Geographic Hearts

Tag: Covid-19

• POEM: A Social Distancing Sonnet

  Posted at 11:44 am by stellacarr20, on July 5, 2020

  

  White lines mark where we stand

  Where we’re meant to wait and

  Masks obscure our careful smiles

  It’s going to be weird for a wee while

  2020 fashion, protective style

  Artist’s lose out and writers are poor

  Financial strife, it’s the new lore

  While the arts keep us sane throughout the lockdown

  They’ve kind of been forgotten now we’re allowed back in town

  Government subsidies have been given out

  It’s not enough, The Opposition shouts

  Health versus economy, the dollars, the cents

  Everyday people, we’re all fucking tense

  The budget is announced, it is heard

  The nation hanging on Grant’s every word

  Unemployment, state housing, a tourism industry boost

  Encouraging people to spend, their dollars are loose

  Heralding the call of the spender

  We’re all waiting to hear back from the lender

  Lives saved of a business lost?

  What will it all amount to?

  How will we measure the True Cost?

  Masks and scarves worn as protection

  Anything we can do to keep away the infection

  Worried eyes gleam dark over the mask

  Shopping has become a dangerous task

  Safety is the question we all ask

  Squirt of sanitiser, we clean our hands

  We’re happy we live in so-called Distant Lands

  Aotearoa is a place far-away

  We’re protected as long as border restrictions stay

  Tourism providers ask, how long til we open, if i may?

  Cafe orders made, social distancing rules

  There’s two metre spaced out bar stools

  Pick up and collect, will this be the new norm?

  It feels like a nice piece of ordinary after the Covid storm.

  I wrote this poem in friendly creative competition with my father towards the end of the month-long Aotearoa New Zealand 2020 Lockdown. I utilised rhyme schemes and cultural reflection to communicate both personal and political views on the Covid 19 situation at the time.

  I hope this poem is both of its time (a snapshot of a person in a historical moment) and that it can also be read as a more universal reflection on a world changing event.
  Posted in Poetry | 0 Comments | Tagged Covid-19, New Zealand, Poetry, politics

• The Strength of Iron

  Posted at 1:19 pm by stellacarr20, on April 4, 2020

  So, I’ve spent the last fifteen minutes crying about Iron Man (aka Robert Downey Junior) dying in Avengers: Endgame. It wasn’t just the odd tear trickle about a hero sacrificing his life for The Greater Good. Nor was it about watching his wife, Piper (Gwyneth Paltrow with great hair), and his little daughter grieve for him along with rest of The Avengers – their broad-muscled shoulders suited in black. This was a different kind of crying. The scared kind. But also (thankfully) the sort that leaves you feeling way better when it’s over.

  I hadn’t realised how sad and stressed and scared I’d been feeling until I watched Robert Downey Junior die. His death gave me an excuse to cry. And heck did I need an excuse.

  It also came with an instrumental soundtrack to set the mood and pretty actors (Paltrow) weeping but their eye makeup didn’t run. My eye makeup did run. Lines of black tracking down my cheeks. I’ve spent the last five minutes fixing my face.

  

  Covid-19 has changed our world. Life for me, personally, is not too different. Yet. But I am braced for things to get worse before they get better. News from overseas tells us of the lockdown going on for weeks and the emergency panic buying (hello- toilet tissue tussles!) It also tells us about the deaths…

  –

  Ten days ago was my twenty ninth birthday. I started the day with yoga. I sipped tea while reading Emily Dickinson poetry. I went to work where I shared individually wrapped chocolate (hygiene awareness) for mutual celebration.

  I met my father at The Botanic Gardens for lunch. He zombie walked towards me. I karate kicked at his zombie in a gesture of joke protection. This, these jokey, not-touching, ways of greeting each other are our new norm. Apparently, a tourist smiled at our antics. I’m glad I made someone smile that day. It feels like a small win for the world.

  My father and I found a park bench on a crackly-yellow-water-starved piece of grass and watched the city below sparkle in the Indian summer sun. I drank tea from a unicorn patterned thermos. I ate a banana. My father said, unusually seriously, how he wished I didn’t have to live through This Time. Because things were going to get ‘pretty fucking grim.’ I cried inside at these words of care. Mainly because of the love in them. But also because of The Fear.

  

  I know anxiety.I’m much better than I was, but some days I do feel pretty intensely what I term ‘the-butterfly-belly-beat’ of worry and anxiety and tension and just that feeling that something-really-bad-is-going-to-happen.

  That Really Bad is happening. And I’m surviving it (so far.)

  I am however surviving not thriving at the moment. But that’s the best most of us can do right now, I think. I’m better than I thought I’d be in a crisis especially as this crisis seems like it might last for many weeks… if not months. I refuse to think of it in terms of years.  

