At the time of writing it has been 74 days since the start of what has become known as "Lockdown" or as i have come to call it "Promising to do something positive with my time and failing to - down". This term originated from the very first TV i saw on the morning of my birthday the day after the measures were announced; Joe Wicks and his exercise routines. Now props to anyone who can do the workouts in their living-room, but i cannot for two reasons:
1. My ceiling is too low.
2. I don't do workouts if there isn't a ball and a hoop for me to throw it in.
It was at this point that I realised that these next few weeks (yes i was optimistic) were not going to be my physical resurgence (no i don't know why i said resurgence you cannot re-surge something that wasn't once surged). That same day I started sketching in a way i find even myself quite narcissistic, sketching my own photos, and even with this artistic endeavor I was unsuccessful after the first few hours I became bored and just left it on the side. There is a happy conclusion to the tale of this sketch however, my mother felt it appropriate to photocopy it and send it to my grandparents the sort of thing you would expect any parent to do to the artwork of a small 5 year old not a new adult who is 20. In all fairness the quality of the artwork probably merited the childish treatment it received.
The "artwork" i call it "Over-sized person leans on out of proportion trees"
The second thing I have realised about myself during these historic times is that I am very very content in doing nothing but that there must be a schedule to the nothingness. Everyday starts the same way: Breakfast-News-Game-Reading and the afternoons : Deliveries-More games- Breakdown over a sudden change in the Scottish university system. If this schedule is in anyway broken a long nap occurs or a lack of sleep in the evenings ( I am told these two could correlate , i am however happy to live in my own lie). This has also meant my photography has stalled , before we were allowed to travel wherever we wanted i was constrained to the nature around my village which many people if they came here for the first time would think is beautiful, but if you have lived here for 15 years you will think very differently. So it was to my delight that we were able to go to the seaside resort of Saltburn on the outskirts of the beautiful Middlesbrough, I was attacked by flies and a seagull whilst i ate a greasy fish and chips sitting on a pebble beach and I cannot tell you how happy this made me feel.
Finding inspiration outside of the village
I have often felt guilty about not doing anything interesting with my life during the past three months, not getting fitter , not being more creative, not learning a new skill and not working out a fool proof life-plan. However I have done a lot of things I don't normally do, I watched Normal People and cried my eyes out and laughed and questioned the sanity of America during Tiger King. I educated myself following the brutal murder of George Floyd on white privilege and what it means and what the daily lives of black people are like around the world ( i have found this link very useful as a great library of amazing resources to educate oneself on the subject www.ally.wiki ). I have probably learnt more about how I deal with sudden changes of plan regarding my very near future p.s. its not very well but its OK. I think what I would like to conclude is that 2020 hasn't been great but then again nothing can match the summer of 2016, this first half of the year has probably shown us more about ourselves and society than all the 20 years I have existed has. I think the quote that I came upon during my reading from James Baldwin illustrates this the best.
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."
Our lives and society are changing we are experiencing and internal an external awakening, so its okay to not have done much that has seen external physical change , if you have then that is amazing but if you haven't, even if you have found a part of yourself that you hadn't previously explored or educated yourself on a cause or subject that you didn't know much about before, you have done something worthwhile. When this leaves we can all draw rubbish sketches of it and give them to our grandparents and loved ones in person.
Big thumbs up to everyone for being amazing.
