QP#8 Quarantine, Day 8

This morning after breakfast we sit down to play a family game, but neither Jack, nor Wizard is interested. There’s some ball playing for a while, and then Jack wanders in and sees me setting up for a game of “Song Birds” with Brown Owl. I ask him whether he wants to play and he says no (of course), but the game pieces are so alluring that when I request that he turn over the purple berries, he begins to be interested in spite of himself. We end up playing a round together, and I bumble through the numbers, utterly failing to try and ease Jack into it, because understanding the strategy and trying to do things that will ensure I lose and he wins entangles my thinking entirely. Anyway, it’s a beautiful game and we enjoy it together, which is the point, of course. I play with Brown Owl later, and she wins one, and I win one. I hope she wasn’t “going easy on me”. 

Wizard just wants to launch his bey blades. We all take turns doing this with him. He is quite happy to win every time, and he’s very knowledgeable about what’s going to happen. I love launching the beys and watching them spin. It’s therapeutic. 

Yoga is lovely today. Brown Owl tells me the presenter makes $7000 per day from the ads on her videos. I ponder this whilst stretching and balancing. The only similar thing I can conceive of creating for an online audience would be reading stories to children. It’s something I love doing, but on the other hand I don’t want to encourage children to relate to the screen and would prefer to read to them in person. 

Ah… books, picture books. I miss them! 

Work lurks in the back of my mind. I am disappointed not to have been hired for the museum job I applied for in November, but it was a long shot. I don’t have enough head space and time to look for work here in the hotel, and it’s one of the things I’m hanging out to do. I haven’t had any paid work for 15 months. Hang on, I tell myself. Just keep breathing. The time will arrive! 

Just into our workout with Joe today, Wizard brings me my phone. It’s the Rosy Daddy, intent on educating me about puppy farms. I get the impression he knows he’s told me all this before, and that repetition will make it more likely that I’ll take the information on board and act upon it. So here’s my take: 

 - I am horrified by puppy farms and dog fighting scams. I do not want any part of these. 

 - In the last year, Wiz and I have researched dogs over and over and over again. We have a pretty good idea of what kinds of breeds we like the sound of. 

 - I do not support eugenics and feel awkward about trying to breed for particular characteristics. I look down at my own body and wonder what characteristics of mine, I’d want to have bred for. 

 - I’m never going to be involved with the Showing community. I want a dog to be a family pet.

 - Incidental puppies are much harder to come by in this day and age where dogs must be licensed and their unsupervised neighbourhood nosing around is restricted. 

 - I believe in hybrid vigour, and I love poodle crosses. I loved my Bennie. 

 - No offense to those who love them, but I do not want a staffy, kelpie, collie or cattle dog. 

 - I would prefer to get a puppy and socialize and train it, rather than take on a dog that has previously suffered maltreatment. 

 - Buying a puppy from a breeder is almost certainly going to give us the most satisfactory outcome. We will probably buy a puppy that is not show standard, but has the other positive characteristics of that breed and its parents. 

Thanks, Rosy Daddy – this has been helpful. Of course, I’ve only written my point of view – there are three other people in the equation…. 

It’s my turn to chat with the Kitty Cats 3, and I get to listen to lovely soft chook noises. I see a sparrow outside our window today. We chat about lots of things. I realise that I do have plenty to say. It’s just easy to fall into the habit of keeping it all in. We agree to help nurture our children’s freedom flights across the neighbourhood to one another’s homes and parks. This was one of the resolutions I’d made for our return to Oz; Wizard and Jack popping in and out of their friends’ homes and the local park. 

Neither boy partakes in our daily workouts. Their screen addictions are severe. By the end of the evening, whilst Brown Owl cleans up after dinner (they ate heartily at least…), I take them into the other room and insist they choose something from Go Noodle to do some physical movement. Boy do they need it! Both are listless and loopy, grumpy and bored. 

After a lot of pork chop behaviour and cross words from me, Jack finds a 5-minute workout with Joe. I get my heart rate up again, and Jack begins to smile. Wiz mucks around a bit, but finally settles on a couple of routines deemed too childish by Jack, but I see Jack grinning up on the bed, taking part. One is a Simon Says, one is a “freeze” dance. We repeat that one. It sends us whizzing off to the bathroom to brush our teeth before our final viewing and story-time. 

