Time seems to exist in a multiverse in these times of Covid-19 Lockdown. I seem to have all the time in the world. And time passes like whispers in the wind. Is it April? Is it June? Was that Friday? Is this Saturday? Have I had breakfast? Did I sleep at all? Am I who I have always been? Or am I, my city, my country, my continent, my planet changing irrevocably? There have been personal earthquakes in recent times – some obvious political ones, but also natural disasters (The Year of the Flood) and personal convulsions (Beginning to Look Back). In my handwritten book of Helpful Life Quotations I can usually find something that fits most scenarios: in this case, Andy Warhol’s They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
I thought this peculiar “Lockdown” would be a perfect time to do a hundred jobs still undone: declutter shelves and cupboards, sort out books and photographs, tidy the cellar, finish writing my trilogy of novels. Instead I seem to have a problem with concentration and with not being able to stick to the easiest of plans. Freshly-crucial activities have risen to become weirdly compelling: planning shopping like a military campaign, watching Box Sets on TV, doing jigsaws, cooking, baking, cleaning, walking, Skyping, Zooming, reading, clapping, handwashing, watching and rewatching parody songs, witty memes and entertaining tiktoks. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wisely said Time is a created thing. To say “I don’t have time” is to say “I don’t want to.” I’m known for spending (wasting?) time imaginatively dreaming of time-travelling, lurking in Shakespeare’s language or being absorbed in the fantasy worlds of Narnia, Middle Earth, Pern, Westeros, Marvel Comics, Robin Hood and King Arthur. Why haven’t I spent more time in Wonderland during Lockdown? Why does making a Victoria Sponge suddenly seem so important?
In Lockdown I have the absolute privilege and luxury of living in a great house with plenty of resources. So when needed, I can marshall support easily. I can bathe in forests, stride across meadows and walk along the River Aire within minutes. I know other people are facing Lockdown under enormous pressures with vulnerable dependents, restricted movements, money worries, job worries, underlying mental and/or physical illnesses, the demands of children out of school, genuine fears about what tomorrow will bring. The distraction techniques of the latest tiktok don’t distract everybody. The endless summers of childhood only seemed endless because the “normal” world was operating within “normal” parameters and “normal” September would come around soon enough. Charles Darwin wrote: A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. Well, Darwin, my old mucker, as my bowl says, The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. If Lockdown has taught us anything, it is that Time can feel Elastic but Lockdown means nothing to Time. This too shall pass.
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