Julie Clarke 2020/2021©
I write this under a cloak of
isolation that clings to me in the dark of night as well as light of day.
Sunrise and sunset remain unchanged whilst the pandemic virus continues to
replicate and mutate. The strain that's circulating the globe today differs from
the original but is still highly infectious, deadly and clever. We could learn
from it's easy transformations. Adapt or die. The eerie silence of evening
curfew should be conducive to sleep because there are no sudden sounds to
disturb and yet sleep does not come easy for me. It may be lack of stimulus
that keeps me awake even though I am tired. Lock down, restrictive movement and
the absence of others weighs heavily on my mind. If life is this, then what? I
attempt to be philosophical.
Who
would have thought that in the midst of life it would be diminished? How could
I have lived my whole life for it to be placed on indefinite hold. The hungry
mouth of time swallows days that disappear into months that linger. Each day is
longer than the one that proceeds it, but I am redeemed by writing. The past
bleeds into now. The streets, which were full of people, are empty and there is
some beauty in that because there's an opportunity to see buildings without the
movement of people obstructing the view.
Buildings
are hushed sentinels that stand guard over history and it is history that we
are experiencing, or rather this is a time
we will know in an entirely different way. We've witnessed the
metropolis become a ghost town and it's not just that people and their industry
have been erased, but that we've also become specters. The ghosts that remain
in this city are now lost under a pandemic veil. They wander aimlessly
somewhere, anywhere to escape confinement. When I'm outside I suck in
everything like a black hole deep in space. I can feel the rise and fall of the
mask on my face. I am captive behind an inaccessible, unknowable visage and
life, or what I knew as life has been amputated and hangs on the sharp edge of
hope.
Four
weeks before the end of winter and after a drastic daily rise in positive
coronavirus cases we are further restricted by a daily curfew. This coincides
with the return to Earth of the SpaceX rocket and two cosmonauts isolated for
two months on the International Space Station. Like the first moon mission, the
craft landed in water and I feel we are like that capsule dropped into a viral
sea. As I revisit the past by writing my memoir a somberness pervades. However,
it's not that I need to escape the now with its restrictive regime or pending doom
as I've been living a life of virtual isolation for many years now. Writing and
art are private activities. I can appreciate what it might be like travelling
to Mars, drifting in space away from everyone and everything I've known. It's
paradoxical that we have a desire to discover whether there is life on another
planet and yet must leave life on this planet in order to do so. We imagine
being immigrants in a future scenario.
Today
it’s cold. I feel like a zombie embedded in permafrost. I recall that for
thirty thousand years Pithovirus
sibericum, the largest virus ever found by Russian scientists, lay dormant
in dead amoeba in frozen Siberian soil. Once discovered and thawed it sprang to
life. Perhaps there's hope for us all in this winter chill. But the internal
war still rages.
During
the eight month German bombing blitz on the United Kingdom in World War Two
many died, many became resilient, others took on a fatalistic approach for they
were totally convinced of the inevitability of being killed or mutilated.
Belief that mustard gas used extensively in the first great war would be
dropped on the city, meant that black rubber masks were mandatory against the
invisible enemy. Unlike those in London who feared the siren sound of a
twirling gas rattle, we receive no warning of the presence of the unseen
coronavirus. Alarm comes instead from televised daily epidemiology reports, number
of positive cases and deaths.
It will be mid-Spring when
this second pandemic lock down and curfew ends. Until then, we wait.
My life has made me resilient. I know I will cope, even though a
state of coping rather than living can be wearing. Catastrophes occur without
warning and life goes on.
Nine years ago a tsunami caused by an
undersea mega thrust earthquake hit Japan. Those who lived near the coast in
Sukuiso and Sendai had only eight minutes warning before the
force of the quake caused forty meter waves to sweep over
the mainland and knock the earth six and a half inches off its axis. Televised
footage showed water flooding the land. It was terrifying. I watched and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Those on safe
ground witnessed the horror of those running for their lives. For those caught in the tsunami there
was nowhere to run and although not comparable, there is nowhere to run from this virus.
