mehrunnisa, at home in london
covid has spawned a whole new vocabulary. words like lockdown, quarantine and self-isolation are specific to this time. others like covidiot, maskne and quarantinis are really handy portmanteaus. then there are existing words that have been ascribed new meaning. re-entry is an example of this. google re-entry and the first cue in the drop-down is for re-entry anxiety; a shorthand for the experience of feeling anxious and afraid of getting back to some semblance of our old lives. a catch-all phrase for letting back into the world. there are plenty of prosaic descriptions of the feeling of re-entry anxiety.
but in the midst of them are gems like the one from usman ahmad who set up a lockdown cafe in the backyard of his home. he is both barista and consumer and you could say that his wife was a true customer. the virtual debut of the cafe meant that there were many virtual customers too. eventually, the lockdown cafe shape shifts into something less elaborate. the prospect of relaxation of social rules in places where vaccination is gathering pace means that a visit to a cafe may be around the corner. yet, usman writes that one part of him is ‘seeking a route back into a world that seems to have forgotten how to know itself, the other part still wanting to preserve time and personal landmarks through the press of a warm coffee mug against my hand.’
i had this in mind during my rather eventful week of re-entry. here in england, the great indoors is open again as of 17 may. so public places like theatres, gyms, cinemas, museums and restaurants are back in business. one can meet at home provided one follows the rule of six or mixing two households. the first friends to return to our home were v and a. they were fresh out of quarantine as their test and release results came a few hours before they came over. there was an awkward pause at the door and then we all just broke into huge smiles and swift hugs. a light breeze ran through the open windows and balcony door. i had thought of cooking dinner but when i tried to piece together some ideas of what to make, it just seemed like too much effort. i did end up whipping some feta to be had with radishes, some crisps and some nuts. we ate delicious turkish food from antepliler by way of deliveroo. but the best part of it all was being able to curl up on the couch and talk for hours.
this may well have been the first ever bank holiday in which the sun took over the skies. it was hot and bright, casting laser cut shadows everywhere. on sunday, i met f at kings cross. granary square felt like its pre-pandemic self. there were little bodies running through the water fountains. two ice-cream vans spaced just a few feet apart ran a brisk business. the silk road exhibition on the perimeter of the fountains was as much an art installation as a place for people to perch and a clothesline for the children’s clothes. almost all restaurants had outdoor seating and some had even added parasols and awnings for shade and shelter. the wonderful thing about meeting outdoors is that it is freeing. it dispenses with the need for discussions about risk, especially since all of us are on different frequencies of what feels right.
i am puzzled by all the talk about returning to pre-pandemic times. that would only be possible if there was no covid. there is no certainty that the season of lockdowns is behind us. the march of the variants may well scupper the english roadmap. this invisible crown shaped intruder is here to stay. even with all the restrictions on travel, there is still fluidity in movement. and since there is no vaccine equality, there will be variants. the appropriate vocabulary for this is for it to become ‘endemic’.
it is also impossible to grasp just how much has changed. the real fall out will come to reveal itself over the coming years. it is hard to know whether there has been enough distance from the pre-pandemic past for the imagining of a different future. right now, i cannot help but feel emotional each time i walk my city and find an old favourite to still be around. i celebrate those that opened their doors in lockdown or the brief interludes between them. and i have never ceased to be amazed at all those who continued to work in the same manner as before as they never had the luxury to work from home.
of note this week were little morsels everywhere - burger bao at bao in kx, half a slice of hazelnut and lemon polenta cake with strawberries, kaffir lime syrup and coconut yoghurt at caravan kx, paper thin and crisp lavoush with baba ganoush, a lush tahini and date molasses ice-cream and olive oil and pear cake from honey and spice eaten at regent’s park, an excellent iced latte from finks sweet and salt and v’s homemade biscotti made with sourdough discard.
things to remember: just how good sunshine feels; the immense pleasure of clean windows; sanam maher’s piece on caked alaska and copper kettle which brought up all sorts of wonderful teenage memories
things to forget: variants; just how invasive pap smears feel; not being able to get a straight answer to a simple question
Jenny, at home, (with Mehrunnisa in London)
The forget-me-nots I grew in my bedroom last year have survived somehow. I left them for dead before the summer was out, but here they are in the back garden, coming around again. I – if not a notorious plant-murderer, then at least serially guilty of plantslaughter – told myself that I didn’t care any more, but here I am, feeling like holding my breath to see if they make it through June.
When everything shut down in March last year, there were a lot of little seed kits hanging around the house. I could have chosen something a little more sturdy and a lot less symbolic, but there I was, closed up in my middle-aged teenager’s room, separated from friends by much more than the sea I was still getting accustomed to.
I’m upstairs, just under the roof, so I don’t even have proper windows – just badly compromised skylights (if they were mirrors, they’d be foxed, but not in the fadedly glamorous antique way). Still, trying to grow seeds in secret felt like a way of clawing back some privacy, so I put together the tiny blanket and the compacted disc of soil in the little compostable pot.
I was elated when they sprouted. For a couple of months I watched the spindly seedlings reach for the sun, moving them around every day to catch the light as it passed through. I got a bit more ebullient and planted other things — orange, lemon and apple pips, stones from cherries and plums. The best candidates for survival looked to be the plants that came from melon seeds, but nothing did well out in the garden, despite the fact — so much for a harmless secret — that the transplantation was taken out of my hands.
But the forget-me-nots did flower, and in their first year. Unusual, I was told, and auspicious, but it made the tiny plants seem even more precious, and precarious. The daft way I grew them meant that the stalks were barely able to support the weight of their miniature blooms. And then, sure enough: disaster. One day a sparkly, sticky trail appeared, and then whatever it was that left it laid waste to the modest adventure in horticulture that had, discreetly if not secretly, held and stood for my pandemic hopes and fears.
I didn’t even try to save them. I just left them and tried not to look at them all through the rest of the summer and into winter. On the day I did look, the few remaining leaves had been burned by frost. I cleared the debris of definitely-dead foliage from the summer — carefully, just in case — and moved on out of the gate.
But the little leaves on the still-unpromising-looking stems have started to flower again, in teeny-tiny perfect blue blooms that open wide to show off their even-tinier yellow centres, stretching out in the sun. Beneath them, clusters of buds tinged the exact iridescent lavender of the mood ring I bought when I was 14 — I lost the key to the colours, but I know that one meant that I was in the mood for love — are waiting for their moment to arrive.
Of course I want to show them off — look! — but when I put a camera between me and them, they’re elusive. Their precise little lines blur and won’t be captured. It serves me right for abandoning them to their fate, neglectfully letting nature run its course. They’re small mysteries (or maybe it’s just that I’m as bad a photographer as I am a planter) that I’ve done nothing to deserve.
It was the holiday weekend, and it felt like the first day of summer. I spent most of it inside as usual, but in a quiet part of the afternoon (when not even a lawnmower was stirring) I sat on the step of the back door of the empty house, and it made me happy to see the flowers basking in the sun. It was a brief, and still uncertain, moment in a week when we were all being subjected to another hammering from chaos. I don’t know whether small wonder will survive another summer, but, for now, it’s enough to sustain my secret prayer: forget me not.
Things to remember: A walk in the country park, a new run, a new publication
Things to forget: old hauntings in a new world, people wanting to be less when they could be more, why we can’t have nice things