Some of them might be…. but not all, that’s for sure!
Lots of creatives are blogging, photographing, baking, designing, journaling, writing in short form, or long, music or stories; it might be about work, or the lack thereof (productivity for many of us is not up where we’d like it to be, others are doing brilliant – especially if they have a ‘bubble family’ that can do some of the chores required to run the home; cook, clean, garden, shop for essentials, cut hair, & keep the kids entertained) – whatever it is ‘you do’ just keep doing it, even if it’s just a little bit; it’ll be enough to get you through for today. Rinse and repeat.
Hearing & seeing how folks are managing to get through ‘their day’, in a myriad of inventive ways, is shown nightly on the local TV channels. It’s fun and entertaining. Tonight one Dad from Invercargill won $5000.00 which was sponsored by a local bed manufacturer, his winning ‘Dancing Dad’ routine was on a national current affairs news show and will likely be up one of the many Social Media platforms before I finish writing this blog. And then there’s the ‘over the phone catch-ups’ with people we thought had disappeared from our lives, or the reinstatement of dinner-table chatter amongst the family. This shows everyone ‘we’re all in this together’ doing the best we can on a daily basis. So whatever form your creativity is taking, just keep at it! Be inventive. Be unique. But most of all – have some fun!
Yeah, there has to be some fun, but there’s a serious side to what LOCKDOWN means, too. It means ‘stay at home’ unless we need food or medicine, or a limited amount of exercise – and by not going too far from home-base to undertake your chosen exercise.
OR, ‘the long arm of the law’ is going reach around and haul us back into line if we don’t follow the rules. And rightly so.
No café culture. No dining out. No surfing. No swimming at beaches. No fishing. No hunting. No skateboarding. Or e-bike riding. Or doing anything that may cause me to pass on the virus or pick it up, or have an accident and injure myself making other people come to my aid.
It’s basic stuff. Common sense really. But it seems some of us weren’t born with a lick of it. Or if we were, we’re deliberately choosing not to use it.
I believe ‘we’ are in a very good place in New Zealand. And we have much to be grateful for. Yes, we might be at the bottom of the world – a fact which I reckon is working in our favour, another fact is we’re a small nation (just under 5 mil at last census count) and we’re an assorted & talented bunch made up of; ‘survivors’, ‘immigrants’ & ‘intrepid explorers’ of all nationalities and customs, melded together; and that accounts for our resilience in the face of adversity. It’s built into our DNA. We inherited it from our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and further back to wherever our ancestors travelled from, to get here.
My mother was born in November 1939, World War II had started on the 1st of September. It finished on the 2nd of September 1945. But rationing of supplies never ended until 2 or 3 years later; petrol rationing finished in 1947 and meat rationing ended in September 1948. Fortunately growing vegetables and fruit was something a lot of people did back then. So at least they could feed themselves. And, as far as Mum goes, she’s the most resilient person I know. Thankfully ‘I get’ where I’ve come from. And I’m very grateful for it.
So, today, me going down to queue in a supermarket car park for an hour and a half, standing a couple of metres away from the next person in the single file line, on the designated marked spot, while I wait for my turn to get a trolley and enter the building, sanitizing my gloved hands on the way in, and moving through the aisles of a modern day Pandora’s box of delectable choices in food supplies, taking another hour to fill my trolley, was no hardship at all.
So, ‘this’ virus making us all stay at home; with the ability to shop for food for our families, or get the medical treatment or medicines they might require, it’s not ‘hardship’, not by any stretch of anyone’s imaginations.
We’ve been fortunate that our PM ‘went out hard and early’. Many may feel it was an over zealous move (not me) and sadly we have had one reported loss of life attributed to Covid-19. But many kiwi-folk have recovered. And most of us are observing the rules and sticking to them.
But, you guessed it, we do have a very small percentage of our population who feel they’re above the rules! I know right-how can that be? How can people be so narcissistic to think the rules don’t apply or mean ‘them’? ‘Rules’ sometimes mean diddly-squat to some people; that’s just human nature, we all accept that. And this ‘rule-breaking’ does include 2 very prominent government officials. Shock. Horror. One went on a long drive to get to where he wanted to be so he could ride his bike, he drove there in his ‘government officialdom insignia covered’ vehicular transportation paid for by the NZ taxpayer; and is the current Minister of Health. And the other was driving a similarly subsidised tax-payer vehicle 6 hours approximately (one way) to make appearances at Parliament for the sake of media interviews; that was the leader of the opposition.
And then we have all those folks that thought they’d go to their summer houses or holiday beach Bach for the Easter break or for the entire period of the lockdown; as I write this the NZ police are setting up roadblocks en-route to targeted popular holiday destinations to stop folks from getting to where they think they’re going.
While those that think the rules don’t apply to them, I wish they’d think again, cos in this instance the rules definitely do apply. Go home and stay home. Don’t be a plonker; and that includes the government officials. Not judging here. They made their choices.
Let’s just do what’s required and we’ll keep this insidious virus from spreading further, before it damages us beyond repair; then we’ll ALL be able to get back on with our routines and daily lives without anymore dire consequences.
Yes, life will never be the same for many. Hundreds of people have been made redundant from their jobs. Other people are finding new ways to do their jobs from home. And shock-horror (again) we’re finding there are occupations that we may not need the services of, in the near future or ever again? And perhaps we’re not looking at any overseas travel any time soon; but one indisputable fact remains, these small inconveniences we’ve become used to as part of ‘lockdown’ are nothing when you compare it to the Wall Street crash of 1929 which lead on to the Great Depression, and then World War II which happened fairly soon after.
In conclusion, if going to our ‘summer house or Bach’ is off the agenda, then so be it. It’s not a hardship. If queuing for food is what we need to do, then so be it. If we can only run around the exterior of our house for exercise (one Kiwi bloke did this and clocked up a marathon), or maybe we can only walk up and down our driveway, then so be it. We don’t know the meaning of ‘going without’ or ‘doing it hard’.
We live in the land of ‘milk & honey’ and we’re a resilient lot; with a few plonkers thrown in to keep us honest and laughing…and most of us know we’ll get through this, ‘together’.
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