We have
constructed vaccines to combat a biological threat however the Japanese have
built sea walls, fourteen meters high and 400 kilometers along the
north-eastern coast of Japan’s main island to withstand flooding water. Some
say that the wall will protect them from a future tsunami, even though it
obscures villagers view of the ocean and threatens their food security. Others
say that the wall will provide a false sense of security creating a situation
in which people will wait until the last moment before fleeing from rising
waters. Isn’t this false sense of security also engendered in relation to
vaccines against the coronavirus?
This virus is a dangerous adversary, cleverer than us for it's a
single-minded evolution machine. In its previous manifestation it learned
that it was unwise to kill its victim quickly because they had little
opportunity to infect another. Second time around the mutated virus is content
to keep its victim well enough to infect others. It's like a sadistic
stalker who captures and tortures its prey before killing them.
Early on my battle was with claustrophobia. I feared confinement more than I
feared the virus. I could only bear living in my small abode if I drew or
wrote. When I focus on the drawing the world outside disappears. Thinking about that first Magic Pencil book
I received and how it consoled and
excited me, I decided I'd do what I
always do in response to a thought or emotion, I'd make art.
I wanted to reflect replication of
the words anxiety, panic, endurance, grief, hysteria, isolation and loss
repeated over and over again in the media. I used alphabet templates to create artworks that
reflected orderly, confined, restrictive space. The images
were formed by repeating colored
in words over and over again on a page. By doing so I unwittingly created an illusion of movement like the
energy of a hive before insect’s swarm. The drawings
sometimes mirrored microscopic viral
clusters. My action highlighted repetition and new patterns of existence formed
from being home bound and alone but it was also meditative and reduced stress.
Feelings of abandonment have not been far from my thoughts during
this pandemic. I feel like I have been left and forgotten. I’m not alone in
these feelings. Others realize how much others, under usual circumstances fill
their lives. The cold weather makes everything bleak. Death came again this
morning. It crept quietly into my mind
triggered by a flickering light globe. On and off. On and off. Binary. Until it
finally gave up. Death is a strange thought and yet I cannot think of the first
time it entered my mind.
Although
our Prime Minister declared in March last year that Australia was in a global
pandemic two million unconcerned Melbournians attended the Moomba parade and
celebrations along Birrarung Marr. My
dislike of crowds may have actually saved me from the virus.
My only company, if I care to engage with it,
is the cacophony of persistent media noise that floods the airwaves. We've been in lock down for about two weeks
and my street, which is usually quiet was suddenly disturbed. At around twelve
thirty-five in the afternoon there was an indecipherable sound heading
in my direction. The sky was filled with hundreds of screeching white Corella's
that descended on the large Plane tree that
spreads it umbrella-like branches over my place. The excited
bird cries were
deafening as they decimated the seeds and leaves in a feeding frenzy. One wave
of birds followed another and the noise increased. Thousands of heavy seed
balls, branches and debris bombarded my roof and the tin awning over my back
door. After about forty minutes the marauding beasts flew off as quickly as
they had arrived and my world was silent again.
I live
alone and cannot express the anguish I felt not being about to see those few
who are close to me. I had to protect myself against any out-pouring of
emotions in order not to be utterly devastated. But emotions are revealed in
other ways.
Eight months of this pandemic and insects
have been inhabiting people's dreams. I on the other hand have been dreaming of
rats. The dreams were prompted when I woke to the feeling that something was
draped across my face. It was long and leathery like a shoelace. Milliseconds later
I was sure it was a rat's tale and I flung back the blankets and jumped out of
bed. I fell back asleep realizing it was probably my imagination since I had
read Kafka's The Plague and in the book there were so many references to rats.
