LOCKDOWN ANNIVERSARY: WHAT IS THIS?

Today is exactly one year to the day when Boris J & Matt H decreed lockdown in the UK - doors closed, windows open a tiny crack to let the fresh air and birdsong in. That is, if you had fresh air and birdsong to begin with. 

We have had several slow and steady leaks throughout the year so today, in the perfect visual manifestation of lockdown, we have a home surrounded by scaffolding, a locked in grid made of metal.

I can’t really remember what I did with my first six months other than cope with incessant colonisations of bacteria and antibiotics and a nifty little steroid inhaler, but I do know that I have made the most of the past few months attending all sorts of classes and courses and cooking lots. This, in the face (or eyes) of a vitreous detachment that has not abated one iota. Some kind of hopeful determination that persists even as I am a walking duvet, longing to stay in bed, and feeling the most tender bliss when I arrive, at night, once more beside my bed. Navroze has come and gone ... we lit candles... friends have been lost to us... we lit candles... family have stayed far away from each other to prove the deepest love ... Zen Buddhist practise asks this question of us: ‘What is this?’ Breathe the question in, breathe the question out. A million different answers arise and fall away, every time. I prefer the Buddha’s question and answer in one: 'What has come to be.' It simultaneously accepts what is, while forcing us to acknowledge how it has come to be. Gratitude and anxiety in a single breath. What it means to be human.

Or, if you're seven years old, you can be more blunt about the good, bad and the wicked enemies of the world!!