Wizard wants to sleep in his cubby again. He climbs onto the bed to read with me, though. We finish the book about the Greek Gods with Jason, Theseus and Helen. Such awful teaching stories. Such horrible behaviour from Gods and Demi-Gods. It says a lot about being human. I have enjoyed the Percy Jackson novels and movies this year, and I look forward to getting home to re-read some of my favourite feminist renditions of some of these characters. 

If Wizard plays musical beds again tonight, I’m going to veto the cubby house for night-time. We had musical beds all last year in Red Deer. Almost certainly one of the factors in my long-term exhaustion. 

I wonder what tomorrow will bring. We are on the countdown now.

QP#7 Quarantine, Day 7

Happy New Year. 

Happy 2021. 

I eagerly await Chinese New Year and the change from Rat to Ox, which will occur on Friday February 12. I have a feeling we might all get a reprieve then, from feeling so cornered and defensive. 

The hotel provides pancakes for breakfast – even me. They aren’t buckwheat, but they are gluten free, and yummy. The boys are happy to get chocolate milk again. 

Part of their journey towards home means that Jack and Wizard are keen to catch up with their friends and family. I know this is going to be a priority for the rest of January, and while part of me embraces the idea (I’ve also been lonely, and missed a lot of people), I also just want to go home and check in with the fruit trees. Settle in, bring the cats and chickens home, and make some plans for my future. I still feel like I am on hold, lurking in the shadows, allowing myself to fill gaps, margins and peripheries, without as much agency as I need. 

To ground myself, I embark upon a thorough tidy up of our premises. It’s laundry day again. I am determined to scrub the toilets with our dirty linen. I pack two shopping bags of excess stuff and stash them away in one of the cupboards. With a sudden creative impulse, I use a few left-over paper bags to fashion low baskets to store collections of toys. I use two bags per basket. One has Star Wars and ET action figures; one has horses, knights and dragons; one has an assortment of other figurines and the fourth stores the monster trucks, small cars and airplanes. 

Suddenly it looks organized. At least for five minutes. I like the way our rooms are thus transformed into looking sleek and trendy. All the bey blades and launchers fit inside the arena. I am always amused that changing the way things are stored attracts the eyes of the children. A change, they say, is as good as a gift-giving holiday. 

We decide to make a calendar and start blocking in some dates. I call my Mum, to work out when she wants to have our post-Christmas/Channukah get-together. I come up empty. The pandemic is still affecting so many people. My sister and her family are in N.S.W. They were planning to visit us in Adelaide once quarantine was over, but now the borders are closed. Again. My brother works in a remote area and had thought he would be available in January because he would be working over the Christmas period. Instead, the site closed for a couple of weeks over Christmas and he’s back at work again. We will get together with whoever can make it, whenever. We can’t mark this on our calendar!

My in-laws, also in N.S.W., call with some unwelcome news. Brown Owl’s sister and brother-in-law had planned to travel from Victoria to see them. Another plan cancelled. I’m not sure how Brown Owl’s brother and sister-in-law are going to manage their relocation from Melbourne to N.S.W. either, under these fickly conditions. 

I watch Jack make a list of all the friends he wants to see. He wants to see them all at once. He has a long list of people he wants to include, and during the day, he keeps coming up with more names! Wizard makes a list as well. He writes his name at the bottom and under his name: the host. His list is shorter, but no less precious. He might have several smaller visits, one-on-one with friends. I don’t write a list, but I keep one in my head. 

During the afternoon, Brown Owl tells me that the hotel is giving us all a special treat – fondue. We’ve been advised via the hotel quarantine guests’ page. I surreptitiously log on and post a comment that this sounds wonderful, and I hope it’s gluten free. 

Brown Owl gets all the goss – probably because if I am using my laptop, the boys generally want it, and if I’m not using it they generally get it, unless I’m doing something else with them, whereas she is able to use her laptop and they still remember it’s reserved for “work”. Sadly, Brown Owl has counted up and realized that after quarantine she will only have about a week and a half of home time before returning to work. 

Our dinner bags indeed contain the makings of fondue – all except the dipping chocolate. There are three boxes with dried fruit, marshmallows and rolled wafer biscuits, an extra tub of fresh fruit, presumably for me, in addition to four small containers of the most luscious looking strawberries I’ve seen this year. 

Brown Owl gets on the phone and in her best manner, talks to the restaurant people. Within 20 minutes, a small brown paper bag has appeared on the stool outside our door. It contains 4 tiny tubs of fondue sauce. Two are labelled “contains gluten”. I take my chances with one of the others, and I don’t regret it. Thank you, Brown Owl for being brave and not telephone phobic. 

