The boiler

The pellet-fired boiler arrives.

Breaking new ground

The drying corner

I was wondering last night, awake in the small dark hours, if we are all in our different ways suffering some kind of post traumatic pandemic stress. When you think of the turmoil we have been collectively through - in Italy the tears each night, the utter silence, thirty days without leaving the reservation, our friend Silverio dying so suddenly and so alone, my Mum’s passing, the images of army lorries carrying the dead, the utter squalor of death and helplessness - it does not seem far fetched to think this might be the case.

And then the reprieve of summer- the almost miraculous abeyance.

And now the beast is back. Ok, we know it better but we know it’s devastation, it’s utter disruptive power. But who would not be scared and slightly withered by its roaring return? Coming right as we turn the corner into dark nights and winter days.

I weathered the first Covid storm but I notice now a deeper unease that seems to stand in the shadow of my conscious self. My foundations feel less secure than I thought. I’m noticing an emotional fragility, a weakening of my go-forwardness, a tiredness that surprises me. Hello darkness my old friend, you might say.

Personally it feels important to sidewayslong acknowledge this. This pandemic anxiety. This pandemic mal-aria (bad air). And to be on my guard. To accept it and yet not give too much over to it.

Some people have ‘real’ Long Covid but there is maybe also a Long Covid of the mind (Lawrence Ferlinghetti) that suggests an imperative to gather and husband resources, stamina, will, optimism and that maybe also asks us to be gentle and accepting of our weakened selves that we might come through this woefully unequally but hopefully together.