My mind’s all over the place these days. I need a break from thinking.
On reflection, it’s the Covid-19 information I so greedily consumed over the last few weeks that’s screwing me up.
Too much data.
The internet doesn’t care. It greedily vacuums up my outputs along with everyone else’s. Under lockdown, we are just as connected as ever and, when we think something, we post it – like all-knowing deities, convinced of our righteousness.
Trigger – counter-trigger – insult – trigger. Somebody, somewhere, is gaining, but it certainly isn’t me. I need a break from it.
I woke with a headache and a slightly stuffy nose. It could be online overload, it could be 5g, it could be the virus though. Looking back through these pages, I have had a high chance of exposure. I tried to lockdown a fortnight ago, but the capitalists insisted on attracting the unwashed masses into my vicinity.
It’s most likely mild hay-fever exacerbating my usual dehydrated state. I once visited the hottest country in the world and drank nothing but coffee and whisky.
I packed in the fags yesterday, which most likely explains the loose phlegm in my lungs today. A packet of Mayfair menthol cigarettes and another coffee could see me right, or maybe not.
My habits aren’t helping me. I want to thrive and I’m not. I’m doing ok, but I want more. I want a bit of love, a little shelter with a garden for some hens and a dog and a vegetable patch. In this surreal time, I’m beginning to nurture that dream again.
Spring showers feel different to showers of every other time of year and I got caught in a beauty as I walked the dog. It grounded me and I sought words to describe it:
‘The air is suddenly crisp; the temperature falls. Crystal drops shimmering in the sun spit circles in the river. Rapidly, they increase in weight and number.
The humid air conducts the oily odours of earth disturbed by impacting rain. A crescendo is reached and, briefly, birds are silenced.
The torrent eases a little, yet lingers as birdsong returns.
A sharp coda* briefly threatens bedragglement, but bright sky betrays the temporary nature of the squall.’
The shower is a gift. This is where I want to be, where I need to be; present – in nature – right here. I’m suddenly unplugged from the alternative world that is livestreamed through a screen straight into my dopamine system.
And it’s where I’m going to stay for a bit, while dreams have a chance to root.
Tinder has a big warning on it not to meet up which had the effect of reminding me how horny i was and how little I could do about it. To compound matters my hands are starting to get cracked and sore from all the hand sanitiser. Either that or it’s stigmata brought on by enforced celibacy.
I didn’t sleep well last night. The dog woke me up for real at 8.46. Right now he is proving to be a steadfast and badly needed tether to sanity.
My stomach is in knots this morning after my fitful slumber. The reality dawned that Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are forming a Government. This is after Leo saying he would let other parties have a chance.
In the current news climate, people are a little distracted. Not only will they be the heroes that beat Covid, but they now have the perfect excuse to impose more austerity. They are not the type of Government who will protect from rent hungry landlords looking for their pound of flesh after the three months Covid grace; they will they get it one way or another, and more to boot.
What else is happening? Remember that apocalyptic news story from the start of the year? The USA, I’m certain, is still quietly mobilising for war with Iran. Their population is more distracted by Covid than our own.
Even if Covid was an accident, our leaders are laying down foundations that will affect the world for years if not decades to come. This is a critical juncture in world history and all its citizens are stuck inside, more impotent than ever before.
Against all this I feel like a trapped rat. From the few conversations I’m having, people’s mental health is beginning to drop right about now. That presents problems for people in coercive relationships, among the mentally ill, single parents with multiple kids, addicts who can’t get to meetings, the old, the lonely, the fragile and the scared.
Maybe it is because of wartime grandparents, but I always thought I’d rather be dead than scared, yet I’m sitting here cowering in my flat because everyone tells me it’s the right thing to do. But what if it’s not? What if we rise from this hibernation to children traumatised by fighting parents, and a spike in self-harm in a world at war and a Government that doesn’t care?
O, what a beautiful morning. Nature is really beginning to bloom. The sun is caressing creation with its warming rays here on the western edge of Europe. Dandelions are springing up in lengthening grass of the town’s public spaces, already a cut behind.
Last year, there was a movement towards letting things rewild and I quit a job with tidy towns, in part because I didn’t want to be the one responsible for strimming the verges and spaces that were a haven for wildlife. Covid has sorted out that dilemma this year. I look forward to seeing an overgrown locality.
The birds seem to be louder; maybe the lessened traffic makes them more audible?
I prefer to believe they are celebrating humankind’s retreat with a victorious chorus.
Despite the vomiting, I’m glad that the dog is around to drag me out of bed in the morning forcing me to walk and appreciate the natural world. It’s lovely to appreciate the lessened activity. Life had started to get a bit silly in town from a traffic perspective. I never really saw the point of economic success if the net result was asthma and a semi-permanent migraine.
Although we are officially on lock-down until mid-April, the Government provision of social welfare for 12 weeks indicates how long we might expect to dig in for. It’s fortuitous for Mother Earth that Covid’s initial assault coincides with springtime and early summer in the Northern hemisphere. In the meantime we can expect wildlife to bloom. If municipal spaces remain untended for much longer, all kinds of animal populations will explode which could be something to behold.
In England, there are oak trees that sprouted during the ‘Black Death’ and, by the time the human population had recovered enough to need the land, they had grown too big to cut down. You recognise them by their random placements in the middle of fields. It seems plagues are a boon for the natural world.
