I know I’m not saying anything groundbreaking here, but my goodness, what a strange time we’re all living in right now.
Even just a few weeks ago, the restrictions we’re now living under would have been completely unthinkable. And although isolation and distancing and the cessation of so many freedoms we once took for granted are, in fact, our new reality, the whole situation is so surreal that it’s been difficult to wrap my head around it. Impossible, in fact, to grasp the enormity of it all, and the long-term effects this will have on the whole world, as well as the immediate impact for so many.
I’m privileged. And I’m lucky. I have to keep reminding myself of these truths, because it can be hard to lose perspective in all of this. My husband and I are fit, strong and healthy. We rent an apartment that we love, in an area of London that we love, and as things stand, we’re still able to pay our rent.
We both have jobs that we can do remotely, and even though my husband works in the travel industry – which has been massively impacted, with so many losing their jobs – he is still employed. And, importantly, we have each other. I’m incredibly thankful for that.
That doesn’t mean that any of this is easy. It’s just helpful to acknowledge that, for many others, adjusting to this crisis hasn’t just been a surreal inconvenience. It’s been world-shattering.
In saying that, though, it’s undoubtedly been a strange time for us all. I’m staying (relatively) positive … unless I think about the prospect of these restrictions being in place for months and months on end (so I’m mostly trying to avoid thinking about that).
But the one thing I seem to have lost is my ability to concentrate. Writing has gone out the window. Reading is basically non-existent. I have managed to binge Tiger King, so I suppose my focus isn’t completely shot, it’s just become more difficult to create, and to dream up worlds that don’t involve distancing, face masks and my characters doing nothing but staring wistfully out of a window.
But then Jamie Beck, who’s my absolute favourite artist of all time, announced on Instagram that she’s going to create a new photo every day of isolation (she lives in France, so her shutdown began nineteen days ago) as a way both to document this moment in history from her perspective, and to keep her creativity alive despite feeling physically stifled. She encouraged others to join her, and although I immediately wanted to, I wasn’t sure how I could contribute.
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How breathtaking is this photo? You can buy prints of Jamie’s #IsolationCreation collection here.
I’m not a photographer, or an artist. I can force myself to create a pretty photo for Instagram, but I don’t love the process, don’t thrive off it. And I knew that, if I was going to join Jamie’s #IsolationCreation challenge, it would have to be by doing something I love. It’s hard enough to concentrate as it is. If I was going to summon creativity every day, I had to care what I was creating.
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A few nights later, as I was about to go to bed, my head full of rumours of a stricter lockdown (at that point we were still able to come and go largely as we pleased, with a few guidelines in place), someone I follow on Instagram posted a story of a gorgeous, wild-looking beach, urging people to get out and enjoy big, open spaces, and to appreciate the great outdoors.
I thought – quite bitterly, if I’m perfectly honest – how it was an easy thing for them to say, living in Australia. How you don’t have to look to find expansive places there. How impossible that is for me, in an urban area where people are literally everywhere, and wilderness only exists in small, magical pockets.
And then a small voice inside challenged me. It asked, ‘what if those wide open spaces are there to be found inside you?’
I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t rest until I’d written these little thoughts down. And the next morning, when I woke up (early, because the stress was making me wake up well before my alarm), I looked at those thoughts, and suddenly they were a poem. And light was streaming through the window, and some tulips Brendan had brought home for me the previous week were dropping their gorgeous petals, and I snapped a photo, and my contribution to #IsolationCreation had begun.
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I don’t consider myself a poet. I don’t love poetry, as a rule (sorry, I know that sounds snobby, I don’t mean it that way, it’s just not what I’m usually drawn to), but right now, this is how I’m making sense of the world. This is how I’m bringing a tiny dose of positivity to my little corner of the internet.
I’ll continue as long as I can. Some days, the words tumble out of me. Other days, like today, I battle with the words until I wrestle something presentable onto the page. I’m no artist. My little sketches are rudimentary and rough. My handwriting is no beautiful thing. And yet this is what I can bring. So here you go. Days 1-9 of #IsolationCreation.
I hope they encourage you. And perhaps they’ll even inspire you to create your own #IsolationCreation collection. It doesn’t have to be pretty. And it definitely doesn’t have to be perfect. So I hope you’ll go forth and create, if you can, in spite of all that’s happening that’s out of your hands.
Follow my daily #IsolationCreation by following me on Instagram.
#IsolationCreation – My Poems from Days 1-9
