Jenny
26 February
The man who was pulled out of the wreckage of his car after a Russian tank rolled over it was wearing a face covering for COVID.
I don’t know what to make of any part of that sentence. All through the pandemic, I’ve fretted over every little decision that it’s been in my privileged gift to make. Go out or stay in, take out or sit in. Now I watch people try to make life-and-death decisions – stay or go? Now or then? How far and for how long? – knowing that their odds of survival are lengthening beyond their influence.
I realise – or remember, to my shame – that people in other places have been making those decisions all this time. It has just been easier to look away. Meanwhile, I still stand in the supermarket, making frivolous choices, and, later, lie in the dark listening to February’s storms, and allow myself to feel buffeted and abraded by them as by the waves of the pandemic that do not stop even for war.
The fretting goes on too – now that “our” restrictions have been lifted, or dropped – over luxurious decisions about how to live. I’m trying to learn how to live with COVID, without catching it, but the aim seems unrealistic now, and increasingly precious. In the crowded-again cinema, I primly wear my mask between sips of tea and wonder about the rate of air change, but when the screening of the Beatles’ rooftop concert in Get Back ends and someone behind me calls up to the projection room, “Could you just roll that again, please?”, I cheer.
26 March
Mehrunnisa asked me whether we were the only people still talking about the pandemic. Maybe we are. Maybe everyone who was talking about it has got COVID now. I think I have accepted that, like a lot of things, coronavirus is never really going to be over, but I can’t work out when it’s going to be over enough.
This week was the second anniversary of the first lockdown, marked by a national day of reflection, and people – brave people – did talk about COVID then. I tried to be still for it, but thoughts of what people were thinking whose troubles and losses are too much in the present to reflect and of everything else that was happening kept thundering past, like a high-speed train through a hole-in-the-hedge station.
When I started to write today, I put 26 March 2020 at the top of the page: an unreflective reflection. But I must have been thinking about the first lockdown and about the build-up to it. For me, there were last, surreal bits and pieces of travel and moments with people that even then seemed stolen from the time to come.
When the order to stay at home came, I was at the kitchen table, making a spreadsheet of the contents of my parents’ kitchen and still afraid that I’d brought the virus back from a frivolous trip to a cancelled conference as part of a job that I already knew could not survive the economic shock of everything shutting down.
I remember that as a dark time – still winter – having got off the plane in my big coat with my hat stuffed into one pocket and a novel wedged into the other. Then it was summer, or, rather, that pristine, time-stopped sort of spring. It’s a bit like that again this morning, two years on, but it’s noisier and hazier than it was when the shapes and sounds of things were pin-sharp against the unpolluted sky. It was the air beneath that was polluted, and it still is
On the radio on the morning of the anniversary, people talked about their losses in the pandemic and about how their lives have been changed by that time, but they also talked about making plans for taking time off to get away or go home, free now to be with family and friends and to enjoy the spring and summer ahead.
I’ve heard it said that the best days are behind us, now that every global anxiety dream has become reality at the same time, but, for those of us who are lucky, maybe that is only true if we let it be so and, in the meantime, all the more reason to make the most of the luck that we have left. It’s spring again, and here comes the sun.
mehrunnisa
february; an abbreviated month, its shortening a legacy of superstition. february can feel long despite its brevity for it is the deepest of winter. the days grow longer but often it is hard to see this. it certainly did not help that most of the month was claimed by a trio of wild storms. this made the fleeting tracts of time in which the light lengthened, the sky was crystal blue and a wolf moon held court in an inky sky seem imaginary.
dudley, eunice and franklin shared something of the character of the pandemic, expressing as they did the brute force and unpredictability of nature. their effects were unevenly distributed. most of london survived unscathed. the power held and trees bent double in the wind but mostly did not snap. the force of the wind made buildings quiver and tremble. and it sounded like a banshee, a visceral howl which could be felt in the bones. it took me back to the dramas that my dadi used to watch on ptv, where the sound of the aandhi overlaid with ominous music were the telltale signs of evil or tragic loss. other parts of the country and the continent were not so fortunate. unsurprising given that eunice came with a rare red weather warning.
it was a february of multitudes, where so much of the past was present. there were old, new and hybrid places to explore. i discovered caribbean british art at the tate britain, a mostly novel experience as i was not familiar with a lot of the art work. i would say the same of the wladimir ivanow and modern ismaili studies exhibit at the aga khan centre and joy at the wellcome collection. omair and i booked these on a whim and loved both of them. the only downside of taking omair to the wellcome collection is that he now knows of the reading room, formerly my secret hideout. the mind also had a workout as it spent an evening with stella creasy at the trouble club where she spoke of motherhood and politics. followed by the tortoise thinkin on ‘the modern male: does the men’s rights movement have a point?’. both were the first public events since the pandemic started and were hybrid. the thinkin was quite the exercise in listening, with parts of it being quite difficult and controversial. n and i deserved the umeshu negronis we had at dinner afterwards, so that we could begin to unpack all that we had heard.
