It’s strange how things have shifted in our day to day. We just don’t see as many people as we used to before it all went to shit.
On a day like this – not the most eventful day – I would normally have at least come across somebody unusual. There are so many unusual people kicking around. Rather than detailing my reasonably uninspiring movements through today’s world, I could talk about somebody I met. But I barely saw a soul. I’ve got a car, which takes public transport out of the equation. That’s always an excellent source of unusual humanity. Pinter said his writing went downhill when he didn’t have to take the bus anymore. I know where he’s coming from.
I wonder how long it’ll be before the prevailing energy brings us closer to one another rather than pushes us further away. Perspex at the counters makes it feel like we are interacting through a screen. So much more is literally done through bloody screens. It must be hell for the deaf – you can’t see anybody’s mouth anymore. Everybody has to say things repeatedly. We all take information from lip movements to interpret things others say. I miss mouths.
I went from Brighton to London and can’t remember anybody. I bought a coffee and petrol through a screen. The only person I spoke to all day was Lou, and I dropped her off early in the afternoon to work. Then I drove off. Sometimes my interactions with other cars are the most complex social interactions I have in the day.
Lou was working at Glyndebourne dressing for the opera. She can’t actually help them put their clothes on. She just reminds them what to do from a distance. I think she’s wearing all sorts of protective gear while she does it. Singing is allegedly dangerous, as that was one of the reasons they gave to be so slow with getting the theatres back open. She at least got to talk with her co-workers and interact with the staff bus driver on the way home. I’m missing casual interactions. It’s beginning to feel like the things we thought of as normal will just continue to be rare for longer than we ever anticipated.
Here I am once again in my solitary flat. I’m in “the nice room”. Outside that door it’s carnage. The room I used to sleep in has no room to move in right now, and I took the bed to the dump. There are piles of clothes on pretty much every surface. I haven’t sorted them yet. I at least have a huge amount with which to keep myself occupied. Hopefully I can galvanise myself into action and start to reclaim my home before the inevitable thing that makes me so busy I can’t think beyond it starts again pl aa. In these quiet times I need to remember Willows and how it became my entire week. Tomorrow at the very least I should deal with the 23 capes, as they’re still on the sofa. Want one?
AlBarclay 