Wizard discovers a space small enough behind his bed to hide in. It’s a narrow wedge between the wall and the headboard. Maybe he half-heard my suggestion earlier in the day, that he make a cubby, and he soon pulls the bed away from the wall and uses the long curtain and pillows to make himself a fort. 

He is determined to sleep in there tonight. I’m unsure how well reading is going to work with this arrangement, because there’s really only room for him and his beanie bears. Brown Owl lies on Wizard’s bed and reads with him. I lie on our bed and read with Jack. We are making our way through the first Septimus Heap. 

I am far too sleepy to pick up The Spinoza Problem and am only vaguely aware that Brown Owl has settled both children (Wizard needed melatonin in his pillow fort), switched off my light, and is crawling into her side of the bed. 

QP#6 Quarantine, Day 6

I sleep through the night. I wake at 6:00am, feeling rested for the first time in months. While we were in Canada, I experienced periods of vivid dreams. Recurrent themes included travel in strange places, getting lost, making unexpected discoveries. Some of the dreams I’d had before we went to Canada proved prescient. I experienced the same kind of déjà vu as I’ve had during other intense and stressful periods of my life. 

Last night I dreamed I was driving the children to their new school. We were running late. I was worried about exactly how to get there. Part of my mind was busily trying to work out which side of the road I was supposed to be using. I ended up driving through the school’s driveway and being told by someone that I wasn’t allowed to be there. I promised never to do that again. In the next scene, I was hoping to accompany Wizard to his classroom and meet his teacher. He and I were on the ground floor. It was busy. Suddenly Wizard is gone. I look up and figure out that he’s had gone up a tiny hatchway to the first floor. He climbed up a ladder or a set of stairs too small for an adult. Yet I knew there must be a way for an adult to gain access to the next level and began asking people for directions. 

My emotions following this dream are completely optimistic. I am suffused with the sense of a new place, new possibilities, and looking forward to getting to know the school and the other families. I feel like we are in a good place. I also connect this dream to the physical activity we are practicing every day, and an improved level of fitness. 

Contact with the outside world means talking to people on the phone. Never my favourite activity, but at long last, I call the provider and select a new number. I get my mobile working again. Hooray! Now I’ve no excuse not to talk to people. 

The Dads call us, with Granny and Mr Mack (their son). We chat for what seems like a long time to me. It will be so good to be able to get together in person, explore the farm, be licked by the dogs, meet their chooks and ducks. 

I retreat to the desk in the other room to compose a blog post. Brown Owl facilitates a video chat with the Kitty Cat 3 family. After the children have chatted, I half listen in to Brown Owl’s conversation with one of the parents. They are talking about our Tormentor. 

I haven’t been thinking much about our Tormentor for a couple of days. When I catch up with Brown Owl after this conversation, I decide she needs another epithet: Tormented. Not by me, not by us, not by our children, but by her mind, and an intense need to be seen as OK. It must be exhausting to be her. I’m ready to move on now. I leave her to her own complicated life. 

We start talking about the dog we’re going to get. I cannot resist quickly looking to see which rescue dogs are available. Maybe it’s silly to look, because of course I see one that looks ideal… We are committed to getting a dog, but we have a long way to go. Jack suddenly turns adamant that he will be responsible for walking our dog. All. The Time. It’s not so much that he wants to be Chief Dog Walker, as that he does not want Wizard to be. As I say, we have a long way to go before we are ready to bring a puppy home. I overhear Brown Owl telling her sister that the boys have decided their Mums are the Chief Poo Picker-Uppers. Um. No. That’s not how it goes. 

I download an application form for the puppy I like, and we have an ad hoc family meeting to discuss our collective answers to some of the questions – all hypothetical of course. I’m acutely aware that Brown Owl was not keen to have cats in the bed when we moved in together. She needs to feel comfortable with how we bring another animal into our family. 

Quarantine continues to drag on, but the days are not too long. We have a week to go. We follow the same general pattern of activity, with small variations here and there. 

The hotel sends everyone a bag of goodies for New Year’s Eve. It contains 2 small bottles of Prosecco, 2 bottles of Berocca, 2 bottles of green smoothies, 4 cylinders of fancy chips, glow sticks and Kit Kats. Brown Owl rings down and purchases me some gluten free chocolate and chips, so I don’t have to miss out. 

