Misdirection

We’re supposed to avoid the shops but we’re here again. A handful of groceries stuffed into the basket of the stroller. Lining up in the 12 items or less queue behind a trolley loaded up with a years supply of cereal boxes, tuna tins and juice cartons. Apparently people have lost the ability to count also.

The bare stretches of shelves keep widening with each visit, it’s most disconcerting and curious too. Everyone knows the toilet paper was all swiped in week one but who even eats baked beans these days? Why did the tinned spaghetti run about before the normal spaghetti? I thought everyone knew the basics of cooking pasta at least? Why is there no tonic water at all and why haven’t all the chocolate biscuits been hoarded away yet?

Today there are only a couple of forlorn looking lamb chops left. Too expensive to hoard in a freezer. At least there are some vegetables and an abundance of milk and eggs. The things that don’t freeze well or keep for long.

We have not prepared for Armageddon, we return home and unpack the small handful of groceries that will feed us for the next couple of days. We will return again then, dragging our feet in boredom as we continue in this closed loop of repetitive behaviour. Without work, without school we have been knocked out of our usual wide orbit through life. Tethered now by an invisible 5 kilometre thread to the satellite of our house.

Without work I have lost my own individual identity also. I have become meshed into the collective ‘we’ of the family. We wake up, we make breakfast, we feed the baby and throw washing into the machine. We walk the three blocks to the cafe on the corner to order coffees and milkshakes before walking them back home again. We juggle teaching our son to learn to read, following instructions on video call screens with our daughters nap times. Our son jumps around the house longing to stretch his legs further whilst our daughter learns to master the art of crawling. We fill the rest of the day with an ever-increasing amount of preparation of meals and snacks.

In amongst the grim announcements that flood the evening news there are stories here and there about people being creative. Pivoting like a well-trained ballerina to capitalise on the opportunity. People who have cast off the shackles of their 9-5 job and embraced the art of macrame weaving or launching fashionable face masks in glittering colours. These stories are served up to us as positive and uplifting reminders about humanity’s strength and resilience.

I switch the television back to off and trudge back into the kitchen to wash the dishes. As I wipe the sudsy cloth over the surface of the plates to remove the residual grime of a thousand snacks my thoughts drift to questions of ‘What if”…

What if I’d said yes to the boy who wanted to move to New York City to pursue a career in broadway. The brilliant boy who could tap dance and sing and shone with a steely determination to make it happen. The boy who declared he never wanted children, just the freedom of the stage and the adoration of lights and audiences clapping.

The dream he offered seemed far too romantic and unrealistic. Shivering in a crowded bed sit, ice cold fingers and starving bellies as the pay checks between gigs stretched long and thin between us. Stalking the halls of the Metropolitan Museum during the day sketching the artworks before listlessly handing out my resume around every greasy spoon diner in the hope that someone might employ me.

We wanted different things in life, I craved stability. I liked the comfort of knowing I had enough money each month to pay the rent on my little one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of the city. I wanted to buy into that plan of meet a guy, get married, buy a house in the suburbs with grassy lawns and children gathered around the Christmas Tree and cooking the turkey on the barbecue.

Every time I saw a review of a broadway show I would scan the lines of text for his name. One Christmas they showed a special screening of one performance and I spotted him there, in the back of the chorus line, eyes still sparkling brightly. He never made it to the front of the spotlights but at least he made it to the stage.

What would have happened to me now then? Would we be huddled together in an apartment in East Side, watching the bodies pile up outside our windows as the city felt the strong blows of the virus hit it’s streets. With no children to care for would we have embraced the spirit of reinvention? Would he have finally cast aside his tap-dancing dreams and used that determination to see us survive? With no work and no children I would have finally been free then to pursue a truly artistic path. To sculpt clay beneath my fingers and glaze the fired surfaces with brilliant colours. We could have created a whole business together selling our creative wares to an audience desperate to bring some warmth and joy into their homes. Homes that had usually lain dormant, unused, amidst the bustle of all a thriving city had to offer outside the door of their apartment.

That wasn’t the life I chose though, I chose this one, I married Mike instead, a sensible choice. We bought that three-bedroom house in the suburbs and enjoyed the laughter of two small children dancing around our feet. Mike worked as an accountant for a firm specialising in tax returns, perfectly stable even in todays climate. He spends his days locked away in the back room avoiding us, concentrating on his rows of figures and numbers, keeping the pay checks coming in and the roof stable over our heads.

I myself wound up in marketing and communications for a travel agency. As the borders closed and the flights were cancelled my role was suspended. Only the most senior managers were retained to maintain the company line.

Perhaps I should have enrolled in something else back at the end of high school when I was filling in my university applications. I had almost filled in a preference for art history and conservation. At the time media and communications seemed like the safe choice, something everyone needed. Something with plenty of job availability. Something stable.

Perhaps I should have been a curator after all. My days would have been filled then quietly beavering away in the archives of the museum. Pulling out artefacts to curate online exhibitions to keep people entertained and interested whilst the doors of the museum stayed closed. My role still secure thanks to government funding. I would have enjoyed the opportunity to drive down empty streets to park in the little parking lot for museum staff only and thrill in the secret pleasure of walking through empty gallery halls as though I owned the place.

As I stack the washed dishes and glasses up in a Tetris stack beside the sink I wonder at all the other misdirections my life could have taken. If I hadn’t always sought out the safe and stable route. Ironically in this search for stability in life I have ended up in this moment to have stabilised to such a point of stillness within this stasis of lockdown that it has left me feeling so restless and untethered. Should I have risked more in life before this moment? Where would I have washed up in this great sea of life? Would I be happy if I had taken some other path through life?

The questions swirl through my head as I reach out to boil a kettle of water and make another cup of tea. The what if’s pour down my back as I step into the shower and rinse off the day’s little frustrations. Finally, I settle into bed to sleep, to dream then of another life lived.