On an international scale the ‘Financial Times’ reports that “Wall Street calls Time on Fracking,” as Covid hammers home the final death knell for the artificially supported industry. That could be brilliant news for the climate.
For the uninitiated, the methane released by leakage from fracking infrastructure is up to 80 times more potent a greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide. Fortunately it stays in the atmosphere for only a fraction of the time, meaning that any reduction will have almost immediate effects.
Temporary benefits of the pause in capitalism may have lingering positive legacies. Covid may have done more to keep LNG* out of Ireland than all the tenacious and brave actions of the growing environmental movement. Look what happens when we stay out of our cars for a few weeks!
This leads me to thoughts of sacrifice.
Is the self-denial we are experiencing right now really that bad against the context of a recovering environment. In times not so long past people in this country were willing to give up their lives for a fairer world for the children of the isle. Colleagues I have spoken to in more reflective moments have already thought through serious questions regarding self- sacrifice. In this job you need that kind of decision made in advance.
What about the sacrifice we could make if ICUs ran out of ventilators? I would like to hope there is a percentage of the population that would give up theirs if a child needed it. I hope to think I would, women and children on the lifeboats and all that. I think all of us should be thinking about that question in good time.
When we have thought about it, can we think about a different question? One that doesn’t involve death for us but might for our children. Is it that inconceivable that, once Covid has left us, we stay in this space of self-denial and allow the planet of our descendants to heal? Is that really such a sacrifice or are our former lives so invaluable that we pursue them at all costs? Are we really that willing to leverage our bloodlines for gratification today?
We don’t have to make the ultimate sacrifice; Covid is showing us the way. All it really requires is a minor inconvenience. I was having a conversation with someone earlier about this – we now know what jobs are pointless: He conceded his own in tourism wasn’t essential for survival.
Imagine if all the people who weren’t needed for anything other than propping up a growth oriented economy refused to go back, instead choosing to sow the fields, plant the crops and build the houses for a post Covid pastoral utopia. Could we do that? Or I am naively day-dreaming on this day for fools?
Join us in following two volunteers Harry and Ciara who have been keeping diaries during the Covid-19 crisis.
Harry Canny* works for the fire service. Ciara Cara* is a volunteer with a number of local projects. Both have ample previous experience in activism and volunteering.
Ciara and Harry put into words things the rest of us are sometimes only beginning to think about. They both began writing at the start of this crisis and already have tracked the changes in life across Ireland. Both have similar aims; they hope you find encouragement in their words while they write bluntly and honestly.
A sometimes wild, thought-provoking, long-hand account by an experienced volunteer and activist, a townie and firefighter on call. He always thought days like this could come our way. Has a way with words. Says things most people haven’t thought about, but may need to yet. He likes danger.
A fabulous account by a rural-dweller caring now for vulnerable relatives. Giving it her best online to continue with important volunteer pursuits. Lived in Dublin for years and has volunteered abroad. Shorter, quick-read entries.
Our diarists are going to remain anonymous. Harry and Ciara are pseudonyms.
I spent the morning feeling low and dark. I’ve let myself slip on the things I’ve been working on changing slowly but surely over the last few months, bad diet, smoking, lack of cardio.
I’d rather selfishly hoped things would be a bit more interesting for a firefighter in the Covid spring. I’m sure my journal is getting boring, but I guess that’s just as important to document as the work I thought I might be doing.
I should be grateful. We might be staving off the crisis point and I’ve a few bits to keep me occupied within the two kilometres radius. Yesterday I got out for two hours to do equipment checks at the station.
We are rotating the weekly duties between the crew to keep us apart. You never know where the lads have been? Although I’m the only one on TInder.
Today I got to do a couple of hours gardening for a lovely woman who works as a homeopath and earned a cheeky thirty bucks. Good timing, the fresh air and sunlight was the cure to the malaise that was taking hold.
I can’t imagine how bad I’d be without those welcome interludes or the river walk adjacent to my flat? My heart bleeds for those living in some of the more urban dwelling spaces. I’m sure mental health and the risks of harm that it brings is becoming a real hazard in some homes. I suppose one has to evaluate dangers according to immediacy and your level of foresight. I don’t think people should uphold a lockdown at all costs if for some reason it puts them in jeopardy.
Human nature being what it is, I’m sure complacency will set in soon. Especially when the drugs run out. If I was stuck in isolation in an inner city flat, well, I just wouldn’t.
You could squat in a vacant airbnb flat out West and let the courts decide who’s right and wrong when civil cases resume again. By which time of course, you wouldn’t need it. All that activism taught me a trick or two. I wonder, should I start an alternative Citizens Advice? Probably not.
My only actual issue right now, outside of the faulty thinking, is Aldi’s lack of free-range chickens. I’m not sure how ethically sourced they are but the alternative is the Spatchcock version which look like someone accidentally sat on them and they don’t lack aesthetic appeal. The fresh fruit aisles looked fairly bare too. I wonder if food is running out? I hope not. The city dwellers have loved ones to feed too and the gardened elites’ vegetable patches will look alluringly calorific in that event.
I don’t think it will come to that though, not yet. All the graphs on Reddit show the rate of growth slowing, if you can believe anything at all when there is so much to lose. Soon it might though – heatwaves are going to get hotter and crops are going to burn and people will continue to die by the thousand as they did last summer in France.
