The Shadow of the Shark

Wednesday, 1^st April, 2020

It’s just 19 days since I started this blog which started out as a way of processing the craziness in the form of a diary. I seem to have swerved wildly off the road in terms of diary writing, (usually when I’ve spotted a fat white blasé politician bouncing along in the undergrowth) but maybe now it’s time to bring it back.

I don’t know about you but I feel we’ve moved into the third stage of this thing. If Stage 1 was Watching the Shadow make its way across the globe in our direction, and Stage 2 was Losing Control then I think Stage 3 is The New Abnormal. I know I used this phrase before to describe how we’ve started doing normal things differently or with a new sense of paranoia but The New Abnormal has now become our everyday reality.

Here, in my household, we’re all either working or studying at home, mostly matching the usual working hours, although for me as a teacher, it might be the first time ever I’ve worked something approaching a 37 hour week (instead of 50 – 60 hours average). However, take away the travel to and from work, the distractions of working with other people, and taking away meetings/training and all that jazz, then a slimmed down work day is, from my perspective, rather chilled.

Yes, it might be more difficult managing a 6-foot teenager who is avoiding doing the school work for the subjects he dislikes but because both his parents are key-workers we are threatening to send him into school. As I keep telling him (truthfully), I have showered with his headteacher at the hot yoga studio so have a more intimate relationship with ‘Sir’ than he realises.

But the New Abnormal is more than adjusting to everyone ‘working’ from home. It’s when you start to enjoy aspects of your new life, in preference to your old one. You’d be a serious petrol-head if you were missing all the cars on the road. Isn’t it great walking along by the road and hardly seeing any traffic? And isn’t it exciting when you do get in the car? Even if you’re only going to the supermarket, it feels a bit racy to be ‘out.’

‘Come on, copper, stop me if you dare; I’ve got a shopping list and some Bags for Life if you want to search my car.’

The New Abnormal is also that smile you give someone as they swerve wildly but politely off the footpath to keep the government approved distance away from you, as if you have the plague…and then you remember: fuck, there is a plague, and I might have it. And that’s why I’m not at work and walking the dog and the teenager to the park to kick a rugby ball around at 2:30 in the afternoon.

Then there is silent queueing outside the supermarket, with people wearing masks or scarves wrapped round their mouths and leaning on the trolleys to look at their phones as the line slowly shuffles forward and you move into the next zone marked in yellow and black tape on the ground. This behavior, which wasn’t what you were doing three weeks ago, is now the New Abnormal. And actually getting into the supermarket feels like winning the lottery – ‘I’m in!’ Until you look at the shelves, of course…

Choice is the New Abnormal, too. Social isolation measures mean that you can’t choose to do hardly any of the things you were doing before the pandemic, but less choice makes for remarkably simple thought processes. I can walk the dog, go to the supermarket, ride my bike. And that’s it. There are no other legitimate reasons to leave the house. The day after the lockdown, I saw that B&Q were still open and went down there to buy some screws for a garden project to be met by three members of staff standing at the front of the store, wearing masks and gloves, waving cars away, with a police car parked to one side. The New Abnormal: when nipping out for some 75mm wood screws ends up with you being arrested for a non-essential journey.

The New Abnormal: sitting in the garden with a cup of coffee thinking it’s a beautiful day when thousands of people all over the world are dying of the same infectious disease; dropping a package on our neighbour’s doorstep, ringing the doorbell and backing away as if it is a bomb when it’s the milk they asked you to get them; opening the poo bin lid in the park with your elbow; absent-mindedly scratching the skin on your finger until you’ve broken the skin because actually your fear is lurking like a great white shark under your tiny little raft. The shark was there from the beginning and it’s all you could think about at first but you’ve been on the raft so long now you’re started staring at the sky while the shadow follows along, waiting for you to lose your grip.

Latest data for the UK (as of 11pm):

Infected: 29,474

Deaths: 2,352

Celebrity Deaths: 0 (Don’t die Michael Rosen – long live the meme king!)

People I know who are infected: 3 (my boss, my teaching assistant, and Sol’s mate)

Song of the Day: ‘Mad World’ – Tears for Fears