Another
night I was disturbed
by movement across the end of my bed. In my
half sleep I was convinced that it was a rat
and the scratching noises I've heard of late attest to its presence. I imagine a mouse entering my opened mouth and choking me
whilst trying to scurry down my gullet. Didn't rats chew at King Herod's
tongue, or was that just a myth? I felt like Winston in Nineteen Eighty-Four who was terrified of rats. Like him I would sacrifice my lover, if I had one, just to be
free of this purgatory. In the light of day, I realized my dreams had been
precipitated by the pandemic since rat fleas are vectors of disease. The
strong, destructive wind that buffeted the tree outside my place last night
also probably contributed to my fear of things out of control.
Early on
in the pandemic I would find myself bursting into laughter because I found the
whole situation ludicrous. I was amused by the way I flipped between being
caught up in the rhetoric and being ambivalent to my general state of being. I would never have thought I’d be
experiencing a once in one-hundred-year pandemic. Already today it's been the
worst day in terms of deaths and numbers infected. This second wave is a viral
sea rising like a mountain out of the ocean. A maleficent hand crashing down on
us with its rage. I can't think of anything worse than hospitals filled to
capacity and doctors having to choose who should receive treatment and who will
be left to die. We already know that the young will be salvaged.
This virus is travelling like a
freight train. Swift velocity execution. It speeds through suburbs. Bypasses
railway stations. Drops its load and clusters form. No names. No faces. Just
statistics. But change is inevitable. There will be a time
when we are remembering the pandemic rather than living through it. Clouds have
moved across and disappeared into the deep blue sky. Hope is always more
prevalent on sunny days. However, cold and rain makes seeing things in a
positive light much more difficult
Perceptions are warped during this
pandemic. I've been seeing things that aren't there. Moving forms, tiny
flashes. This space, dense with colors and
movement, images and sounds, people and voices, faces and flashes of light,
cascade. Confetti floating in the air. Dust, gentle as cotton wool floats in
sunshine stream with particular focus, or spent leaves caught in gentle wind
floats down and land. The slow drag of a snail across concrete. The speed of
ants as they ravage and carve up the flesh of a fallen insect. Their industry
and single-mindedness. The drain fly caught in a web spun high to capture. A
scurrying mouse that preens itself when sound disappears. All quiet. Vision
continues but the melody is far away. It’s more of a memory than an accurate
account as the notes drop. Down. As a plastic bag is caught in the wheels of a
pram. Its white body bellows a cry as it is swept into the steel and is torn to
shreds. Tissue thin, moving cars across the road feel like rain. The noise is
constant and then seconds of absolute nothing. Even time has halted between the
rise and fall of breath. A slow pulse day as the sun bleeds her yellow glow,
creates shadows on the thick, brick fence. I’m not locked in when I can see the
sky. A ceiling to the world. Her powder blue is covered with languid froth.
Seduces a grey cloud interlude.
Autumn
is late. She holds fast to leaves that refuse to be tossed aloft by Winter’s
sting. Her arthritic fingers bare and bone hold stiff against marauding wind
and still she’s cold. Her quivering palmately lobes resplendent with a wand of carmine
and gold, replaced now by leaves the colour of the faded tan of well-worn
shoes. Brittle and bent. How bitter is the wind that threatens to disrobe the
remains of her garb? Soon she will be stark.
It’s easy
to be poetic. Pandemic
or no pandemic it's Sunday as I write this and Sundays are always the same. No one
walks past my window. There's a silence that tells me people are still wrapped
in sleep. They will wake to the news that numbers have decreased. They will
wake to news that the virus has retreated into its hiding place. Its search for
victims to wedge its spikes into has halted for the moment. There is hope. But
still no bird cries; as though there is something they know.
As we
approach ANZAC day 2021 I recall that 2020 celebrations were canceled due to the
virus and many Australians, especially old diggers and their families couldn't
participate in usual rituals. No shoulder to shoulder closeness. No hugs, or
pats on the back. Instead, they stood outside their homes holding a candle as
bugle sounds of the Last Post echoed
through darkness before dawn at the Shrine of Remembrance. This year the celebrations will go ahead but with greatly limited
numbers.