After dinner, (which for me is a delicious lamb shank), Jack and Wizard shower and we get ready to ring in the New Year. We put towels across the bed to catch the crumbs. We manage to choose a movie to watch, and we settle on the bed in front of the big screen with our snacks. It’s an Australian movie called “Go”, and we all thoroughly enjoy it. 

At the end, in lieu of Prosecco, Berocca or green smoothie, I serve us each a wine glass of milk. We wave our glow sticks around for a while. There are no fireworks to see but looking out over the dark city is endlessly fascinating. By nine o’clock or so, we put ourselves to bed. Another day down, and tomorrow it won’t be 2020 anymore.

QP#5 Quarantine Post, Day 5

Ah…… day 5. 

Breathe in the deepest breath I’ve taken all day… exhale through the mouth… 

I wake at 4:17am again and take myself silently into the loo. As I sit, still not quite awake, but mentally calculating the cost of staying awake from now until tonight or trying to return to sleep, a movement catches my eye. I peer through the glass wall of the shower and notice an earwig crawling in the mortar between the tiles that line the shower cubicle. Hello little earwig, I send, I haven’t seen one of you in almost a year. 

It makes me feel sentimental – the paucity of bug life in our home in Red Deer disturbed me, because it felt like an indication the place had been poisoned. It was probably the cold. 

I wonder how the earwig got into our hermetically sealed (not quite) hotel room, fourteen floors above the ground? I wonder what it means when our online yoga instructor tells us to plant our feet, our hands, our bottoms firmly into the ground, when the actual ground, the earth is so far beneath us? It probably hitchhiked in aboard one of the delicious fresh apricots my mum dropped off from her dog-walking friend. 

My sim still isn’t working. I suspect it’s because the old one had been disconnected and therefore won’t transfer. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get the gumption to do something about this, but I don’t want to have to remember more numbers…. 

This morning, I use some of the fancy textas we were given (thanks Aunty Nut!) to make myself a paper bag mask. I show myself to Wizard and ask whether I look glamorous now. His response? “You look like you have a bag on your head” did nothing for my self-esteem. 

Brown Owl and I do more mask-making today. We post a selfie on the hotel quarantine guest page. Another guest, several fortnights ago, also used the paper bags to good effect. We see a page of the masks she made each day that she was here. 

Joe, of PE with Joe is distracted today. It’s a video from March (2020), in his first week of presenting to a locked down UK. He keeps stopping what he’s doing, to listen to Nicky give him updates on how many people are participating live, and where in the world they are coming from. I wish he would just get on with the workout. 

In yoga this morning I start to be able to feel some connections between movements I make and the associated body parts. 

After lunch, we are advised that the littlest hotel guests will get a chance to be chefs this afternoon. We are awaiting the yoyo biscuit decorating kits to be delivered, when the knock comes on the door. Wiz whizzes into his mask and answers the door, but it’s a pair of nurses in yellow plastic covers over their scrubs, masked and gloved and ready to stick things into our throats and noses. 

Wizard is appalled when the nurse uses the same end of the swab-stick she’d stuck in his throat, for his nostril. I don’t think any of us really took much notice the first time. Jack’s result (negative for COVID) is already in. We’re waiting on the rest. 

One of the nurses is a man, and this sends Jack into the need to show off his footy skills. I’m not sure the nurse can take much notice, and he doesn’t say anything to the cavorting ten-year-old in the room behind the doorway, where the rest of the family is lined up, passports in hand, masks over face, awaiting our turn. 

I’m not sure how I feel about toxic masculinity at this moment. Is this a benign case of joyous self-expression? Is it a reaching out for connection of like with assumed like because of some shared social gender traits? Are we not doing well enough in our quest to teach our children that football, like gymnastics, like ice skating, like ice hockey (?) is open for humans of every gender to enjoy and participate in? Am I totally overthinking this? 

When I hear a particularly vile swear word used by the youtuber Jack is currently watching, I call it out. Jack sheepishly selects a different clip. “They don’t usually talk to each other with those sorts of words, do they?” I am dismayed, because from what I’ve been observing, this fellow seems to be generally positive, having some points in his favour. Despite his obnoxiously loud voice, and his tendency to talk over whoever he’s playing a game with online, he has friends whose accents hint that they come from a variety of places around the world, and he is so silly that even as a distant observer I am sometimes overcome by sympathetic giggles and belly-laughs. 

