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When choosing a featured image for this post, I thought a koru was perfect. In Maori design, the unfurling front is symbolic equilibrium and harmony, amidst change and chaos.
I’m not sure how to express this in the ‘right’ way so I’m sorry in advance if my words rub the wrong spot. Below are thoughts that have gnawed at me for months and it’s in writing that I can process, digest and let go of them. So here goes.
It’s coming up to two years since I made the mad, pandemic-induced dash across the Tasman from my mountain home in Queenstown back to Australia.
With borders rapidly closing and family and a long-distance partner in Sydney and Canberra, I didn’t want to risk being indefinitely stuck in another country. And so on 19 March 2020, I booked a flight for 48 hours later.
In the beginning, it felt natural to me to be sensible and abiding, as I subscribed to the idea that small, individual sacrifices were protecting the greater community. I still mostly believe this, always having seen humanity as a collective.
To be honest, after living my 20s with so much adventure, hustle and movement, it was almost a relief to be forced to slow down and stay still.
But ‘pandemic fatigue’ is real. It’s not even the 6-monthly rollercoaster I seem to be on in terms of when we can get back to New Zealand (bubble’s open, bubble’s burst), or even the waves of lockdowns in Australia.
It’s the fact that there’s now this heavy and entrenched neuroticism and paranoia. It’s turned ‘taking care’ into ‘being cautious’ into a full-blown closed mindset.
When I look back at 2020-1, I would say that I managed the years with grace and optimism. And yet, as I became more fluid in response to the continually changing circumstances, I ultimately ended up going along with the flow. What may have started as resilience became passiveness. Slowly, I drifted away from my sense of growth, passion and zest.
I lost balance between agency and community. I wanted to be respectful to those at the frontline and those who feel as though they are at risk but while doing so, I overwrote my own decision-making and will.
I became uncharacteristically averse to losing money and convenience but all the while, I was losing time that I’ll never get back. I forwent trips, hikes, coffee dates and even working arrangements, using the pandemic as an excuse.
I let unwarranted and unfounded advice about transmission, double masking and booster shots hit me over and over, swallowing my tongue until the resentment nearly swallowed me whole.
And so when restrictions did lift with a target vaccination rate, I still felt weighed down.
It’s stereotypical but when the year ticked over to 2022, I felt a conviction to reclaim. As much as I will do what is right, I’m not going to timidly tiptoe through another year of my life, based on the loose and shifting grounds laid down by others.
‘Taking care’ is not synonymous with straight-up avoidance, nor with acting to make others feel more comfortable at my own expense. Small, individual actions do have a ripple effect but that doesn’t mean I should, unwittingly, let them be dictated by the collective.
As we continue to navigate the pandemic, I know that my reactions and responses will change and I give myself permission to go through that. This, as written, is how I’m feeling in January 2022.
Words I’m revelling in this month
9 lines that need to be read twice (at least) from ‘Swallow The Air’ by Tara June Winch
I was gifted this small but mighty read for Christmas and finished it in just over a week.
I love poetic yet real writing that ignites the senses and I love coming across unique combinations of words.
Here are 9 lines that stopped me in my tracks and that had to be jotted down in my journal – and now shared with you here:
p28. ‘Someone who she wanted to be around, like a blue sky.’
p47. ‘His sweaty back moving like the tide.’
(Love the image this conjures up)
p66. ‘…shooting thoughts like tearing open birthday cards. I could hardly track his jagged mind.’
p67. ‘I brushed my fingers across my face, as if turning diary pages, smearing secrets along my skin, owning them.’
(Read this line out loud and revel in the soothing f and s sounds)
p111. ‘His smile poured out like curdled milk and brown theatre curtains.’
p129. ‘I knew I had to get out of the city, get out of the boxes they put you in.’
(This one reverberates through me, intimately)
p152. ‘The night always stealing us, into twirling smoke and constellations.’
p157. ‘The water moves in tiptoes.’
p183. ‘This land is belonging, all of it for all of us. This river is that ocean, these clouds are that lake, these tears are not only my own.’
What I’m currently (professionally) writing
I’m still offline over at Fiction Agency this week so no client copy is being written for now!
If you’re interested in habit formation though, check out Bella Reynold’s Habit Advent Calender here; 25 days of habit hacks and stories to move you towards your desired identity and life. I’m very grateful to have been involved in this beautiful lot of content – what a wonderful way to wind up 2021.
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