which was stressful and anxious but at the same time novel and, in a morbid kind of way, exciting. Then there were a few days in which I found myself actively enjoying lockdown, on a domestic level, counting all the positives it had brought my small family, forcing us to develop routines and habits to keep us all happy and healthy, and forcing me to slow down a bit. Then there came a couple of weeks in which, as I discussed in my last blog post, lockdown started to feel normal, days and weeks speeding by. 

Right now, lockdown time has slowed down again.

As will probably surprise exactly no one, I am a busy person. One reason why it took a global pandemic to force me to slow down is because I like having lots to do, having places to be, deadlines to meet. Maternity leave was a shock to my system in this respect, but I just replaced work responsibilities with going to baby groups. I used to say that I'd have been quite happy staying home all day with the baby, but that she liked the socialisation. I now realise I was lying outrageously to myself. She's happy as a pig in mud playing all day at home. The baby groups, the swimming, the Book Bugs sessions, the music, were really for me.

But! I hear you say. There's no reason why you can't be busy in lockdown. There are virtual baby groups, you can have coffees via Zoom, you can write blogs, learn the violin, crochet a baby hat... all of which I've tried over the past few weeks, and they do fill the time. But over the past few days I've found that both my motivation to do these things, and the pleasure I take in doing them, has bottomed out entirely. My get-up-and-go, which in the pre-lockdown past has enabled me to juggle organising events, writing articles, rowing training, and seeing friends, has wandered off, yawning, when faced with the single ball of staying occupied during lockdown. I am experiencing Lockdown Lethargy. 

 I feel too lethargic to dream up a caption to justify this illustration of our locked-down play area...

 
The way my husband - who is also experiencing this stage - describes it, Lockdown Lethargy makes everything 'just okay'. A nice glass of wine? It's okay. Hobbies that used to delight? They're okay. Research topics that used to inspire excitement? Just okay. Of course, 'just okay' is a lot better than 'really crap', and better than what many people are experiencing right now, but it's still draining living inside what feels like a photograph with most of the colour taken out of it. More seriously, 'just okay' feels like a milder version of a familiar-to-me symptom of depression, in which the illness sucks joy from any activity to which you'd normally turn to lift your mood.

So I have decided there are two things to do to tackle this. One I am doing right now, in actually writing a blog post rather than just sleepily thinking about it. A few weeks ago I was right, I think, to take this newly-discovered time to slow down, but now I need to actively speed up before I come to a full stop. Basically, in terms of doing stuff and enjoying it, I'm going to try faking it until I make it, because this isn't depression (yet), this is just Lockdown Lethargy, and pulling my socks up to get out of it is a very okay response.

The other thing is to remind myself that, just as the previous personal phases of lockdown have passed, so too shall this - and wait and see what the next emotional stage of lockdown brings for me.

A new normal

It is strange, and a little scary, how quickly we adapt to new circumstances. Speaking to a friend recently, we both agreed that the second week of lockdown had seemed to go by in a flash. During the first week, it felt as if time was moving in slow motion, every hour and day filled with the question of how it would be possible to get through weeks or even months of this bizarre 'new life' with sanity intact. Now, there is so much that a week ago felt strange that now feels normal. 

It feels normal, now to keep one's distance when out and about, to the point that it feels like a terrible social solecism to accidentally cross the invisible two-metre line: meeting even a friend on a narrow path results in an awkward dance. It feels normal to stand in a stretched-out, socially-distanced queue outside the greengrocer's, to wait by the door of a shop for the last customer to exit before you can enter. 

It feels normal to wake up and fill a day almost entirely within the bounds of one's own home. There is a rhythm and a routine that is almost soothing. Domestic chores have become pleasantly meditative: one of my favourite parts of the day is putting the washing out on the line, and taking my time over it, because after all, what is there to rush for? 

I know I am very very lucky to have this outside space as part of my home.

It feels normal for the vast majority of social interactions to take place over a screen. In the first week of lockdown, Zoom meetings, WhatsApp video chats, and Skype calls felt charged and formal; people anxious to make connections, but still clumsy in dealing with multi-person chats, unsure where to put the phone for the best camera angle. Now, it feels oddly natural, as people get the hang of selectively muting their microphones to better hear whoever is speaking, of propping their phones up somewhere whilst they get on with chores or tending to children, just as we'd have done if visiting in one another's homes in the pre-lockdown days.

It feels normal, now, to think of 'pre-lockdown days' as a time quite separate from now.

The weekly ritual of stepping out of the front door to clap at 8pm feels so entrenched, now, that it is hard to believe it has only taken place twice in our lifetimes.