I honestly think Covid is Mother Earth’s opening salvo in the war against the virus afflicting her. Maybe I’ll have more firefighting stories then, if I’ve not got sick of the permanent lockdown the retained service involves. I’m not sure any of us are willing to lockdown long enough to let Gaia heal and I don’t think they will find a vaccine for climate change.
Which sets up tomorrow’s rant nicely. Brace yourselves.
Any resemblance here to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental:
I didn’t sleep much last night. I’ve started having vividly tame dreams as I drift off to leaba land. I could be snoozing on the couch, but in the dream I’m awake smoking a fag or I might be in my bed dreaming I’m sleeping on the couch. They’re ultra-realistic and not in any way surreal like your standard dream. I have no idea why my subconscious needs me to dream I’m sitting on the bog? Maybe astral projection is locked down too? The alerter and I thought I was in the sitting room so I put on my shoes and walked out of the upstairs bedroom window (in his dream – ed).
Nothing serious, thankfully. An expensive car needed flipping back onto its wheels.
Gardai were on scene and it would have looked suspicious not to talk to one,
“How’s the lockdown?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s fine, people are respecting it, what’s yer name again?”
Bugger! I knew it was a mistake: “er Harry,” I said, completely incriminating myself in the process. I was certainly guilty of something.
“Surname,”
O, Jesus, am I going to be arrested at the scene? I prayed for the car to explode but my Higher Power ignored me as usual.
“Canny,” I squeaked.
“That’s right I remember.”
What did he mean he remembered? I knew it was a mistake to be friendly. “Is there a warrant for me?” I laughed unconvincingly, pretending I was joking (but knowing there was in fact a warrant out for me).
“What have you done?” he laughed back.
I changed the subject: “What’s the story with the NCT’s, mine’s in for tomorrow.”
“Drive it till the wheels fall off,” he replied, obviously repeating the national directive word for word.
It was a good bit of luck for me. The egg and mackerel dog vomit on the back seat is starting to mutate an exquisite, aromatic musk. I’m not sure if a car can fail the NCT for bad smells but an inspector dying from odour inhalation wouldn’t help. Benji 1 – Covid 0.
COVID could score a swift comeback though. Social isolation has become a very blurred concept in my apartment block. When stepping out the front door exposes you to the expelled carbon dioxide of sixteen other people you might as well give up. The lads upstairs have begun making a herb garden in response to the sunny days. At least when food supplies crash we’ll have some communal parsley to nibble on in the days before we starve.
Two of us are what are deemed essential workers, which sorta sucks when the dole is €350. I love that shop workers have now become the most important people on the planet. They should strike for TD salaries. Of course, the checkout girl upstairs is certain to catch the virus amongst the maelstrom of panicked shoppers hoovering up history’s last ever commercial crop of garlic. Then all the lads living with her will catch it. Then their dog will catch it and pass it on to my dog who will vomit explosively all over me.
How honest can I be? I did say I would write as if no-one was reading and I’m feeling really honest and a small bit spiritual right now.
Thursday it’s under control, Friday we’re doomed and today I’m wondering if it is, in fact, a sinister capitalist plot?. I’m so fickle. Keeping this diary has illuminated that more brightly than ever. I must continue writing it once COVID has allowed us to resume our destructive habits.
My whimsical nature cuts across all areas of my life. Wanting a girlfriend or wanting my freedom? Going out or staying put? Invest in the future or live for today? Earlier I threw a packet of menthol cigarettes in a wheelie bin and rooted them out just now. I’m enough to drive myself insane.
I got a firecall this morning and I really didn’t want to be there. Luckily COVID meant that only two had to attend the incident and not being as highly qualified as the others I stayed back and drank coffee. The upshot left me wondering, do I even want the job anymore? Discounting of course, the hundreds of good experiences and laughs I’ve had over the last eighteen months and that are certain to come in the future. Typical me.
Not that I wasn’t previously aware, but this diary has been great to show me how I conflate fleeting feelings with the truth of my life. No wonder I’m stuck when I can’t create a vision and stick at it.
And it’s been that way ever. I once had a dream, well two actually, and briefly I held them in my hands. Then they crumbled, due in no small part to my flightful spirit. It was four years ago when the realisation of my limitations shattered the ego that had held my anxiety at bay and I became more and more reclusive and subsequently depressed.
Which means, right now, I’m feeling rather chipper in comparison to everyone else. The depression has lifted a good while, but the reclusiveness and subsequent laziness to do anything about it lingers. I was dreading the return of the sun, when I would have to leave the comfort of Netflix box sets and pretend I like doing stuff. COVID has pushed back that concern.
Which is really, bloody well, messed up.
Being delighted with social isolation has made me strikingly aware of how dysfunctional I have become, not least because part of me wants it to last forever. The real kicker though, the one that is really making me reflect, is that my life hasn’t changed under COVID in the slightest bit. Not one jot.
The two kilometre curfew has been part of my routine since I joined the Fire Brigade in late 2018. I’m well used to that. When it is lifted, normal folk will show that actually, they don’t really care about billions dying, as they return to their carbon spewing travel plans.
For retained firefighters, no difference will it make. I’m proud of that choice and sacrifice. Environmentalists should follow suit. If my son didn’t live in the next town, I wouldn’t bother with a car at all, and if l lived on a mountain with no transport that would suit me just fine.
