Lockdown 25/28 – Rollercoaster!
Day 25 of my diary of a LOTR Fan Museum owner during our 4 week national lockdown - in NZ we’re uniting as a country to beat Covid-19 to break the chain and save lives, but …
Sometimes, in this new job of STAY HOME, be kind, I think it’s better not letting the outside world in! When I listen to the news I feel like I’m up then down then up …
Maybe it’s being so close to easing our lockdown that there’s many different views being expressed about whether NZ has done the right thing and what next steps mean, what’s too much caution, what’s not enough relaxation … Also, we have examples of different things happening overseas, revising incidence models, and re-questioning whether the toll of Covid-19 is really so much worse than, eg, the flu. And there’s some outright craziness going on that is frightening.
We’ve got lots of different ideas being considered about what we want for our society going forward.
I’m really interested in all this, but it’s doing my head in! It doesn’t help that I’ve got a pounding headache after just one small glass of red wine last night, and I just feel more fragile and emotional.
It’s interesting that a lot of interviews this morning are with authors. Some write scientific works, some write about dystopian realism, some create the worlds of superheros. It’s interesting that writers actually make good visionaries because they use their imagination to look forward - whereas politicians, some media, industry commentators, unions seem more to see the future bounded by the now. That’s a generalisation of course, but it does seem like it to me - probably unsurprising for a LOTR fan!
Unfortunately - nobody knows what’s coming, and it’s scary. This is a big story, like LOTR, where at the end we will start counting the age in a new way - the “after”. I don’t think we’ll be resetting the calendar but I don’t believe this experience is just going to fade into an incident in 2020.
And, at the same time I’m soooo hungry to move out of the current confines, but I also don’t want us to lose our gains. Aghhhh!
Yesterday, my beloved came and told me there were 2 men standing outside our house staring at it. He wouldn’t talk to them, so I went outside in the end (maintaining distance). They were curious about Gollum in the window, and were delighted to find out that this was a LOTR fan museum. At arms length I allowed them to take a brochure (I foolishly wanted them to step in and just look through the door at the Museum, but they commendably didn’t). It just felt so good to talk to people about the Museum and made me realise just how deeply I’m missing it and the contact with others. My friends remind me that I’m lucky to be locked down in a cool museum, but for me it’s all about the sharing.
It was so good to have a virtual chat with my closest friends later in the day. It’s almost meeting - great, but also limited. I know there are things that we all want to commune over that don’t lend themselves to this format.
Some days in this new job are definitely harder, and a lot of it is mental and of my own making. Sometimes I wish I could just switch off my head. Like Sam, I am ready to go home now, but I know that’s not going to happen.
Today my best wishes go out to everyone else who is completely confused amongst all the different schools of thought, and who feels fearful about the future. Best wishes, Kathy xx
