Freedom is such an illusion isn’t it? Yes, it’s a covid narrative but it’s my covid narrative so far and it’s only part one!
That time, I never imagined. That time, I’d never have believed possible. That time, it came, it’s here, it’s not over and it’s taking forever and I don’t know if I’ll survive it. Don’t get me wrong, I was always grateful for the time before. I didn’t take it for granted I’d grown up never knowing the close face of a war. Yes, I had friends, not many left now, who went to Vietnam and came back changed forever. People who spent their lives trying to make up for going on an adventure that became a perpetual nightmare. They never spoke of it so it stayed on the borders of my life.
Yes, I had a grandfather who fell asleep in the middle of conversations and burned holes in his pullovers with still lit fag ends. He was gassed in the second world war. Yes, I had a father who was partly deaf due to munitions training in the territorial army that never led to active combat. A father who, like his father, didn’t talk about feelings much.
I knew of cold war from social studies at school and the arms race from reading Dr Seuss. I knew there were genocides on the other side of the world. I won poetry competitions writing about them from a distant dramatic perspective.
I read Ann Frank’s Diary, I read Leon Uris trilogies, I indulged in deadly drama safe in my cosy bed, under blankets by torchlight. My only worry was that my father would catch me reading and give me a hiding. I also read my mother’s Mills and Boon Romances and stories about recovered drug addicts. War was safely far away for more than 50 years of my life. I dreamed of joining the peace corps and fighting for underdogs. Instead my battles were joined in classrooms teaching the most reluctant students, the ‘naughty’ ones were my favourites. Then in the prisons, fighting crime by convincing the perpetrators they could make better choices.
Other battles broke out over ill-chosen marriage endings, family court disputes and the struggles of being a solo mother beneficiary student. Never once did I think my domestic battles would transition to home front frontlines in a battle for hearts and minds in a frightened nation in a terrified world.