Despite being entrenched under COVID news bombardment I’m not expanding a single calorie on fear or worry. I accept that it’s easy for me as I have done all my grieving. My family of origin was never a big part of my children’s life, which surprised and hurt me in years gone by. I understand now through the lense of experience but I also learned to shut the door. My grief was spent years ago. Who’s going to miss my parents? Not my sons who barely know them, not me. We needed them once, but we got through without just the same.
As a blow in, there are no cousins, no connections, no one at all to worry about outside of my children who are young and thankfully strong and will easily shake off the plague. Once I packed in the drink and similar frivolities, the few people who did call round for a can and a smoke stopped calling. Which is fine: I love them but I’ve moved on.
Anxiety and fear have kept me pinned inside my apartment and – as the town I lived in got busier and busier due to the economic recovery – the walls closed in tighter and tighter. No way would the beautiful and talented artisans who infested my living space accept a rudeboy like me and no way would I adapt for kudos. I finally reached a point where I felt I had actually died and was just waiting for my body to catch on. On a level I think that is true. The world outside grew dim and meaningless. The beauty spot I walked the dog was a hallucination, my life an illusion of a deeper truth I do not comprehend.
I’m told we should have empathy, that we should not minimise the feelings of people right now. Well, if by empathy you mean ‘Do I understand?’ – of course I do! Welcome to the world of the recluse.
If I say I care though, I really don’t, not with any conviction (how can I give from what I haven’t received?). If I say I do online don’t believe me, I’m lying, virtual signaling in case you might like me, adapting for the kudos. I lied about that too.
I adjusted to the COVID reality years ago. Like ancestors who lived in dangerous centuries past. Everybody has to in the end, or they will leave this mortal coil a shivering denizen of fear.
It’s ironic then to find that my unusual way of looking at things perfectly equips me with the skills that count in an apocalypse – without so much as a thought let alone a coherent plan towards that end. I wonder what is pulling my strings and begin to wonder about the nature of my living death and the concept of spiritual rebirth that all religions seem to require. Was that the purpose of the suffering? Or am I just repeating the Gospels of my forebears to find meaning for the chaos outside and the numbness within?
I might never know but I ask the Great Mystery if it listens at all, to fill me with new dreams, new loves and new compassion and I ask it to ground me in this reality so I can work to those ends. And if I can’t feel pity for my anxious fellows in the COVID days, I ask it to soothe their troubled souls…
It felt like the blitz as I evacuated my son off to his mother in the country. Reality kicking in now. I wonder how long it will be till I see him again? Not long hopefully, four days alone is when my depression kicks in.
They say being social animals, humans need to be around each other for the nervous system to regulate. When he’s not around, I can be alone for long periods. I am aware that I’m is a little co-dependent. I wonder am I messing him up? I hope I have instilled enough devil-may-care into him to see him through anxious times. It could backfire though – if he’s hiding anxiety through false bravado to please me, I could have done more harm than good.
I’ve never been a parent who claims to know what he’s doing. I’m wrong about a lot, remember? If I had my time again knowing now who I am, I would have got sterilised. Which brings to mind Philip Larkin’s seminal prose.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had,
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn,
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern,
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
Least I still have the dog, who spewed up eggs and mackerel all over the back seat of the car. He might be shipped off shortly too – nervous regulation or otherwise.
It feels like its beginning now. At work we have been issued with gowns, goggles, hi-tech face masks and we’re to wear them at all times. I’m not sure our role in this is, but one can hazard a macabre guess.
Over in England, our colleagues have been tasked with delivering food and supplies. and body retrieval and are being trained to drive ambulances. The gory details don’t bother me. What scares me is the numbers they are preparing for.
I will be grateful to get the opportunity to do my bit. Turns out, I’m not necessarily the bad man I think I am. It’s news to me to find myself straining at the bit to serve in the hour of need. I always thought I was kidding myself, but I might actually be the person I pretended to be.
So now I’m feeling all smug I can move on to judging others. A few hours this morning showed things could break down very easily, I had suspected my growing faith in humans might prove to be false and the morning after the lockdown was announced did not fill me with optimism.
Twice, after dropping the boy back, I slammed on brakes to avoid cars speeding on the wrong side of the road. I have to clean up after muppets like that, so believe me when I say I have no problem in giving expensive lessons should the opportunity arise. Dangerous driving on empty roads has become widescale enough for Gardai to make a statement.
There were queues around the outside of Aldi. Apparently lockdown means congregating at the same time in crowded places in case you have to go without food for a few short hours, God forbid. I’m not holding back on idiots like that. I promise they won’t survive a major catastrophe.
I would eat porridge for a month and wipe my arse on the carpet before I spent anytime around that level of stupid. They’re the sort of people who deny having had herpes. You have no idea where they have been. And there are hundreds of them breathing my air.
Not that I’m immune to stupid. Facing a disease with fluid filled lungs as its number one symptom has me stressed enough to take up smoking again. The logic being that since they are banning menthol cigarettes, I might as well enjoy them while I have the chance.
Although, never again will I light up the filter by mistake. If you know you know.
Looking back on yesterday’s entry, it was the sunshine after all. According to the feedback I received and tonight’s announcement (by An Taoiseach) we are still on course for cataclysm. A salutary lesson in letting feelings override the higher brain. I might have felt good yesterday, but the world was still going to hell in high water.
And while our leaders might be ahead of us when it comes to information and frighteningly they admit that the ICUs are nearing capacity.