A decade
ago I wanted to to
see the Anzac Day parade just once. I watched it on the large screen at
Federation Square. Standing at the edge of the footpath I managed to avoid the
crowds that gathered at either side of Swanston Street from Lonsdale down to St.
Kilda Road.
It was a somber affair, quieter than
I'd imagined. Those that stood on the periphery waved the
Australian flag or simply applauded as the old guys walked
past wearing their medals. There is silence in the gaps between the clapping and quiet cheering. Some
soldiers walk with their grandchildren. Some walk for their grandfather long
gone. The faces of the soldiers as well as those witnessing the parade are
silent and severe. It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen.
The worn faces. The struggle of some to walk the one long hour of the journey.
Nothing of course compared to what they've already endured. They've lived a
long time and experienced much. You'd have no heart if you couldn't connect
with the faces of those obviously experiencing memories - mostly
bad. A palpable, eerie vibe hangs in the air. It's laced with tears. But we
fight back against emotion. It's better for those already in the pubs. They've
hidden themselves away and are drinking themselves into oblivion.
Not surprisingly during a
pandemic no-one cares about their looks. All shops, theatres, restaurants, entertainment
complexes, libraries, art galleries are closed and there is nowhere to go under
strict stay at home rules. Those that do venture out are wearing warm
comfortable clothes - tracksuit
pants, sports tights, coats, scarves and beanies. It is mid-winter 2020 and I have to admit that for much of the time I've
been living in my pj's or lounge wear. During the pandemic men don't shave and
women don't wear makeup. Everyone looks pale. Some have dark rings around their
eyes and the bridge of their nose. They've either been sleeping too long or not
sleeping enough. We are all
constantly sanitizing or washing our hands with soap and water. During the
first lock down I would wipe the handle of the community gate and the one on my
front door because I didn't know if anyone touched it in my absence. I wiped
food preparation surfaces in case the virus managed to infiltrate my house
after landing on my shopping bag. When I returned home I'd scrub my fingernails
and the underside of my hands with a nail brush like I was a surgeon preparing
for an operation. I'd wipe the handles on my bathroom sink. No surface was
safe. And no surface I've touched was safe. I became less fastidious when some
of the restrictions were lifted and must admit I've spent less time disinfecting surfaces of late but I still
wash my hands thoroughly.
Since the beginning of the
second lock down I've started wearing a mask in the tram and I sanitize my
hands after holding the rail, which a thousand other people may have touched.
Masks are now compulsory and we treat other people like they are carriers
because we've been told that those who are asymptomatic may be inadvertently
spreading the virus. There are no longer signs or symptoms that we can identify
in people, so no way of knowing who may be spreading the contagion. We walk
around others like they are the enemy. Strangers are people who could make us
very sick or worse, kill us. It is better to be alone because it reduces the
potential of harm. With daily rising numbers we are informed by the health
authorities that the risk is great.
Some people in the street
turn distancing into a game, what else can we do to lighten the fact that we
must anticipate which way each of us will move when we walk towards each other. So a strange dance occurs. I move one way and
the oncoming person moves the other. Sometimes there is a hesitation and a weaving and then another movement
occurs, but eventually we manage to pass without becoming too close. The
advantage of wearing a mask other than the obvious is that I can, if I wish,
mumble obscenities under my breath or resort to stronger expletives directed to
those who do not comply with expectations around physical distancing. Mask wearing is mandatory in
this viral era, just one of the weapons in our arsenal against the unseen
enemy. Hefty fines will be imposed if we do not comply.
During this
pandemic isolated people resort to dancing to overcome boredom, express
feelings or dispel pent up energy. It’s a repeat if you like of the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries dancing
pandemics that swept
through Europe. Thousands danced spontaneously until they collapsed. No one
knows what caused these people to dance to exhaustion, however the erratic
psychosis was thought to be caused by starvation and disease. I occasionally
dance by myself and I dance like no one is watching because no one is watching.