Brown Owl and I find ourselves playing piggy in the middle in the boys’ room, with the two jellyfish balls brought to us by the Dads earlier in the week. I distinctly recall how I hated the game as a child, but today it is fun. I giggle and struggle and succeed in grabbing the ball as it goes past me. The tentacles help. 

I cannot believe how much physical activity we are able to pack into these quarantine rooms. In the back of my mind is the constant necessity of being prepared to interrupt myself when engaging in other more solitary activities, in order to give to the boys. While part of me resents this, (not as much as when we aren’t in quarantine, when I tend to resist), I also know that anticipating and accepting these needs, and actively addressing them will absolutely and definitely forestall the painful conflicts that arise when they are too much ignored. 

It’s my turn to read with Wizard tonight, after our evening viewing. We are reading our way through the Greek Gods. Wizard announces that he will go to sleep without his melatonin tonight. It would be great if returning to the Southern Hemisphere has reset his body-clock. He knows himself well and puts himself to sleep quickly and without fuss. 

I manage to stay awake until after 10pm tonight, to finish the book I started, which was given to us by one of Brown Owl’s colleagues in Red Deer. A House in the Sky (2013) by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett, details Lindhout’s experiences of being held hostage in Somalia for 15 months. She survived terrible abuse during these 15 months. In her memoir are thoughts about Muslim fundamentalism, corrupt governments, capitalism, gender relations and poverty. It’s a challenging read. 

I drift into sleep, actively working to dispel the unease and sadness that lingers after I close the book. As my conscious mind gives way, I link the vile word used by the youtuber with Jack’s reaction to the nurse, and the endless questions Jack taxes me with, about power and violence and conflict. We chatted during the day about which local junior football club he might be able to join this season. When it came to explaining our idea about Kilburn Football Club being very “rough” and not suitable for him. When it comes to toxic masculinity, white working-class culture, xenophobia, Australia’s social underclass and intergenerational unemployed people, and our wish as parents to shield Jack from the worst aspects of this, it’s not easy to put this into words a ten-year-old will comprehend.

QP#4 Quarantine Post, Day 4

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 09^th 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.     

QP#3 (Quarantine Post, Day 3)

The boys walk in together at 6:00am this morning, saying it is time to take off Jack’s cast. (He broke a finger a few weeks ago, slipping on a friend’s icy driveway.) Overseen by Wizard, Jack unwraps the bandage carefully, then gingerly pulls away the fiberglass splint. There’s no pain, but his hand looks raw and red. His fingers are locked into position. Gradually, he begins to bend and flex his fingers, making fists and then stretching out, as we had been advised by the plastic surgeon who saw him at Red Deer Regional Hospital. 

Later I give him a gentle hand massage to remove the last vestiges of cotton wool and adhesive. We have been supplied with small brown bottles of toiletries, and I have a different “lotion” from the hotel in Calgary. I ask Jack to select which one he likes the smell of. “Ugh,” he says to the first, (lavender and peppermint) and “oh this one’s OK!” to the second. 

The day is bright and sunny. Shortly after breakfast, the phone rings. Brown Owl picks up the receiver. I listen to the one-sided conversation, trying to guess who it might be. Housekeeping? Kitchen? Nursing staff? Nope. “It was the police!” she exclaims with bemusement. “Where do they think we are going? He asked me whether we are all ok.” We are. 

The medical staff also call us every day and run us through the same series of questions regarding our health – physical and mental. How many people are in your room? What is your relationship to Brown Owl? Do you have any Covid symptoms? I suppose for those unlucky enough to have contracted the virus, the answers might change, but for us, they are the same, every day. I have responded to people’s questions about our relationship in various ways, using various words, such as “wife”, “partner” and (notably) “husband”. The Red Deer taxi driver assumed we were sisters. I saw no point in enlightening him. 

One of my dearest friends, (let’s call her Chestnut), sends me a message through WhatsApp. My sim still isn’t working. She says she was very disturbed by my post the previous night and wonders why it was removed. I message back, explaining the inflammatory nature of the post and that Brown Owl had removed it, but that I am planning to revive my blog. I’m kind of relieved my words have been received by somebody who cares. 