The USA has lost control completely with 100,000 cases, more than China, if we are to believe the country that denied operating concentration camps for Uigher Muslims. Trump has proven inept, surprisingly. Although it’s not solely on him. Covid has proven how fragile the system is. There is a chance it could collapse, which might prove helpful if we learn quickly enough, because as bad as it gets we have bigger disasters hurtling towards us.
So I was wrong. I’m wrong about too many things to not be open to all eventualities. It makes me a skeptic in the philosophical sense of the word. Anything is possible. Even the inconceivable. God, faeries, computer simulated realities, Liverpool winning the premier league, all of it.
It’s a way of admitting that, on the grand scale, I know nothing. Whether I believe in something or not, skepticism allows me that freedom. There are things I know nothing about that I could learn if I wanted, such as economics or playing the piano. Things I know nothing about that research would allow me to guess at – how did the neolithic people build the pyramids so square? Things I know nothing of and never will with these finite senses, like what came before the big bang, or where did I lose my provisional truck license?
And I find myself in many internet quarrels over the nature of such things. Such is my ego. Facebook is awash right now. Right now it is the rise of authoritarianism, which is actually happening, whether it is a temporary and benign or malignent and permanent type is the only question right now.
On one side of the debate we have the people who think 911 was deliberate. They say: What we are seeing now is the beginning of end times as the freemasons finally reveal their nefarious hand. They like men more than women. You can identify them when they argue that “mankind is not altering the climate but is manipulating the weather.”
Facing them are those, who dismiss all theories as tinfoil. They say: No way would the nation that lied to start a war lie to start a war. That there is no-one behind the scenes planning history in advance. They like women more than men. You can identify them when they argue that mankind is not manipulating the weather but is altering the climate.
Obviously there are the silent and probable majority who only use Facebook to promote their business or share photos of sunsets. They don’t let their political identity decide whether they accept or reject an idea and don’t have a favourite gender because they have meaningful sex lives instead. All they know is that it rains a lot more than it used to.
Then there are people like me who, because of childhood rejection issues, will argue with anyone about anything. My mind is like the singularity in a black hole believing in all of it and none of it in any given fraction of a moment.
I stay open to everything because, in my time, many bizarre accusations of a conspiratorial nature have been answered affirmatively:
– Did modern democracies lie to start a war that killed hundreds of thousands?
– Did oil companies fund environmental scientists in top institutions to obfusticate science even if it meant global destruction?
– Were leading children’s TV presenters paedophiles?
Every piece of investigative journalism ever started off as a conspiracy in some reporter’s fertile mind. The phones of protestors are most certainly tracked. Extraordinary rendition does happen in Shannon. Wikileaks is a real thing. Just because officials deny something doesn’t make it not true.
With our freedoms becoming more and more curtailed things, social media is humming. All kinds of arguments and counter arguments – I suspect with increasing ferocity as lockdown takes its toll – are going to make it to the surface. So with nothing better to do than wait for the aliens to take me away I want to hear them all.
Covid was the last thing on my mind when I woke this morning, sandwiched as I was between the aging shepherd dog and my boy. I hold on tightly to such moments: Soon my son will be a moody teenager and the dog will be dead. Such is life.
The boy has been joyously flippant in this new world order. “Covid is the best thing ever” he enthused. I didn’t bother giving him a lecture on the tragic nature of events. What difference would it make? If he wants to pursue the firefighter path he might as well learn now how not to be anxious in times of crisis.
The dog is stone deaf. It took me awhile to notice. He ignored me at the best of times. He stays with his other family most of the time now. He thinks cars have to give way to him. Not being able to hear them is a recipe for a vets bill, so I’m taking the opportunity of lessened traffic to mind him while he’s still around.
Not that town has ground to a complete standstill. If I ever get any time off call I must take a drive to see if other towns are as empty as they look on Reddit. Ours certainly isn’t – either it’s the anti-vaxxers trying to build herd immunity or its a stubborn bastion of capitalism, obstinately clinging on to the concept of services for cash.
While walking the dog I met the father of the baby whose mother looked so anxious in Aldi last week with said baby snuggled tightly into his chest. His sentiments were as breezy as my son’s: “It’s like extended maternity leave,” he grinned, from the required distance of six feet six inches.
Out in the shared courtyard the Polish boy next door filled water balloons, while his father worked on an art installation for his baby brother. In our cramped quarters, we are forced to loosen social isolation to include each other. I guess that makes us a family of six. The gardened elite would never understand.
My editor was also embracing the enforced family time to instil sibling unity. “How is it you can get on with your friends online but not with each other? No more screens until you do.”
This is the most unexpected opportunity for working parents to reconnect with their children, another area in which Covid is asking questions of the choices we have made for our societies. My heart hurts for the kids with abusive parents. Do you think I would have stayed in social isolation with my mother and step-father? I would in my bollocks! Another reason for us not to be so judgy.
Overall it’s been a lovely day, aided by the finest weather of the year so far. I managed to pick up some outside and solitary work. Although I was putting myself at risk of infection of another kind as I unblocked an open culvert. Perhaps recent events have me turned into a germaphobe but I was sure I tasted leptospirosis in the stagnant water that splashed into my mouth.
A welcome but undramatic firecall added a nice interlude to the evening giving me the perfect opportunity not to take part in a scheduled online meeting of my Thursday night self help group. Spraying each other down and bleaching everything that might have touched anything, including the tyres, took longer than the incident itself, especially as we were down to a skeleton crew.