  It helps that I have been a philosophical ‘Prepper’ for a while. Don’t worry I’m not a full on ‘stock-for-the-apocalypse-prepper’ with their canned goods and guns and bomb shelters. I’m not quite as hard-core those found in some online corners, especially on fundamentalist Christian homemaking blogs.

  But I do have a good personal library of grow-your-own-veggie gardening books. I know how to bake (badly) and cook (much better than I bake fortunately) and sew and knit and make compost and mend things. I know how to make do with the ‘Not Much’ of both dollars and material possessions.

  And because of this knowledge of ‘Not Much’ I also know about how I (and I think many people) actually do need much less to thrive than they think they do.

  Right now, for me anyway, to get back closer to equilibrium, it’s about rationing news so I’m not constantly barraged by pandemic information. It’s about me spending time outside with my plants. It’s about listening to music as well as news bulletins. It’s about journaling in my sketch-to-scribble notebooks.

  And it’s about me watching movies that make me cry to help release some of the Fears and Scares. I’m not a very good crier normally. I usually release stuff in words and art. But sometimes I think we all need a good cry to feel better.

  Sometimes strength is, I believe, showing a level of weakness. Not the kind of weakness that is bad because it leads to broken things. This is a different kind of weakness. One that is about acknowledging all our emotions and feeling able to express them when we need to in whatever way we are able.

  So, cry and watch Robert Downey Junior die.

  Laugh at cat videos on your newsfeed.

  Listen to songs that make you want to move.

  And I ask you to listen to that call to dance.

  

  Dance into the next day with a compassionate heart for yourself, your whanau and your community. Do what you can to get by now. And help others do the same. Also have faith that there will be better days in The Bad. And that at some point The Better Days will outnumber those we class as Bad. 

  Posted in Personal Essay | 0 Comments | Tagged Covid-19, Grief, Mental Health

• A Time of Great Sharing

  Posted at 10:50 am by stellacarr20, on March 25, 2020

  (…and yes I’m referencing kids TV show ‘The Land Before Time’ – clearly I was a 90’s kid!)

  NOTE: this post was written prior to the Level 4 self-isolation nationwide lock-down set for Aotearoa New Zealand on Monday 23 March 2020. Lockdwon is due to begin at midnight on Wednesday 25 March 2020.

  Not even a week after my last blog post about reducing and reassessing my social media use Covid-19 became a Global Thing. Suddenly social media seemed like a pretty good way to not only keep up with what was happening in the world but also as a key way to stay in touch with people as we all socially distanced and many self-isolated.

  

  So, I’ve been lured back. I’m now posting photos of my bushwalks for my friends and family unable to go out anymore. I’m taking pictures of my city-to-sea view. I’m sharing my craft and sewing projects on Instagram to show, I hope, creative ways of passing the time. I’m doing it for the friends and family with health and immune system issues who are now self-isolating. I’m also doing it for people like my grandmother. She is over seventy and now largely housebound.

  I guess there HAS been a re-assessment in my social media use. I feel my posts are less about status, both literally and symbolically. I post a lot less about writing awards and publishing wins (See: status.) I also feel less like I care about what these kinds of posts signify. You know, career success, awards, external signifiers etc.

  I’m here on Facebook for the slow stitching groups whose art works inspire me to slow down and take creative time for myself every few hours. There’s nothing like boro stitch to inspire a few moments of self-care for me.

  

  I’m here for the community pages where offers of aid to those who need it are growing in posts and comments and shares. These gestures of generosity give me hope for humanity.

  I’m also here to show my slightly blurry photos of trees that I hope make my FB friends experience the same sense of calm I felt when out walking amongst The Green.

  The world is storming right now. Maybe not literally in the climate changed way we thought would be our next challenge. But humanity faces a huge dark storm cloud that is called Covid-19. That is called community transmission fears. That is called self-isolation becoming social-isolation…

  Social media (along with The Trees…) is helping me feel calmer about this shit storm. It feels weird to say this but it is true. It’s the connections to my friends; the video messages and texts and shares that show care that make me feel less alone. Social media is, also, I hope, helping me calm others through what I choose to share too.

  I feel it is this idea of sharing that will get us through to the other side of this Thing. And the language of social media sets us up for The New World Order. We ‘Like’ things. We ‘Share’ posts. There are more love heart emoticons than angry or sad faces.

  

  This gives me hope for the world, as we, at present, largely retreat to virtual worlds.

  I am glad we have emoji kisses and cat icons to send each other when we are lonely. It may not be as a good as a real kiss. Or a real cat. But I know that I, for one, gather the glitchy love hearts and grinning Cheshire cat ready to Share them and hopefully pass on a gesture of goodwill to those who need it.

  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged Covid-19, Slow stitching, Social Media

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  • POEM: A Social Distancing Sonnet July 5, 2020
  • The Strength of Iron April 4, 2020
  • A Time of Great Sharing March 25, 2020
  • FOMO March 10, 2020
  • A POEM: Dinner with Alan Rickman March 5, 2020

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