Some things still don't feel normal to me. I am still startled to see people wearing masks, though I understand why they do it. I find it easier to capture a sense of calm and normality in the present moment than when thinking about the future. I live by the sea, and every time we take our daily walk I find it hard to imagine a summer in which families will not congregate on the beach, sunbathing and playing in the water. I worry that harsher lockdown measures may be necessary, and what that will look like. Sometimes, I worry that by the time lockdown is ended, we'll be so used to it all that 'returning to normal' will be a whole new time of strangeness and adaptation.

Addicted to Society

I started (and abandoned) this blog a different self ago: a just-married Master's student at Cambridge, living in an ultra-modern shoebox flat and worrying about whether my husband would be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK. Today, I have been married for almost 8 years, my 9-month old baby is wrapped to my chest, I live in a blessedly rambly old house in Scotland, and I am worrying about... well, you all know what, and so we come to my reason for resurrecting this blog, despite my cringes at the writings of my younger self.

The title of this blog, 'Scribetur', means 'it will be written', and I'm conscious of two things right now, a few days into Britain's lockdown due to COVID-19. One is that right now, writing - communicating, reaching out - is more important than ever. The other is that, to be brutally honest, there isn't much I can do right now other than keep my daughter as happy as a baby can be kept... and write. So over the coming weeks my thoughts, feelings and observations of the COVID-19 outbreak will be written - partly for my own sake, but also partly, I hope, for the interest, entertainment, and maybe even comfort of others. 

My 'one last': a small, tactile object made by a friend and neighbour.

It was only a week ago that people were still merely being 'asked' by the government to practise 'social distancing'. I watched passers-by out of my window, took note of Facebook posts, and acknowledged my own inclinations, and knew it couldn't work. The problem is that humans - quite rightly, for we have evolved as social animals! - are addicted to social interaction. As such, it was far too easy to justify crossing the hazy barrier of social distancing. "It's just one trip to the shops". "It's just a walk with my Mum." "One time can't hurt, can it?" "Lockdown is coming soon - this is the last chance for a while!" I'm not being critical - I was just the same. On the Sunday before lockdown I went to the local pottery for an entirely non-essential purchase, for just one last chance to do something normal like browsing the shelves, and picking something out to mark my first Mother's Day. The problem, as of course governments across the UK rapidly recognised, is that 'just one' and 'one last' never really is - and that if everyone was having just one more, there would be a heck of a hangover waiting in the wings.

So now, here we are: cold turkey, more or less, with the exception of food shopping and a daily walk. It seems to me that those minimal interactions have become immensely charged: perhaps isolation means that your endorphins go into overdrive at the simple chance to talk to the butcher, or to wave across the street at a face you only vaguely recognise. The shops in the village I live in are all a stone's-throw from our front door, and in normal life I pick up stuff as I need it: I've now shifted to trying to get a big shop in one go. 'Shopping day', when I get to go to the grocer, the co-op, and the whole foods shop (a reliable source of organic pasta and bamboo toilet roll), all in the same trip, and to talk to three different shopkeepers, is a heady high. 

And then there is the craving. Before this, I would have defined myself as a sociable introvert: as a child, given the choice to go to a party or stay at home reading, I would regularly feel 'a bit tired' and just stay at home. And, to be honest, I'm probably coping better than I might be because of this: I really quite like my own company (and that of my wee family). At the same time, I have always been a tactile person, though as I've got older I've restrained it more. But now, I regularly find myself daydreaming about what it will be like when this is all over. To pat someone on the shoulder. To shake someone's hand. And it feels like a physical ache in the pit of my stomach when I think too long about seeing a friend, and giving them a giant hug.

But like I said earlier: humans are hardwired to desire social interaction, and that is ok. Relationships, connections - they are so very important, which is why this whole situation is so very difficult. So I'm going to continue enjoying my brief chats from behind a cordon, and continue looking forward to giving many of you reading this the giantest of hugs in due course. 

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A Rose By Any Other...?

By Dale, CC BY 2.0.

The canny-eyed among you may have noticed something strange about my Facebook profile; where, yesterday, it showed the name I shared with my husband, followed by my former name in brackets, today the order is reversed. This is because, a week ago, I changed my name by deed poll back to the name I was born with. As changing one's name back after marriage is perhaps slightly more unusual than the initial switch, I figured it was best to write a few words in explanation.

Firstly, to assuage any concerns, this is in absolutely no way indicative of any marital strife. Mr Scribetur and I continue to be as happy and (nauseatingly, some friends might say) in love as ever. Indeed, one of the motivations for this name change - or reversion - was the realisation that in this case, I really could have it all: I could continue to be just as good a life partner, whilst reclaiming the name under which I feel most comfortable.