Social media has also been keeping my spirits high. Leo Varadkar may have warned us about scrolling through our phones but honestly, the memes are genius. I can’t stop.
I remember my history lecturer asking how historians would study the past, in the future? If that makes the slightest bit of sense. When you think about it, working out the lost origins of level seven internet memes would be a history professor’s wet dream.
Right now it feels a bit like the phoney war, I hope this period doesn’t prove to be as alluringly deceptive. It’s been two almost two weeks since the most responsible amongst began to take precautions. It might have been the sunshine, but I’m beginning to be cautiously hopeful someone in charge might actually know what they are doing.
Prince Charles has the virus now. Apparently he’s self-isolating in Scotland; does he mean the whole country? “This wasn’t the corona-nation one was expecting,” he posted on twitter, which made me laugh. One rather gets the feeling it’s not meant to be, old bean.
Last night’s entry, fueled by heightened emotions is in stark contrast to the way I feel now – serene, chilled and overfed. I’m actually quite happy to descend into madness for a while and see what new dreams begin to sprout.
Fire calls have fallen off the cliff so I, like most other people, have plenty of time for reflection. It’s clear what changes have to be made and what has to be reluctantly let go. I hope this will be a universal COVID phenomenon. When the virus allows us to resume old lives, will we want them anymore?
In truth, mine hasn’t really changed much at all and I realised today that wasn’t a coincidence. I gave up my last job because interviews with environmental scientists convinced me we should all pack up driving.
I thought the likely response to climate breakdown would be fascism, so signing up with the brigade seemed the best way to avoid conscription to the Gestapo. I had expected to wait a few more years for ‘the event’, though. Still not sure if it was madness or foresight but I’ve struggled to tell the difference between the truth and full-blown psychosis all my adult life.
Mercifully, predictions of the Fourth Reich seem overstated, but the path from here to there is clearly mapped. I hope this virus isn’t giving leaders ideas. Expect to see stories on different potential plagues every week when COVID is no longer newsworthy.
In the aftermath, laws will be enacted that play on our fears and we have proven our willingness to comply, while smartphones have perfected the ingredients for surveillance . I’m not willing to go down the conspiracy path right now but I’m not naive either.
Anyway I found a couple of advantages in the increased State security measures. The two female Gardai patrolling the streets today looked really cute trying to contain the grins that betrayed their first day on the job. I remember that feeling from my first calls. I can’t wait for them to see me in my sexy firekit. It’s a bizarre feeling to count Gardai as peers. I still can’t get used to them knowing my name for reasons other than a pesky warrant from 2015.
Leo Varadkar could be the luckiest Taoiseach ever, scraping through on the fifth count to a caretaker position and now on the verge of his finest hour. A lot of panicked people are relieved. The consensus I got, whilst keeping my two metre distance, was “how can you even spend €350 in social isolation!?!”
Really though, do Fine Gael have a choice? It was either to give people money or let looting begin. Pretty hard to have a personal rainy day fund with rents the way they are.
I’m cynical about the temporary equal healthcare provision. Covid has exposed the fatal flaw in two tier systems which will never be able to deal with epidemics.
It’s unfortunate for Mary Lou, who is beginning to sound like a naysayer. Unless this virus spirals out of control she can kiss goodbye to her left alliance. At least she has Jurgen Klopp as a shoulder to cry on.
I could be wrong though. I have been before. Maybe we will get comfortable with this temporary taste of socialism? When the virus allows us to resume our old system, will we want it anymore?
Warning: Rantings ahead – do not read if easily offended.
It’s three am and I’m mad. Been a while since I’ve had a sleepless rage. Strange times. I’m angry about myself for judging people who were out and about. Lockdown my arse. I’ll tell you what, all the big posh twats posting pictures of your gardens going on about #staythefuckin. Why don’t you go and live in noisey cramped apartment block for the duration and then see how sanctimonious you feel about people needing to #getthefuckout?
G’way with the social justice. If you lived in a block of flats with no sunlight or broken elevators stinking of piss with teenage children, the corona virus would honestly be the least of your worries. I dare say you might even be that resentful of an unfair society a bit of viral vandalism might turn you on. Bloody chia seeds innit.
In my cramped quarters, 16 people live in a sunlight-deficient courtyard which leads to the busy hub on the main street. Needless business still peddle their overpriced wares, attracting footfall by the dozens – potential carriers who presumably take their organic produce back to their half-acre dormers in the townlands. Hundreds of thousands live like me, most of them more unfortunate as they are cut off from the green countryside; even their community garden projects are now shut.
How do they feel seeing pictures of lush gardens resplendent with fresh organic fruits and vegetables from people sounding like Brits “making the best of it whatto”? Plant a window box you say with patronising ignorance. That is akin telling someone who wants to go swimming to run a bloody bath. Which I don’t have. Maybe I’ll wash the dishes with my goggles on.
No wonder people are ignoring social isolation and hitting the beaches. Who the hell was I to judge? There are levels to to what degradation people can endure before they say “f*** the rules.” Can you try and understand why they would? What have the rules ever done for them? With the soul cramping oppression of concrete shitholes, coupled with the insecurity of the rental market and the lack of any way to a better situation, a bad cough is hardly a major concern. At least not enough to pack up the COPD inducing weed that pushes away intrusive thoughts about taking drastic action.