Others, who need to dance with strangers rely on telecommunications to see
others dance and they in turn dance allowing others to see them achieving a sense of
togetherness or cooperation eroding the distance between them. It
also reinforced the notion that we are all in this together.
We're broaching the seventh
month of this pandemic and yesterday was the first time a newspaper front page
displayed photographs of five elderly people from nursing homes who had died of
the disease the day before. The headline read They were loved. Rather than
being just a number in the overall day to day statistics the dead had names and faces. It was a clever strategy to personalize a
tragedy that had become focused upon deaths, numbers of positive cases,
hospitalizations, those in intensive care or on ventilators. Unfortunately,
since the deceased looked European it tended to reinforce two ideas. The first
being that the virus was more likely to affect older, rather than younger
people and secondly that people from diverse groups are likely to be the source
of contagion. Unfortunately this may
have instigated racial tensions.
Elderly people are already invisible by virtue
of the fact that they rarely
venture out and are hidden away in nursing homes. In the last episode of their
lives they are masked by their isolation. The pandemic has a way of bringing the unseen into view and it exposed the
terrible way in which many elderly people were treated in nursing homes. More
recently sexual perversions, generally unseen have been brought to light
through a veil of silence in government as well as private company culture.
During this period of the mask some things are being unmasked. Perhaps other
truths will also be unmasked?
Regardless of our age we are
all isolated and masked now. Each person's face is covered with the tell-tale
light blue of a disposable surgical mask or a washable colored one. I wear a
black mask. It seems more appropriate since it is a signifier of death and the
color of clothes worn to funerals. Black is a metaphor of the fourteenth
century Bubonic Plague which killed more people than any other disease in
recorded history.
From birth we are hardwired
to recognize faces. The eye, the nose, the mouth in a particular formation on
the front of our head. Each masked face is now a hideous disguise that would
confound even the most astute infant. Of course babies may be responding more
to the teat than the mother's face or perhaps they perceive them as one and the
same. In the French Film Eyes without a face the skin of a woman's face is
surgically removed and grafted to that of another. This renders the face
counterfeit, static, expressionless. The skin, detached from nerves and muscles
cannot reflect the feelings of the person who now wears this strange robe that
conceals and robs them of their identity and in its place is a blank slate. We
can do nothing now when someone walks towards us wearing a mask but to read the
fabric colors and shapes that cover the nose and mouth no longer seen. It's not
enough for us to rationalize the situation by stating that our face is capable
of obscuring our real feelings or that we are merely a screen that reflects the
thoughts of others in a mirroring effect. Faces look now like alien entities in
a sci-fi movie, aberrant creatures that have developed psychic abilities that
enable them to communicate without using their mouth. They have developed their
unusual morphology through evolution or genetic breeding and their features are
erased in favor of a smooth area of skin that leads from chin to eyes. A
blankness evident in the empty eyes that peer at us now and in a sense even
friends become strangers and strangers are an unknown quantity forever
concealed.
We are in the eighth month of
the pandemic. Mandatory mask wearing has created a division between those who
think it is an imposition and infringement of our human rights and those who
can see valid health reasons for wearing one. I think it has gone beyond being
just a face covering. It has become a metaphor for anonymity, conformity and
concealment.