A fair question to ask would be "well, why did you change it in the first place?" There are a several reasons, but I'll expand on the two main ones. Firstly, as many of my friends will remember, the events surrounding mine and Mr S's wedding were, to put it mildly, emotional and stressful. In the months following the wedding we faced the very real possibility that we would not be able to live together in the country that we both loved and were building careers in. At the time, taking his surname felt like a way of saying that I didn't care what the Home Office chose to do, that we belonged together and would be together in name even if they separated us in fact. I also, paranoidly, wanted to 'look' as much like a proper, committed wife as possible for a government body which I perceived as having a pretty traditional view of marriage. Looking back, I know that wasn't exactly a rational thought process but, as noted above, circumstances weren't really disposing me towards calm, dispassionate consideration.

Secondly, I was also just going with the flow. It seemed to be so uncontroversial a change that some institutions seemed to expect it as a matter of course - indeed, my undergraduate university automatically changed my name in the very short time between the wedding and the conferral of my degree results, without me even asking. Like I've said, a lot of things were pretty unstable and complicated right then, so I think part of me shrugged and just went with it as the simplest thing to do. However, the first consideration was certainly the biggest factor involved in my initial change of name.

Well, what's changed since then? For one thing, Mr S is now 'permanently settled' and well on his way to becoming a naturalised citizen, so that massive anxiety has been lifted from our shoulders. I no longer feel that I need to prove our relationship to anyone but him - and have, indeed, realised that my paranoid fear that our marriage would be deemed fake just because I hadn't changed my name was a somewhat foolish one, born out of much stress. So the greatest reason for the initial change no longer applies.

However, producing a deed poll and going through the rigmarole of changing one's name in the middle of a degree is a pretty active process, and it requires more positive motivations than just the sudden absence of a previous concern. Most importantly, I just missed my old name. I mentioned that my undergraduate university changed my name without me asking them to, which meant that, in spite of the fact that I had handed in every piece of coursework and sat every single exam under my unmarried name, my final degree certificate bore my new, married name. I attended my graduation ceremony a year after getting married, and it really, genuinely upset me that my original name was not the one called out as I processed up in gown and hood. I think I realised then that I wanted the name down the spine of my PhD to be the one I grew up with.

Secondarily, I've gradually come to realise the importance of my name to my professional identity. In one sense, this is about having a distinct professional identity from my husband - who has recently started working in the same department as me, in the same university as me, on the same subject as me, and on almost the same period. This situation is a dream come true; it's absolutely lovely both having an office in the same town, being able to travel into work together and meeting up for lunch. But this physical (and intellectual) proximity makes a shared name more noticeable, and the potential problems with it more visible. For better or worse, I want the work produced under my name to be judged by its own flaws and merits - without reference to the (far more excellent) work of my husband.

And that is the crux - under my name. I don't know if I'll be an academic forever, but I do know that I will always be writing, and hopefully publishing, something. In many cases, a surname isn't something that is used that often, or with much significance, and if this were just about the name on my bank card or driving license then I probably wouldn't bother. But my full name will appear at the top of any work I publish, and if I remain in academia, it will probably be what people I meet at conferences will remember me by. And, for me personally, it just feels right for that to be the name that it is both my old name, and my new name. 

Tragedy and Comedy

I don't usually feel deeply affected by the news of the passing of celebrities or other public figures. When the news pops up on Facebook - which is where I usually first come across it - I might feel, if I enjoyed their work, regretful that they will produce no more. Often, especially if I didn't have any great interest in them in life, any emotion I will have will be for their families; when Peaches Geldof died, it was Bob Geldof's simple, wrenching statement that "We are beyond pain" that gave me pause. But I often feel awkward at the idea of public grief for a complete stranger. I think this dates back to when my beloved Nana died in very close proximity to the Queen Mother. Young as I was, I vividly recall feeling almost angry at the tears shed on television for the Queen Mum by people who had never known her, barely days apart from my shedding my own tears at the funeral of a grandmother I knew and loved.

But this morning, I woke up to the news of the death of Robin Williams, and, for the first time at the death of a celebrity I never knew, I feel genuinely floored. I must have watched Mrs Doubtfire a dozen times over my childhood. One Christmas, I think, my family watched and recorded Hook, but then someone went and recorded over the first hour or so of the film. But the second half of that film I also watched over and over again. I remember both films arousing deep feelings in me. They were both, of course, exceedingly funny, but they both invoke great pathos - for example in the shuddering, humiliating moment in which 'Mrs Doubtfire' is unmasked, and in the sheer idea of Peter Pan as an adult grown. I noticed a comment on Facebook this morning which said that Williams' films would always be tinged with sadness from now on. But, I think they always were. But comedy tinged with sadness is true to life, and therefore a very special thing. And I feel real sadness that a man who touched on that truth is gone.

And then there is the manner of his passing. According to news reports nothing is confirmed, but it seems likely that his death was suicide. I have felt... oddly pleased, though that is not the right word, to see many people saying that he "died of depression". To me that seems a far more accurate, and empathetic, description of a life ended in the throes of depression. It was not so long ago that Christians who committed suicide were denied burial in holy ground for the blasphemy of taking a God-give life. But to speak of someone dying of depression is to express an understanding that they suffered from, and succumbed to, a terrible illness, even if it was not one of the flesh. There should be no more blame, and no less sympathy, attached to that person than there should be to someone who died of a physical illness.

