Written 26 October, 2020.
Today, I burst into tears as I read that now 225,000 American have died of the virus. I’m weeping for that unnecessary loss of life. All those families mourning, forever blighted. The White House proclaimed a few hours ago that it’s given up on containing the virus. it’ll concentrate on fast-tracking the vaccine, some Head of Staff says. But there’s no vaccine, none even in sight and predictions are that in a month, half a million will have died in the US alone. Here, Melbourne has contained their second wave by the simple measures of lockdowns and masks and excellent teams of people contact tracing, now by computer- at first they were doing it by hand! At its worst, it was 700 new cases a day among about 5 million people. And much fury amongst business leaders that the lock-down hasn’t ended. Daniel Andrews is just too busy with his silly obsession to save lives. No new cases today there, though in Australia 27,00 cases so far and 905 have died, three-quarters in Aged Care, and most in Melbourne.
Magpie crouching a moment before taking off to fly, probably home to the nest.
I had to get to the city last Thursday but GG’s shoulder was too bad to get in the boat., and I couldn’t risk taking it and leave him stranded- and ok, I can’t get the boat into a jetty by myself without a loss of paint and possibly loss of other boats and even limb. I knew that T’ s going to the city, so I asked for a lift. I love his company. He’s like a burst of sunshine in our bay. He whizzed up to our jetty in his powerful little boat and as we motored out the bay, he showed me the rock on the point where yesterday he’d tipped out of his kayak while taking a photo of a rock on his new iPhone. Now the phone and his wallet full of credit cards are lost somewhere in the mud.
I’ll row up and have a look for them when i come back, I rashly promised. On the low tide.
In the city I went to my NIDA students’ readings of new plays. I’d been watching them on zoom all week, but being nearby, I couldn’t resist. How wonderful to be a in a theatre again. They were stunning. One was poetic, with the most beautiful lines i’ve ever heard on stage. One: in a love affair in Berlin: Red feathers fall from the sky and crack on the pavement.
Where did those lines come from? I wondered aloud.
I wrote it in the lull, my student said, and I burst into tears all over again, I never seem far from tears these days.
I felt so lucky to be able to have just a tiny effect on their plays, that I couldn’t resist joining them afterwards at a nearby pub that was crowded and throbbing with excited conversations and fledgling love affairs. it’s such fun at a noisy pub, but impossible to socially distance, and even more impossible to wear a mask. Students had to shout above the hubbub and I felt their breath on my face but I couldn’t turn away, I wanted to be with them so much. So now, I’m worrying .I avoided seeing K before I left, to keep her safe. I didn’t tell her or i’d have got a lecture and daily worried phone calls. How are you now? I’ve been back two days and no sign of illness yet. AM I getting blasé? It’s now 212 days. And what about T’s credit cards – it’s been raining endlessly and only twelve degrees so we’re trying to burn wet wood in the stove, and I don’t fancy wading in cold water. It’s a long row to the point, and today there’s gale warnings.
Rain-drenched magpie
But as I write, there’s light in the sky and the wind’s dropped.
Dee rings. He’s been away doing a job and he’s missing the bay. He tell me that Tripi is too, perching on the boat on the back lawn of their house and dreaming dog day dreams.
Gone to look for T’s things yet?
I haven’t. I should.
He suggests i take a fishing net. Ad next door suggests i take a rake. I’d better brave the rain. and go, now i’ve spilled out my plans to everyone.
And then, as I write this, rain comes bucketing down.
So at least I go out in the rain- now just a drizzle – to check on my native plants from the plant sale, which I’ve put out the side just below where we burned off. Twelve of them, still looking eager. I hope they stay that way. The soil is like ash, its on a slope so no topsoil, not wet at all, water slides off it, so I spade out of a plastic bag of year-old compost a bucketful of newly made black soil, and tuck it around them like a blanket, and put a ring of rocks- stones- around the down side of each. I’m proud to do this, as if I know what I’m doing in a garden. I wish the plants could talk to me: Thanks, that feels better.
And then I settle down wiht my rejected novel, and try to remember how to write.
The drenched magpie’s drenched mate. They seem to have less oil on their feathers than other birds.