Today is a day to reconnect with our people in the outside world. Brown Owl and I have a long conversation with the Kitty-cats 3, who had spent some time with and formed a relationship with Our Tormentor and their little Mouseling. These Kitty-cats 3 are empathic and generous. They confirm some of what we have gleaned about our Tormentor’s anxieties and loneliness. I begin to feel a shift in my outrage. A speck of sympathy begins to slide into view, intersecting with the hurt. It must have been awful to be in Adelaide, without family or friends, no support, and in lockdown. I am glad the Kitty-Cats 3 were able to offer them comfort and company. My parents were also welcoming and helpful to them. 

Wizard answers the phone and we all get to chat with my parents. They have dropped off another package (this one from Brown Owl's parents) and they have been working in our garden trying to ensure that something is still growing there when we get out of quarantine and home again. I’ve been colouring, but my fingers are also itching to get into our garden again!

Our days are spent doing the following activities, performed at least once, by at least some of the family members and in various orders: 

 - Breakfast 

 - Bey blading (Wizard’s passion) 

 - Yoga (today I join Brown Owl for the first time) 

 - Throwing around balls

 - Wrestling on the bed

 - Lunch

 - Watching youtube videos

 - Playing merge dragons (that’s just me) 

 - Reading

 - Cluedo

 - PE with Joe

 - Ultimate Beastmaster

 - Bey blading

 - Playing airports (the international flights are all coming into quarantine, according to Wizard)

 - Dinner 

 - Showers

 - Troll Hunter and Bey Blade episode

 - Reading

 - Sleep 

So, we are busy. We have other games and many puzzles to work on as well. 

The phone rings again in the early afternoon. Brown Owl answers. It’s Chestnut. I am so glad to hear from her. I lie down on Wizard’s bed (the closest one), and we talk. Our conversation is drawing to an end, when I thank her for messaging me this morning. We both know that with no privacy in our rooms, talking about this might be tricky, and I’d thought that was why she has avoided bringing up the subject. 

“Yes, well I read your story before I went to bed last night, and I must say it left me quite disturbed,” says Chestnut. 

As we discuss what has happened, I realise that Chestnut believes Our Tormentor is something I am struggling with internally. I begin to giggle at the idea that I’ve been so careful to veil and protect and excuse, that my readers are unable to understand what I’ve written about. 

I’m sure it is my attempt to use an inclusive pronoun (they) that has contributed to the confusion. 

Our Tormentor is a real person. We have never met face to face, and I hope we never do. I believe this person to be too obtuse to understand, let alone empathise with how their behaviour has impacted upon us, but there are other people they met and befriended in our absence, who may well leap upon an opportunity to scratch open and infect our wounds. So I’ve tried to be careful. 

The tight knot that sits between my diaphragm and my rib cage begins to dissolve into bubbles, and I feel suddenly happy. I keep giggling. It all seems so absurd. 

The burden of unbelief, the burden of believing I will not be understood, the burden of believing I am responsible, that I am incapable, that I am dirty, uncaring, destructive; the burden of believing there is no way other than to bear this burden, the burden of loving my family and trying to keep us all safe and well whilst battling Our Tormentor’s attacks has weighed heavily for months. 

“Just block her,” advises Chestnut. “She’s not your friend.” 

I can let that burden go.

QP#2

QP#2 

Day Two of Quarantine 

I dreamed of snow. Walking on snow is an interesting intellectual exercise, requiring intense and sustained concentration. At least I found it to be the case, as a 50 year old, desperately wanting to avoid injury. The children ran and slid and skittered across with joy and abandon, whilst I trudged, dodging black ice, crunching sometimes hard, and sometimes lightly through the surface, loving every step and wishing there were an entire field of snowy white for me to walk a picture upon. 

We often saw tracks in the snow, and stopped to wonder what they were. Jack was sure he’d found bear tracks, and Wizard is certain of dinosaurs. I saw deer prints, rabbit hops and dog paws. 

We spent our last night in Canada in a Calgary Airport hotel. We were driven there by taxi. Our driver was a Sudanese Canadian. The hotel’s kitchen/restaurant was closed, due to COVID, and we were hungry. Brown Owl took Jack and Wiz out into the snowscape in search of some Mexican food we’d located and ordered via Google. I was excused from this excursion because I had given away my shoes, except for the Birkenstocks. 

It’s as well I didn’t venture out. Wizard came back, sneakers drenched, and both he and Jack were wet up to their knees. Jack claimed he had walked thigh-high through snowy drifts. Brown Owl confirmed this was the case. There was no alternative route. Snow had fallen over night. The ploughs were busy elsewhere. Crossing roads had been a risky proposition, but they did come back with food. 