Most people in our community
generally feel safe in a large crowd. There is safety in numbers. Now they
don't because the virus is more easily transmitted when people group together. Those unwilling to comply and
adapt to the new requirements and conditions to overcome this viral plague are
being referred to
as heretics, setting them at odds with the general community. The notion that
we have been hoodwinked by these face coverings, which all but erase our
identity is drawing strong emotions. Some are concerned that the disguise
obliterates the identity of
a potential attacker. Everyone you encounter is a possible assailant. No one is
to be trusted when lives are at stake. Fear too that the mask is akin to
hooding prior to execution; an act that creates a form of sensory deprivation,
reduction of breathing, isolation, anticipation and fear. There are few ways to
identify the emotions of a person walking towards us, but we generally
interpret covering the mouth with shame, perhaps instigated centuries ago when
people with rotting or missing teeth refused to open their mouths when photographed. Don't expose your decay. Cover
it and save others from having to view your disintegration. I understand why
people don't like the concealment associated with a mask. We are suspicious of
people who hide.
During this
pandemic lockdown we are living within a restrictive regime. Our freedoms are
curtailed and we live in confined space. Our only company, if we care to engage
with it, is the cacophony of persistent media noise that floods the airwaves.
Ubiquitous use of the Internet has created a unitary whole in a continual flux
of dissipating often misleading information that disturbs this hive mind. We
are moved to action in a viral swarm of anxiety, panic, grief, hysteria,
isolation and loss.
We are
compelled to wear masks during this global pandemic but we still recognize
friends by their gait, clothing and demeanor. Only their eyes show expression.
Visual clues, which usually betray their words or verify them, are gone and in
their place instead is a blank surface that makes communication more difficult.
Muslim women wearing a Niqab no
longer look unusual in a crowd. Their face coverings denote Islamic beliefs,
whereas our masks are worn to protect ourselves and others. No one wants to
catch the deadly virus. No one wants to spread it. Now that I think about it Muslim
women who cover their faces are also protected from racism and abuse because
now they look like the rest of us, or rather, now we look like them. There are
all kinds of masks.
I’m not
surprised now when Australia has virtually no cases of coronavirus infection
that we’re in the midst of a vaccine war and a grab by wealthy nations to
secure enough vaccine to cover their populations, sometimes at the expense of
nations without the necessary resources to protect its people. Coupled with
this is the uncomfortable fact that the vaccines produced were to combat the
original SARS-CoV2 virus, not the multiple viral variants of this zoonotic
pathogen.
It’s just over a year since our Prime Minister declared that
Australia was in a pandemic and as I sit in a cafe in Melbourne my friend who
is a leader in the field of bio-medicine tells me that whether or not we are
vaccinated not much will change. We still need to be careful, wear a mask, wash
our hands regularly and avoid crowds. Complacency is what kills. Vaccination
can encourage people to believe that they are shielded and they’re not. For
many the vaccinate may not produce antibodies. Many will not be able to receive
it due to health concerns. We have to be more adaptable than this dangerous
virus. We can never take it for granted.
As
we discuss bacterium, viruses and vaccines a small brown Autumn leaf,
aerodynamic in its curled, dried morphology is blown into the foyer outside the
cafe. It’s a distraction from our conversation, but a reminder of the organic
world. Life and spent life. As we watch, the leaf becomes animated by the
unseen wind and takes on the form of a small bird moving around searching for
food. I think it’s a sparrow since they are the most common bird seen in the
city. He thinks it’s a Minah bird. We’re both using our imagination and enter
into a conversation as to whether it might be moving through its own volition
from an unseen force or whether it moves purely from external conditions.
Either way it is the unseen and perhaps even the unsaid that pervades the
moment.
It’s
been a year since the World Health Organization informed the world about the
SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, and I am still feeling cautious about the vaccine. Reports
of blood clots, rare as they are, and the possibility of having an adverse
allergy attack weigh on my mind. In the end the odds are in our favour and I,
like many will take the risk because we don’t want to face the even greater
risk of contracting the disease.
It’s
also been thirty-five years since the nuclear accident in the number four
reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Pripyat in the
Ukraine. Radiation, an invisible substance that cannot be seen, smelt or tasted
affected over two hundred thousand people involved in the clean-up and
continues to affect people who have been exposed to its dangers. I can only
think that we continue to be in awe of and combatant against the unseen that
impacts our lives.