But, there is blame somewhere. I feel so confused and angry that a man with wealth and fame and a loving family still died of depression, still could not be saved from his illness. I think of Robin Williams and I think of the people I know who suffer from the same illness, and I want to know where they would get help if they truly needed it. I feel angry that society is still only slowly moving towards an appreciation of mental illness as a genuine, often treatable affliction, and not something to be ashamed of, to not ask help for if you suffer from it. And I feel angry with depression, for the strength it has and the destruction it wields. Perhaps all the public understanding of mental illness in the world could not save some sufferers from dying of it.

So, for the first time ever, I have cried to hear of the death of a celebrity who I never knew, apart from through his comedy. The thought that a person who, indirectly, made my childhood self laugh and stop and think is gone is bad enough. But the thought that such a person died of an illness that left him with so little joy, and so little compassion for himself that there was only one thing he could do to escape it... that is what makes me cry. 

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A Postscript.

As I hope this essay expresses, everyone needs help sometimes, and there is no shame at all in that. Call a friend, call a family member, call the Samaritans (08457 909090). Do not suffer in silence. 

The sea, the sea

St Andrews Cathedral, with Rule's Tower in the
foreground.

My first thought for an opening sentence for this blog post was "there are many consolations for living and studying where I do", but on reflection that struck me as being rather more negative than I intended. I think I am happier, both domestically and academically, living in Crail and studying in St Andrews than I ever have been before. So perhaps I shall say instead, there are some unexpected moments that provide sudden and lovely illumination to a daily life that is already pretty contended.

Mr S and I experienced one such moment a few days ago, whilst at a loose end due to the later-than-usual opening of the university library that day. Fortunately, St Andrews is a pretty lovely place to wander around - I could probably spend hours wending through the gravestones in the old cathedral site, absorbing hundreds of long-gone names, all in the skeletal shadow of the ruins that provide the archetypal image of the St Andrews skyline. That day, however, we decided to wander down past the castle to watch the waves rolling in on the (imaginatively-named) Castle Sands. However, the sight of a great flurry of waves breaking on the pier down by East Sands drew us further along the coastline, and down onto that narrow stone spur, which at high tide on a blustery day looked almost impossibly fragile against the great weight of the sea.

We just stood and watched. We didn't venture too far out - unlike the people standing at the very end of the pier, we were none to keen to experience the sensation of the sea dumping an entire wave's-worth of water upon our heads, as it did repeatedly during the time we watched. The waves crashing against the terminus of the pier seemed to almost fling themselves up its sides, creating a great plume of water which was then caught by the wind, fully dowsing the outcrop and any foolish enough to stand upon it. Even the point at which we had planted ourselves, barely a third of the way along the pier, seemed to affront the waves so much that every fourth or fifth surge made a valiant attempt to reach us, with water roaring up and onto the pier-top a metre further down the narrow way.

Looking towards St Andrews Castle. I didn't even try to capture
the sensation of looking out from the pier - concerns about the
bad combination of water and technology aside.

Although occasionally distracted by the rushing water that seemed so keen to make our close acquaintance, we spent most of the time gazing further out to sea, watching the hypnotic movement of the water, as smooth, concave rifts grew higher and higher - quite incredibly high - until they broke into a frothing and raging crest. And then there were the cross-currents, as waves which redounded against the pier surged back to meet their fellows at right angles, causing mountains of spray to fly up where they collided with one another. And then there was the noise - booming, crashing, whooshing. It was like watching fireworks as a very small child: every huge wave was a new surprise, every plume against the pier a reason to exclaim in sheer joyful surprise.

One of the concepts which I know I'm going to have to confront and analyse in my work on early modern reactions to mountains is that of 'the Sublime' - the idea that there is a certain type of aesthetic response to certain aspects of nature, in which the sight of something great but slightly terrifying or horrifying inspires a type of overwhelming awe. I have problems with the idea of using the category to judge past reactions to nature, but I'm also not sure I could find another word to describe the feeling of standing, tremulous and fixed, upon a man-made outcrop of rock, and staring out at a display of the roiling power and energy of the sea. It was frightening - every one of those waves would have swallowed me whole had I been standing beneath them - but also thrilling, and joy-inspiring. It was, in a word, sublime.

Being a PhD student can, I am told, sometimes be a hard slog. I am fortunate that I have not yet encountered the moment in my research where I feel that sheer exhaustion with my own topic and research. But, when I do, I will try to remember to prescribe myself a moment or two upon the pier, on a wild and windy day, breathing in the breath-taking. Because there is something about the sublime that energises the spirit.