I get a great deal of thinking time this morning, lying awake from 3:14am. I wonder whether I’ll turn into one of those writers who is able to get up and practice their craft for an hour or two every morning before the rest of the household awakens? Then I remember our creaky wooden floors, and our children’s predilection for leaping out of bed at the slightest morning noise…. I spend my three hours playing merge dragons and words with friends, ruminating and playing music inside my head.
It’s my turn to answer the phone to the copper today. He only wants to
know that we’re all OK. He doesn’t ask for names and relationships information.
Brown Owl and I speculate that the phone calls have some strategic purpose in offering
multiple opportunities for quarantine guests to connect with others, in order
to maximise positive outcomes for interventions as need for them arises.
I am reminded of Anne McCaffrey’s 1982 book Crystal Singer, where a young woman named Killashandra travels to a restricted planet where she undergoes a physical transition which
enhances many of her abilities and enables her to sing crystal. This transition
is facilitated by a spore, so I guess it is parasitic. Infection and incubation
are common themes in science fiction fantasies, often resulting in positive changes.
The only ideas I’ve seen so far, that posit a positive reason for this pandemic
are indirect and external, such as reduction of pollution or species extinction.
Jack has an excess of energy built up inside him. After breakfast, he commences
emitting repetitive grating, booming noises that hurt my head. This is nothing
new. Brown Owl takes Wizard into the other room to throw the jellyfish balls
around. They do this for about an hour. I challenge Jack to do some shuttle
runs, offering the timer on my phone as incentive. (He’s Gemini and digital
native enough for this to make the prospect of running back and forth from door
to desk exciting.) I do a minute’s worth of shuttle runs as well, and then we’re
into sit ups. By the time it’s time to do PE with Joe, Jack and I are fairly
pooped, but we plug away doggedly, and it feels good to have made the effort. Brown
Owl and I do yoga as well, and I’m starting to feel my body again.
There’s a new game from Brown Owl’s folks, called “songbirds”. We decide
to give it a go while the children are busy bey blading. I discover that Brown
Owl has a head for strategy – she works out the rules and how to win. I’m
entranced by the cards themselves, each of which is different and exquisite.
The game involves placing cards in a grid, with the score building up in
columns and rows. When placing the cards, I get caught up in making patterns,
while Brown Owl works on making sure the cards add up to higher numbers. What
fun!
Each of us seeks space today, by removing ourselves from the room where the rest of us are congregating:
- Brown Owl lies down on a bed in the other room, trying to work the kinks out of her phone plan;
- I retreat to the desk, to do some colouring alone, and this writing;
- Wiz takes himself away to recover from minor emotional upsets by rolling himself up inside the cocoon of his bedding. We know that he comes back in time and prefers to be left alone.
- Jack is currently
obsessing about footie. He spends time wandering around enacting Aussie Rules moves
with a small, foam football my mother brought him. When he and I spend forty
minutes practicing hand passes, he asks me to direct the ball to the edge of
the bed he is standing on, so that he has a chance to throw himself around with
great gusto and drama.
It’s not that we are unravelling, but our edges are just beginning to
fray. The novelty is wearing off. We have ten more days and nights to go. I
watch the swallows swooping outside our windows today. The pigeons generally
fly much lower.
Today is fresh linen day. Stripping the beds and packing the towels and
sheets into black garbage bags is a fun family activity. The hotel staff have
sent us flyers describing how to make a bed. We are challenged to make the best
beds, and there is a prize in the offing. Wizard embraces this with precious dedication.
I make the beds, and Brown Owl helps him tuck in his beanie bears, artificial
flowers and Jack’s dinosaur Roary (who famously travelled to Canada in his hand
luggage). Wizard is also a Gemini and loves nothing better than to set up the
perfect photo shot. He takes them, Brown Owl posts them to the hotel quarantine
group and sure enough, we win a prize. More colouring books, more coloured pencils,
two more sharpeners to add to our collection.
I have tried to give away some of our treasure hoard, but I am advised that
“Unfortunately, we are at the directives of the SA Government and we are unable to give or pass on items from rooms to other guests or rooms. It is so sad, and also confusing as when you check out, you would be covid-negative. It is just a blanket rule to keep everyone safe.”
I’m feeling slight panic at the burgeoning piles of
stuff we are accumulating. Brown Owl says we’ll need a truck to get it all
home! That word “safe” is so loaded.
When Brown Owl fields the call from a GP in the late afternoon, I listen
in and wonder whether it’s a journalist. This GP is happy to chat, and the
effect on Brown Owl is obvious – she’s more buoyant, more connected with the
world outside these walls.
I’d
been hoping for lamb massaman curry for dinner, as advised by the menu, but I’m
not disappointed by the rice-stuffed tomatoes, which are delicious. I notice
that the sticky label on our paper bags has become much more descriptive of our
dietary requirements. It now reads:
ROOM:
1416 + 1418 (c / o 09th Jan)
Ad:
2 Ch: 2 Inf:
Preferences:
1 x Ad GF (prefers veg most days) & 1 x Ad Vegetarian. Less “fancy” meals
for kids i.e. pasta (no chicken nuggets). Conti breakfast for kids (toast/cereals/yoghurt)
& 1x veg Adult.
Wizard
and Jack are transported into delights when they lift off the silver lid of
their hot containers to discover a bed of naked spaghetti… There’s a container
of passata to pour over, and even Wiz manages to make his way around the bits
of onion that float around, to almost inhale his meal. Eating for Wizard has
always been a whole-body experience. Fortunately, although a dining table and chairs
is about the only thing we don’t have in these rooms, the footstool that serves
as the children’s table is upholstered in some special kind of fabric that scrubs
clean after every meal. We got some extra towels in our linen issue and decide it
might be best to use one to cover the footstool in future, all the same.
This
evening we start a new Arcadia series, having finished the Troll Hunters. It’s called
3 Below and connects with the same set of characters. Followed by the
obligatory Bey Blade episode, I read about Star Wars with Jack, and then we all
go to sleep.
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