How quickly things can change. For much of the world, March 2020 may long remain a stark reminder of this. Of course there's cause and effect. And in this case the effects may seem sudden, but the cause(s?) has been brewing for some time. Regardless, I am grateful to be living where I do and in general the state of my life is probably vastly more comfortable than a very large number around the world.
This is a humbling realisation. Even for those that appreciate that the little things in life cannot be taken for granted, the current state of the world has probably uncovered a bunch of things taken for granted. Like being able to pop around to a friend for a chat. Catching up with some friends at a cafe or restaurant. Sports on TV.
Luckily for us here in Norway, walks in the woods are very much allowed. And where we live, there aren't so many people that the woods fail to afford a significant level of personal space. Given that fact we've been making use of the nice weather, generally on Saturdays, to make the most of it!
Spring is definitely in the air! Flowers are slowly making an appearance! And the last of the snow is disappearing. There was one final proper dump of snow right at the beginning of the month. Kindly coinciding with some "surprise" out of town visitors for a slightly belated birthday celebration :).
Since then of course, things have been a bit different. First off there's the working from home. Luckily, I can in fact work from home. So it was just a case of lugging my monitor and other sundry hardware from the office and setting up a temporary home office and trying to keep as much of a work routine as possible while also enjoying the greater flexibility.
What with all the schools and kindergartens shut, most of my colleagues and other friends are having a much more challenging time of it :). After almost three weeks of this, some are settling in, others are reaching the end of their patience :|. I guess it all kinda depends on expectations. It seems more and more obvious that a quick short term impact to life this is not.
I have found that sticking to my normal work alarm on weekdays has worked beautifully! I am probably not as prompt at getting out of bed as when I had to catch public transport, but reading a book for an hour or so in the morning is still a great start to the day. Just on my sofa, instead of on a train :).
Speaking of, I'm properly back in the book club! The first book back for me was Pyramids. A classic Pratchett! Highly enjoyable for one such as myself who hasn't been knee deep in the Discworld recently. I especially enjoyed the unique way in which Pratchett manages to slightly subvert the expected normals of the world :).
The second book was much further outside my normal orbit. The Blue Between Sky and Water. What can I say? I've never been particularly deeply engaged in the Israel Palestine conflict. Observing it from afar. In some ways maintaining my distance as the odd bit of sometimes fictionalised detail passed by too close for comfort on its fiery trajectory. Some bit of news on TV, bits of films, books, conversations. So this rather more intimate albeit in some ways fantastical story was a bit of an eye opener.
Putting aside the politics of it, I have to say I really enjoyed the narrative style. Bar the occasional horrifyingly detailed exploration of violence, the focus is maintained on living rather than dying. Finding rather than losing. Or maybe that was just what I chose to focus on. The ambiguous nature of some of the more supernatural elements lent a particular grace to the story that could otherwise have rapidly descended into nothing but hate.
And now I am back to familiar territory. The last time I tried reading Spook Street, it didn't go very well. Now, whether the intervening time spent reading the Malazan books, where favourite characters dying in spectacularly unfortunate (after the first ten or twenty the term unexpected can't really be applied any more) circumstances was pretty much par for the course, had any effect or not I don't know. But I decided to give it another go. I have to say, I'm glad I did! Can't really say much more without spoilers :).
So there we have it. Life has changed. But life goes on. The pub has turned into a virtual, trans-national, Zoom-ified gathering. Work no longer involves commuting. Catching up with friends involves WhatsApp (and no longer just to plan the gatherings :D) and online games. Maybe social media isn't such a bad thing after all! ;) But it does make one realise what personal physical contact is all about. Let's hope one day, in not too long, we can get back to it!
