This Too Shall Pass

Life is tough right now. There's no question about that. We're living in unprecedented and uncertain times, and all we can do is plow on and do our best, wait it out, stay safe, stay at home, keep our distance, take care of our mental health as much as our physical health, reach out to each other and adapt to socialising via video, calls, texts, letters, to keep the loneliness at bay.

My lock-down began in a frenzy of panic. I was living in Paris, as readers of my articles and blog will know, but I had been due to leave to, as of mid-March, take a sailing course in Greece, and so when France announced their lock-down, I had already long given my notice at work, and informed my landlord that I would be moving out. When Macron announced that France would be shutting down for the foreseeable future, I bought a last-minute ticket for the Eurostar and headed back to the UK, with no particular plan, just knowing that it would probably be better to be in my home country, which at the time still hadn't announced a lock-down, rather than remain in Paris, unemployed and potentially homeless. After a few weeks of drifting, I found my 'lock-down base camp'; a beautifully quaint thatched cottage in rural Dorset, just outside of my favourite seaside town; Weymouth, with a group of five new friends in similar states of limbo. All of us had been in the midst of moving house or changing jobs/careers when lock-down was announced, hence we found ourselves together.

I've been spending much of my lock-down in reflection. Thinking about the things I miss, the people I miss, and all the things I want to do once lock-down is finally lifted, and we can resume normality again, or rather, a different type of normality. One in which, I hope, we shall all be kinder to each other, waste less time, be as productive personally as we are professionally, live more, and better, and with more awareness. I've been focusing on how fortunate I am to have good friends around me, how fortunate I am to be safe, healthy, that all of my loved ones are safe and healthy. I'm happy to know that my 94-year-old grandmother is fortunate enough to have relatives willing to shop for her and strong enough to leave her shopping bags on her doorstep and resist her invitation to come in for a cup of tea no matter how much they miss each others company, but instead will pause to chat to her through the window. I'm fortunate that, while signal is poor here, I have enough bars on my phone to manage a crackly phone-call. I'm fortunate to have wifi (we didn't at first when we rented this place, and I felt it), to be able to work, write, post photographs, chat with friends, Skype, to escape into Netflix rather then watching BBC News. I'm fortunate to be both in the countryside, and by the sea. I can go for walks and find secluded pebble beaches where I can walk and sit undisturbed. Not everyone has that luxury.

When this is over, I'll fill my days with all the things I love. I'll go to the beach in Weymouth, and run my fingers through the sand while reading a book, buy chips by the harbour and fend off the seagulls. I'll go crabbing to admire the colours and patterns of their shells and then return them to the sea. I'll go to Portland Bill lighthouse and scramble amongst the rocks like I used to when I was a child on family holidays. I'll swim in the sea. We'll go on dates. I'll take day-trips to Lyme Regis and Dorchester and Bournemouth, to say goodbye to Dorset. Until next time, under better circumstances.

I'll go back to Paris to see all the friends I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to when I left so suddenly, and we'll all go to our favourite bars and drink too much wine and laugh long and hard enough to make up for the months of worry. I'll sit on cafe terraces with a creme and people watch and write postcards, and be a tourist again for a while. I'll talk with my bookseller friends of Shakespeare and Company about all of the wonderful books we've been reading while at home, and spend hours curled up in my favourite armchair in the first floor library with the bookshop cat, Aggie, who, in my head, is curled up in my lap while I read, but who, in reality, will probably ignore me entirely as she is wont to do when I'm feeling needy for her attention. I'll walk through Jardin du Luxembourg and Buttes-Chaumont and Parc Monceau. I'll eat gluten-free crepes and really take my time in Musée d'Orsay, rather than heading straight for my favourite exhibits, barely glancing at the rest. I'll go to one of the cinemas of Odéon and watch old black-and-white movies. I'll go rock-climbing with friends as we always said we would, and never did. I'll start going to Sofar Sounds gigs again, with a bottle of wine. I'll stop and listen to street buskers. I'll go dancing in jazz bars. I'll seek laughter. I'll visit all the neighbourhoods of Paris that were always on my to-explore list. I'll rent an Airbnb so that I can throw a dinner party for all of my friends, and then order takeaway food because I'll doubtless burn whatever I'm cooking because I'll get distracted with talking.

When travel becomes more viable again, I'll rearrange that sailing course in Greece. Lord knows, it's been on my bucket list for long enough. I'll get more tattoos from the talented artists on Instagram whose work I've been following for months; Black Kat in Volos, Greece, Delphie Chu in Paris and Sara Rosa in Barcelona. I'll get a Shakespeare quote tattooed on my ribcage by Stef Dess at Dolores Tattoo parlour in Paris (who also tattooed my now very apt 'this too shall pass' tat on my forearm). I'll hitchhike rides on boats across the Greek isles. I'll visit the bookshop in Santorini that I've heard so much about. I'll get a licence and buy a motorbike and go on that road-trip I've dreamed about for years. I'll run up enough miles in sailing to cross the Atlantic. I'll get out of Europe, which I know so well by now, and see the rest of the world, visit friends in Mexico, Argentina, New Zealand, California, NYC, as I've been saying I will for ages.

I'll write more letters. I'll continue checking in on friends to make sure they're okay, because the end of the pandemic doesn't mean that we'll all automatically be 'just peachy'. I'll continue searching for new music and making playlists to share. I'll continue being brave in sharing my writing. I'll finish that novel. All of them. I'll create. And most of all, I'll be kinder to myself.

We'll be alright.

This too shall pass.