I have a confession to make. I quite like making up flat-packed furniture. Who would have known that the chaos created by random pieces of pre-drilled wood, strewn across my floor would actually help get me back onto a straighter road this week?
I decided on a whim a few weeks ago, that I could use our ‘guest’ bedroom as a work- space. It is one of the nicest rooms in the house – sunny, warm, west facing so you get the sunsets, and it overlooks the woods. There has always been a bed in there made up ready for the guests we never have (so very 2019, you know) and in recent times has become more of a dumping room and somewhere to air the washing. Meanwhile I have been trying to work in a cramped damp dark office, not much bigger than Harry Potter’s bedroom under the stairs. I figured if I planned the new room out well, we could still house guests on a decent sofa bed in there and I would reap the benefits of some natural light while I try to earn a living. Clapping my hands with glee at my cunning plan, I spent an idyllic afternoon a week or so back with a tape measure and then hopped onto the Swedish Flat Pack website browsing for so long I felt I was in the aisles and swear I could almost smell the meatballs.
Therapy comes in many strange forms. I didn’t realise how pent up I have been until those heavy cardboard packages stated arriving this week. I must confess I didn’t stay loyal to just Sweden, so, many packages arrived over many days. The more I unpacked, the more I unwound. And not even when I discovered I had managed to screw two of the fixed shelves on upside down did it dampen my newly found enthusiasm (just for the record, I did rectify this error before it was too late). I was in a world of my own. Radio on, listening to music and podcasts, I nearly forgot about the planetary woes going on around me.
The danger of being in the middle of worldwide pandemic, when you really know you can’t do anything about anything, is to get caught up in the daily ritual of news as if this will help in some way. It is human nature to want to find out more, so we fixate on facts, figures and statistics, thirsty for information, glued to briefings and government guidance. I normally listen to BBC Radio 4 throughout the day as I find the burbling chit chat comforting. But recently the C-word has dominated everything - from the Today programme through to PM, even programmes like Women’s Hour and the Media Show dedicate their stories to COVID-19 and pepper their vocabulary with now familiar terms like pandemic, vaccination and lockdown. It is relentless.
It wasn’t only the arrival of my Swedish bundles of joy that contributed to the slightly upward curve of my mood. I had an exciting adventure. I had to deliver some files to my work’s warehouse and yes, it was essential as I also had to collect some catalogues to send to a client. This meant I had to get into the car and go on an actual dual carriageway, which is something I hadn’t done since the heady old days of school runs. (My car journeys during lockdown have been to the supermarket and back, but you barely get out of third gear). Foot down, ABBA on the radio, on my own, no kids and no dog, I felt as if I was committing some kind of sin. I felt free. Images filled my head of driving along California’s Pacific Coast Highway with the wind in my hair – I really have let this lockdown get to me – before I got stuck behind a truck trundling along the A14 and reality kicked in again.
However, that little trip made me recognize how stifling the atmosphere has been at home – most days all four of us breathing in each other’s pessimism. It’s suffocating us. We aren’t arguing – far from it – but even though we all go out for our daily walks (me) and runs (the males), we are all finding the same walls and a soggy garden pretty claustrophobic and having all four of us in a downward spiral of doom, we just feed off each-others negativity. We have been fixated on the pandemic. Our radio in the kitchen is on pretty much all day, pessimism filtering into our subconscious minds, and we find ourselves discussing vaccination and COVID-19 death statistics over supper. All in all, not the jolly antidote we should be aiming for. What on earth did we used to talk about? What on earth used to fill the radio schedule before COVID-19, Trump and Brexit dominated our headlines?
Taking myself off for a few hours, I was able to see from the outside in. I got back from my trip, still on a high from the dose of freedom I had experienced and was welcomed by a news bulletin on the kitchen radio delivering despair. I really did not want anything to spoil the moment, so I just turned it off. The silence was deafening. And it stayed like that for most of the afternoon. With no rolling news or noise filtering into my brain, I realised that ignorance is bliss and although I knew I could dip into the news online if I really wanted to find out any breaking news, I didn’t feel I needed to. I felt I was mending just from turning off from the big bad world for a few hours.
Spending time upstairs this week, building shelves and computer desks, away from everyone, I have had time again to daydream. I have been quite happy, lost with my thoughts, busy doing something practical and have gone many hours without checking news websites. This week I have made a conscious effort to listen to more music, stick on a bit of ABBA, or tune into some comedy podcasts or documentaries; and even though we still have the radio on in the kitchen I have switched this over to Radio 6 and found the mood in the house is starting to lift. I am amazed what a few simple changes have made. Perhaps it is the slightly longer days, the sprinkling of Spring bulbs, or the thought of my Swedish bookshelves emanating that unique smell of newness that is healing me. Who knows? Only time will tell.
© The Real Tilly Fairfax
Don't forget to lock the door downstairs as you wallow in your new sense of isolation; meatballs?