Clearly this idea that I might write daily is not helping a lot. But I want to mention two blogging pals that go back a long time who have picked up that I am writing again, so hello to Donncha and Mark. Maybe RSS’s time is coming back.

Anyway, the unbelievable stuff out of the way first: yesterday it as 16 degrees, this morning it snowed. It hasn’t stuck but still, seems crazy. I spent this morning trying and failing to figure out why the network adapter on my work computer is not working, it is not working, it is not working, it is not working. Small things like that are usually small, and annoying. Currently I have no idea how long it will take to get it fixed given the current circumstances.

The Current Circumstances. Where everyone who can is working from home, and getting anything fixed at all is a challenge that just didn’t exist 3 weeks ago. I need to replace the fluorescent bulb in my bathroom but not sure anywhere left open that sells them. I have not yet succumbed to Showers By Candle Light but if the lights in the hall go, at least the supermarket is still selling them.

Facebook and Twitter are full of “how to telework” type links and advice about “you’ve got the time, here are 10,000 worthy things you can do”. Another link to a “learn how to code website” and I will go crazy. I am very definitely privileged; in theory, network adapter issues aside, I can work and I have my job. But what I don’t have, just because I am staying at home. is 8 extra hours a day to practice the piano. sew, learn to code, read all of wikipedia and virtually visit 50 museums. I do still have to work, and this issue of having to cook for myself has led to interesting things like generating more waste, using more electricity and having to spend more time washing ware. It’s not a life of leisure that I can fill up with cleaning all the things I never had time to clean. I cannot imagine how people who have children are coping, not least with the constant dumping of resources in their direction to help with the home schooling that every parent in the world suddenly has to try and manage with the grand total of no preparation at a time when they are either a) teleworking themselves or b) worrying about their economic health because they have lost their jobs or their business has shut down.

The pressure to be perfect in a time of crisis is fairly high. We really need to be kinder to ourselves, stop work on time, for example and put effective separation between home life and worklife in place, and remind ourselves that there is no need for forgiveness for the sins we did not commit. We’re all trying to do the best we can.

Apart from the ones who stockpiled toilet paper last week. They probably are trying to do the best they can, to the detriment of the rest of us.

I find myself dancing a lot in the kitchen lately; not sure why. Maybe it’s because my horizon has limited itself so much; to the four walls of my apartment and, the supermarket, of course. Maybe it’s just coincidence that there happens to be danceable music there at the time. But I think it’s a good thing; not to be constantly weighed down by the reality of one key question. How long will this go on? I don’t know and I don’t know that anyone does. How long is a piece of string. I mean, we cannot go on like this forever. The thing is, for some people, it will be forever, the ones who don’t make it through. The photographs out of Italy continue to hurt; the coffins in a morgue somewhere in Bergamo cut very sharply this morning.

Today is a Saturday; normally I would be sitting in Oberweis or Exki having lunch, having just spent money on books and fabric. Those books and fabric will stand to me in the next few months, probably. Even when the extreme restrictions are lifted, I think we will initially still be staying home more than we used to. For a while, anyway.

I have a friend who wondered if this would herald a slowing down of society. He saw this as a good thing and I see his point. The story of many people’s lives lately have been optimisation, productivity. Get as much done as you can. We could slow down and it would even be good for society. But we’ve also learned the price of not being able to do much of anything as well and things may go the other way. We will reach out to hold life more tightly, experience life more fully, explore and push our horizons further.

But it’s not clear what sort of world will wait for us on the other side. Whether there will be any businesses left to sell us clothes, any trains or aeroplanes to take us places. Every experience changes us; and mass experiences have a profound impact on societies. We’re so much more interconnected too; we know that other people have different experiences, and will respond differently to their local conditions. It’s been interesting to see the comparison of different leader styles in terms of dealing with the crisis of a virus spreading rapidly across the world.

For a long time, history of the world was the political history of the world. Who conquered who when and where. It was typically written by the victors. I’ve never been so interested in that side of history although I read quite a bit of it. I’m more interested in how people lived, what their experiences were. It’s one of the reasons why small local museums tend to be fascinating, and why the digitisation of old newsreel and film is fascinating me. I wonder how differently we are reacting to people who experienced previous pandemics. I suspect, in certain respects, not so differently.

I’m also interested in how people coped with the aftermath. When the threat is gone, our lives have changed and we don’t go back to what used to be normal. I’ve been fortunate, I guess, to live in an era where broadly, for people at least, things have been stable. Not all Europeans can say that – there have been civil wars and wars of independence within living memory, along with significant political systemic change. My parents used to talk about the day John F Kennedy was shot being a time locator; one of those events that were a before/after event in your life. For the last 18 years, I assumed that indicator for my generation would be 9/11. I don’t think that’s true any more. It will be before the virus, and after the virus.