the department of edible things had so much to offer. it started with a stellar grapefruit brioche at toklas bakery which s and i split with plenty of coffee and conversation. neither of us could resist the temptation of rare citrus from todoli citrus farm in spain. i came away with half a dozen sevilles destined for a batch of marmalade spiced with coriander. sessions arts club came next. dining here is less a restaurant, more a private dinner party. it is a well kept secret and florence knight’s food is as good as when i first tried it at polpetto many years ago. omair took a shine to the sweet taiwanese milk tea and cafe purin at bao in kings cross. because let's face it, espresso with a custard foam and roasted sugar is delicious. omair was also introduced to the regency club. it turns out that this bar and grill is quite an institution especially for british asians. it is to them what the marriott’s brunch buffet or afternoon tea would be to those who grew up in islamabad. it is perfect for family lunch on weekends. eat the garlic mogo, lamb chops and chicken wings. brawn gave us featherlight parmesan fritters, ox cheek that came away at the merest nudge, roasted artichokes with ajo blanco and always the dark chocolate, olive oil and sea salt to end. over at yipin china, cumin tucked into his bone with great gusto while we picked bite size pieces of fried chicken with chopsticks from within a pile of chillies, wrinkled dry fried green beans and sea bass in soup with pickled mustard greens. it turns out that my name is no longer needed on the reservation since we are now known as the family with ‘small dog’. honey and smoke was just the right place for a reunion with a friend who moved to glasgow during the pandemic and who i had last seen in person at the puff bakery pop-up. there were two rounds of labaneh with burnt celeriac and mastello cheese with fermented chilli jam because they were so good. the feta and honey cheesecake has a reputation that precedes itself. it is impossible to dine there and not have it. there was a round two at the plimsoll with v where we consciously chose not to have the dexter burger. instead there was a rather sophisticated version of a fish finger sandwich described as crumbed prawn, caper mayo followed by a salad of bitter leaves and eggs with fudgy yolks and a plate of rustic matagliati with purple sprouting broccoli and walnut pesto. we skipped dessert in favour of strong negroni’s. a much needed antidote to the current state of affairs since we met a few days after russia had invaded ukraine.
february’s end made what came before seem improbable. an already tenuous world order verging even closer to fully undone. zora neale hurston writes ‘there are years that ask questions and years that answer’. poetry works where words fail. short lines and compact paragraphs holding worlds within them. it is where i look for answers when none are to be found. this time is resolutely of relentless questions and interruptions. the year(s) of answers are yet to come.
it is the last weekend of march. the clocks switchover this weekend, stealing an hour of sleep and bringing an hour of light. spring is in full force. there is a sea of daffodils in shades of pale to bright yellow in russell square. their bonnets facing sunwards.
light and dark, different facets of the same spectrum. too much light obscures sight, even blinds. have you ever tried to look directly at the sun? it was one of the principles that gaudi kept in mind when designing the sagarda familia. the windows are made so that they let in light that makes it easy to see. sight adapts in darkness so that objects are shapes and outlines, even if their size is skewed. there is a reason why this kind of balanced middle is both elusive and desired. soft sunsets leave landscapes of painterly disposition, highlighting beauty and softening sharp edges. the same can be said of moonlight, whether silver bright and metallic or the citrus bronzed sort.
light and dark. good and evil. rich and poor. informed and ignorant. war and peace. these are not opposites but binaries. they exist together but also on a spectrum. the absence of good is not evil. the absence of war is not peace. i keep coming back to opposites and binaries because i find it hard to live on the extremes. dualities interest me because of what they reveal. what is light without darkness? and how would one know goodness without bad? could one exist without the other?
i could say that march is full of paradoxes. that there was a before and after. but is it really? the hard truth is that this time is no more or less capricious than the past. the invasion of ukraine has returned conflict to the european imagination. in doing so, it has reawakened fears of a historic conflict which for the region is tied up with the second world war. yet, a spin of the globe shows that there has been persistent conflict in the years since that time. wars and invasions that have been as present as the movement of oceans, rivers, mountains and stars unrestrained by the cartographer's hands. ukraine’s refugee crisis is also part of a larger arc. right now, more than two thirds of all refugees come from five countries. more than 6 million of these are syrian. these figures do not include palestinian refugees because they are covered by unrwa and not unhcr. what this means is that proximity makes consciousness. colour layers into this, opening doors for some and firmly shutting them on others.
Loved reading this, Jenny & Mehrunnisa.