I went down to the hotel lobby while they were out, in order to retrieve something from one of the suitcases. There I encountered the same taxi driver, still trying to figure out how he was going to dig out his cab to drive himself home again. 

I look out the hotel window here in Adelaide, hoping to see greenery. There are no rooftop gardens. The balconies don’t have plants. Maybe it’s just too hot. As my eyes grow more accustomed to the built-up nature of the Country outside my window, I start to notice pockets of greenery – a large gum tree, a bank of jacaranda, the trees in Rundle Mall with another year’s growth added to their stature, the tree-lined soccer grounds in the distance. 

My eyes are drawn to the geometric patterns on the taller buildings – circles, rectangles, triangles and squares. Their orderliness charms me, but I must be feeling safe and well. It isn’t too hard to dismiss and redirect the usual pull that counting has upon me (How many windows? How many storeys? Are you sure? Count them again!) 

As the day progresses, we are all drawn to the windows. We long to be outdoors in the weather, which starts off as one of those oppressive overcast summer days, with bright headache-inducing clouds that are pulled apart by late afternoon. Brown Owl starts a tally of planes. I use tiny pieces of polymer clay to decorate the crystal trees we grew upon our windowsill. We see someone’s laundry on a balcony, another person walking around on the roof of an apartment block. Signs of life. 

More care packages arrive. People are so kind. Art materials – and really good quality art materials that make my idle fingers itch – more puzzles, a couple of books, board games. Then the Dads start calling. I’m happy to hear this, because they’ve promised to buy me a new sim for my phone, which no longer works to call in or out. 

They forgot the sim and are over at Rundle Mall to find one for me. Brown Owl looks down at the sliver of Mall that we can see, spots them, calls them on her phone. Everybody waves. Hang on – I say – Let’s get the flag. We hold up our Canada Pride flag between us, pressing the rainbow up against the window, unsure whether the tinted glass will prevent our family from being able to see us, as we can see them. 

The moment of connection is electric. I want to jump up and down and scream with delight. Jack’s up like Peter Pan, standing on the window ledge, whilst Wizard squeals and waves with both his fists in the air. It’s a lovely moment. 

As we did yesterday after lunch, we’ve done another PE with Joe. If we can sustain this practice for a fortnight, Brown Owl and I will be fitter than we’ve been in an entire year. 

We’re waiting for our dinner. Jet Lag is making us adults droop, and I wonder whether the children have expended sufficient energy to sleep well tonight. 

We play a round of Cluedo (a present from the Dads). Wizard is overcome by his own cleverness and tells us everything he figures out, and Jack’s intent on not being found to be the murderer which of course he is, but doesn’t know it, until Brown Owl reveals the cards that we’d secreted in the envelope. Cluedo is a success, as Horseopoly (yesterday) was not quite. 

This time last year, playing any game with Wizard was like taking one’s life in one’s hands. He found it impossible to lose. Jack couldn’t resist provoking his brother into upset, and more than one game found itself hurled in fury across the room. We have all grown so much. As I drift into sleep, I reflect on how close we have all become. I love each of them so deeply. If we gained nothing else from our year away, this surely must trump the shitty stuff. 

Not until the boys are asleep, does Brown Owl say – ah, here’s a response. She reads it out aloud to me, catching her breath a few times in shock and dismay. Oh – now they’re really getting bitchy, she says, revealing a line about how “we were not spoken well of by some” to our Tormentor while they were here in Adelaide. The thinly veiled threat hits home. This is not the way we live, throwing cheap shots to bring one another down. We have feelings, yes, but we don’t hurt with intent. It never occurred to us to make things difficult for our Tormentor here or there. 

I jump out of bed, incensed and intent, and walk through the dark to my laptop to post the agonized missive I’d composed early in the day that Brown Owl had wanted to veto. She still didn’t want to cause trouble either here at her school, or there in our Tormentor’s world. To me, it’s clear we will never reach an amicable understanding, but how dare they? It is not fair. Our Tormentor’s boundaries are so rigid, that admitting any slight error or unkindness seems a terrifying and insurmountable prospect. Yes, I feel for our Tormentor, but I just want this to be over. I want them to stop this torment. 

