In the late afternoon I walked down to the square. I’ve been indoors now every day of eight weeks. People were sitting round the edge of the grass as though it were a swimming pool they were dangling their legs into. The trees overhead are finally thickening with green. A man who doesn’t have much […]
My mother’s best friend is sick with coronavirus. She also suffers from dementia, so she likely won’t know about it or be able to understand what is happening to her – she’s just going to endure a terminal period of painful breathing, agony and frustration, medical isolation: a bodily grief. Like many people, this woman […]
Today I would give anything to run outside into this suddenly warm sunshine. I woke to birdsong and discovered I had left my window open all night. This is the first night since October that’s even been possible. I don’t feel the icy breezes snaking round my feet in the chilly living room, I can’t […]
Self-quarantine day 10. Me and two other neighbours ran into each other in our pyjamas down by the bins and stood in a broad triangle, laughing helplessly at ourselves as the grey sun struggled to come out overhead. In Berlin we have been indoors since early November. “Does my guitar playing bother you through the […]
It’s wonderful to be cheerful and I will be cheerful. We are alive and are blessed with refrigerator and bath tub, bookshelves and beloveds, hot and cold running comfort in which to be trapped. Also, the sky today was wild blue outside. Our little drawing group normally meets. I longed for the bicycle ride across […]