All the talk about packs of Yuutes* roaming the city streets, but why should those kids care about the COVID vulnerable generations that went beforehand? Generations who idly participated with the State in creating the conditions that make owning anything impossible. So what if a few auld ones kick the bucket; won’t that free up a council house or two? Then they’ll have a garden to tend in the next pandemic.
I knew that world only too well. Blatantly my thinking still goes there in times of frustration. And I’m still trapped in a bloody box that I pay more than a mortgage in rent for. Right now this box feels really fucking small and with all the healthy habits I have built into my life to prevent the claustrophobia denied from me for the foreseeable I wonder how long it’s going to be before I start punching the walls. So yeah, judge all you like, but don’t be surprised if those marginalised from the gifts of green fields disregard emergency legislation in a bid to hold on to precious sanity. Sharing honestly has taught me over the years that my thoughts are not unique. For some it’s going to be a harder shutdown than others.
*Yuutes = Young, Unemployed, Unwilling (or Unable) To Emigrate.
Last week, the government published a national action plan, including details on support for a community response to Covid-19. There is quite a lot of detail in this plan that may be helpful to community groups.
The National Action Plan was published on March 16th and set out “a whole-of-society response and mobilisation of resources across Government and society to fight the spread of the virus”.
This week, the Department published a six-page information leaflet to support the community response to Coronavirus: “You, Your Community and COVID-19” focuses on our public health duties and gives advice on to groups and to individuals about volunteering.
The leaflet advised people they could volunteer through the Department-supported network of volunteer offices.
It noted that some volunteers may need to be Garda vetted and that this process would be speeded up and people volunteering in connection with Covid-19 would be prioritised.
The document was emailed out as part of a pack covering public health advice, do’s and don’ts of sensible volunteering, advice specifically for community groups, and tips on guarding against fraud and generating trust.
Resources cover:
– ‘How can I volunteer?’
– ‘Sensible volunteering – Do’s and Don’ts’
– ‘Advice for local community groups – how can we get volunteers?’
– ‘Advice for vulnerable people who need supports’
The Department of Rural and Community Development has also opened a dedicated helpdesk contactable by email to assist community groups seeking advice or with queries. The email helpdesk is open 7 days a week. It is: c&vsupports@drcd.gov.ie
The Department reminds everyone that the HSE website is the key source for health advice: www.hse.ie/coronavirus.
As part of the national response to Covid-19, the Department of Health, the Department of Rural and Community Development and the HSE are working closely to support stakeholders and community groups. The latest updates include the following:
More updates are planned for early next week. Meanwhile, the Covid-19 Health Communications Stakeholder Support says that it will respond to urgent concerns. It says: “We would be grateful if you would let us know if your organisation has any specific requests or urgent needs in relation to Coronavirus COVID-19 public health information materials. If you do, please email us at Partner.Pack@hse.ie to let us know.”
Suzi Diamond and Tomi Reichenthal are Ireland’s two last remaining Holocaust survivors. As they age, their voices grow louder:
Thursday, January 16th, 2020 was an historic occasion for the Tullamore Toastmasters. That was the day they had the honour of hosting Tomi Reichental, Holocaust survivor and human rights campaigner.
A capacity crowd of around 250 people heard that, when he was just nine years old, the Nazis imprisoned Tomi and his family in the Bergen-Belsen forced labour camp. Over the course of World War II, 70,000 Jews perished there. That astronomical figure included 35 members of Tomi’s family.
He had many haunting experiences. One in particular stuck with him: When his 76-year-old grandmother died in the camp in March 1945, young Tomi had to watch as her body was dragged from their hut and thrown on top of a wheelbarrow already overloaded with dead bodies, then dumped on the piles of corpses outside.
Talking publicly about these events makes them real for Tomi all over again, and he now relives them, feeling them in a way he didn’t at the time.
“When I was a kid, I didn’t feel the dehumanisation [of wearing the yellow star], but now I feel how dehumanised I was at the time,” said Tomi. “This sort of overcomes me. Imagine. I had to wear this thing so people can point their finger at me as I am a Jew.”
While none of us can truly understand the horrors and suffering young Tomi faced, it is without doubt that he fully understands the ecosystems and behaviours that led to the waking nightmare he found himself in. Now, with all the benefit of hindsight, Tomi can see the same attitudes rising again.
“It starts with whispers, then abuse, and the final stage was murder,” he said “That’s how it started in the 1930s. As time went on, everyone was a bystander. You must not be a bystander. At the time, nobody did anything, and when they realised what was going on it was too late.”
Tomi had stark warnings for those alive today, especially the younger generations. He believes we have to remain vigilant, particularly in a world where fake news, racism and discrimination are increasingly visible and prevalent.
“[Refugees] now have a similar experience [to the Jews during World War II], where the abuse is going on. People are running away and want a chance to live somewhere. They are not doing it to better their lives. They’re doing it out of necessity.
“The Irish people went all over the world, facing starvation and hunger. They were welcomed everywhere, but now, when other people are needing some sanctuary, Ireland is not very enthusiastic to do anything about it, which is again very sad. A couple of hundred refugees? It’s nothing. We could have taken more, and we should take more.”
It’s not just in relation to those from outside Irish borders where Tomi is seeing troubling signs. He has seen the situation surrounding Travellers, and heard much of the vitriol and hate speech directed towards them, often by people in power.