By the time I wake up in the morning, Brown Owl has something to tell me. She deleted the post when I was asleep. A dull anger glows in my breast, but I want to be adult about this. None of this is Brown Owl’s fault. I go and think about it while I have a shower. A solution presents itself to me. Facebook is not the appropriate forum for me to express myself about these issues, so I decide to revive my blog. But that’s Day three.

Quarantine Post #1 (Day 1)

Day One… the mercantile parts of Adelaide city are bordered to the east, by the Hills, to the west, by the sea; a narrow strip that shines in the early morning sunshine. I watch the city wake, and gradually glimpse a car or two, shoppers in Rundle Mall, pigeons billowing intermittently outside the wide north-facing windows. 

Our rooms are clean, sleek, neutral. I move straight into homemaking mode. We rearrange some furniture, set up systems, sort possessions, plan exercise. We have two doors to the outside, each of with receives the “knock” to announce the arrival of food, nursing staff, broom and dustpan as per request, care packages from the outside world. 

My mother very kindly responded to my morning plea, after the children had refused their breakfasts, as well as their dinner from the previous night, and brought us full-cream milk, sandwich bread, butter, vegemite and granny smith apples. We are embarrassingly well-supplied! 

I talked with someone in the kitchen. The food is amazing – hotel quality, multi-courses; very, very, very, nice food. They cater almost effortlessly for a myriad range of dietary needs and preferences. Clearly, they have the system worked out by now. Menus are rotated, I am told, on a 14-day roster. I ask for less meat for me, simpler food for the children. Still, the amount of waste bothers us. We have a plate, glasses and metal cutlery in our room, but the food all arrives in copious disposable packaging. We are forced to bag the remains and bin them. 

Sleep pulls me in, irresistibly and I sink down, do not fight against it. I wake again at 3am. This is my thinking time. 

The first night (this is the second) I woke at 4:17am. Thoughts whirled furiously around my mind. I wrestled mentally with our Tormentor, composing my accusations and barbs, exposing my wounds. 

I admire the cool graciousness with which Brown Owl smooths into shape, a letter in response to this latest – hopefully last – series of grievances, which arrived one by one, in between the three flights that brought us, over the course of thirty-five hours from Red Deer to Adelaide. Brown Owl is able to set aside their feelings and respond in a non-incendiary manner. They contain their slow burn of humiliation and shame to be resolved somewhere separate, maybe in the darkness. I feel too impacted. I want to explode. 

During my thinking time, I transform into a mechanical blue-winged ant. I buzz and fly around our Tormentor’s face, eliciting a frantic, heart-pumping response that almost satisfies my need to fight back. I revel in the knowledge that bugs bother them deeply. 

Ha! And I call myself a pacifist. 

The injustice rankles: this reduction from clever, curious, caring, responsible homemaker to incapable, voiceless, submissive acceptor of guilty shame. Exactly what am I guilty of? Who gets to say what I should, or should not have done? We know full-well that whatever we did would be found wanting. Our Tormentor has no subtlety, cloaks nothing in softening diplomacy, thrusts hard and sharp and forcefully with blunt words; calculates and catalogues our perceived wrong doings and deliberate damages. I wonder again what awaits us on the other side of quarantine. 

From afar, at this hotel, there is nothing I can do. I beat hard with all six legs against our Tormentor’s brittle exoskeleton, which shivers momentarily into a mass of hairline cracks, then cascades in shards around me, littering the floor. Shrieking in triumph, I dodge the debris and dive into our Tormentor’s soft skin, biting it with my sharp little teeth, tearing off long shreds, allowing them to be carried away. I do not wish to consume it. I reject these parts of me.

population pseudonym

Hello Folks, It's time for me to revive my blog.

Well Folks, it is time for me to revive my blog.
I'm going to populate it with pseudonyms.
Here are the profiles of the people in my life.

Melina - 50 years old Crone; a new life stage in which making, sustaining, growing, resting and learning all play large roles in my everyday.

Brown Owl - keystone of our hearts; driving us to new adventures both internal and external, provider, who places relationships always at the centre.

Jack (of Hearts) - sunny boy tumbler; 10 years old, with a charisma that holds many in his orbit; with energy to burn and an unbound imagination.

Wizard - light and laughter maker, and seeker of rainbows in dark places; 7 years old, with a keen eye for meticulous observation, and a transformative way with words and numbers.

I will add more pseudonyms as necessary, respecting that some people do not wish to be identified. It is strange to me, that some people bind themselves with secrecy, fearing enemies, but that is their reality. I do not wish to expose or endanger anyone.