“I think there should be repercussions for people [who use hate speech, then hastily apologise later]. These are the things I am talking about – a whisper in towns, and how it develops. If we don’t stand up and say, ‘It is not enough that you are apologising, because at the time you said it, you meant it’… It shouldn’t be allowed to get any further. They should resign or be forced out, absolutely. That’s my opinion.”
As Tomi utilises his personal story to warn against a repetition of history, it should come as no surprise that he views fake news and historical revisionism (such as Holocaust denial) as incredibly dangerous.
Nazi ideology cost millions of people their lives.
“You have to have accurate, truthful history so things are not repeated,” he said. “I am keeping the subject of the Holocaust alive. I’m making sure [people know] that the largest tragedy in human history not only happened, but that it was pre-meditated and very carefully planned. And that [the Nazis] nearly succeeded in their aim.
“It’s different when a teacher talks about the Holocaust and when I talk about the Holocaust. When I speak, they will never forget it again.”
And it’s not just thin parallels that Tomi is now seeing. The hatred of Jewish people that drove the Holocaust is still very much in evidence.
“My own country, Slovakia – before the War, about 3% of the population was Jewish. There were about 90,000 Jews living there in Slovakia. Of course, the propaganda against the Jews was that if anything went wrong in Slovakia, it was the fault of the Jews. Today, again, the anti-Semites are blaming the Jews. There are only about 300 Jews left [in the country] – all these people are in their 80s or 90s, you know, old people – but still, when things go wrong, the anti-Semites say it’s the fault of the Jews.”
Not only is the hatred of the Jewish people still continuing in strongholds around the world, there are other comparable genocides taking place in our lifetime. In our recent history. Tomi mentioned Aung San Suu Kyi, and Myanmar’s cleansing of Rohingya Muslims.
He has a particularly bleak outlook on how humanity is once more turning a blind eye.
“I sometimes say – and people condemn me for it – that what is happening now is worse than the Holocaust. I’m not saying this about the crimes or the killing but, at the time, people said they didn’t know [what was happening]. And we have to take it on the face of it that there were people who didn’t know. Today, they can’t say that. We all see it on the television and we still can’t do anything. I can’t understand how the human race is letting these things happen.”
At the root of it, Tomi’s message is one of education, peace and respect. He encourages those who come to hear him speak to “embrace and respect the minorities in Ireland”.
He has a warning, too, for those who choose a different path. Hate, he says, is self-defeating.
Instead, he counsels, “make peace with your past, so it doesn’t spoil your present”.
* Ray Lucey conducted this interview jointly for ‘Changing Ireland’ and ‘Travellers’ Voice’.
Read Tomi Reichental’s book:
Tomi Reichental’s 368 page book ‘I was a boy in Belsen’ was published in 2011.
Mr Reichendal remained silent for 50 years of his life about the Holocaust. However, as one of the few remaining survivors he knew time was running short and wrote ‘I Was a Boy in Belsen’ (O’Brien Press) to tell his story.
Best price we found (€12) here: https://www.dubraybooks.ie/i-was-a-boy-in-belsen_9781847177933
[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.3.1″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.3.1″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_margin=”|||-74px||” width=”120.6%”]I was asked to try and explain how serious this was, so a friend could show a friend. I’m tired now and struggled to put this together. I hope it’s coherent.
1000 plus cases now – today saw the biggest rise. It’s out there now, thousands of times more virulent and hundreds of times more deadly than HIV. How would you feel if you got a syringe prick taking out the rubbish. What precautions would you take to protect your family while you waited for the results?
It’s in all our communities now. Some unfortunate, essential key-workers will be the first hit. You’ll know when they disappear from their work-places. When one gets quarantined they all will, who will keep the food moving then? One or two may never return. Think about that. If statistics hold true for Ireland as elsewhere and are they on course, familiar faces in our community will be gone forever. People do not seem to understand. I didn’t to begin with.
Maybe, last week, while it was still sinking in, non-essential business could be excused for taking precautions and thinking it was OK to carry on but it is not OK anymore. Today the diagnosed cases doubled. Tomorrow it will double again and tomorrow after that and soon the healthcare system will be overwhelmed. The last few days non-compliance to the voluntary social-isolation has almost guaranteed that. Yet cafes remain open, beaches and beauty spots almost overrun. It’s no exaggeration to say I never remember the riverwalk in my town as busy as it was yesterday.
Right now hospitals are coping – there are enough beds. Patients are triaged, clinically calculated, scientifically and rationally; prioritising who needs the most help using the acuity scale, ensuring as many people as possible survive. The ultimate name of the game.
When overwhelm is reached – like a plane crash – or let’s just say for shits and giggles, an epidemic, the formula used for triage flips. The task is still the same, to save as many people as possible but with insufficient resources the most critical become a hindrance to that aim. Why commit the resources that could save two people on one person in a more critical state? If you were sick with a ten percent chance of survival you could literally be moved out of care for those deemed to have a 50% chance. Civilians brains would explode on the decisions that have to be made on a moment by moment basis.
And yet, these are the decisions that will be made if we don’t buy the health services time. Old people can forget about it at that stage. Israel, it is reported, is no longer handing out ventilators to over sixties. It seems brutal but it’s simple. If a firefighter was committed to a rescue in a burning building and came across your husband and a child, who do you think he’s bringing out? Fates have already been decided depending on the spread this week. If cases mushroom before full resources have been mobilised people could literally be left to die at home.
Enforced lockdown is now certain it seems this but I wonder is it a weekend too late? Hopefully the lattes in the sun were worth it.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
