Hope

Sunday and the thirty-ninth Covid blog.❄️

We always knew the winter of this new year would be a tough hurdle but that doesn’t mean it has made the situation we find ourselves in any easier.

Back once more in ‘Lockdown’ but we have been here before right? Or have we? I know I’m not the only one to feel that the second lockdown did not feel quite the same and unfortunately this one doesn’t feel familiar either, even though it should.

Last week I popped into my school to collect my resources for my lessons this week and once more I was concerned with the amount of traffic that I again encountered on my journey.
In the first lockdown it was incredibly minimal as if we were in a strange apocalyptic world with the most common sight being only that of delivery lorries and the occasional car like myself.

During the second lockdown it felt very different, in fact when only schools and essential services were allegedly meant to be open, I was stuck several times in traffic jams when on my way both to and from my place of employment as a key worker.

In my last blog, I mentioned I felt a little anxious, it now feels I had just cause with Covid admissions and related deaths now alarmingly rising and once more scientific advisers suggesting tougher measures should again be enforced, this being due partly to the selfishness of others.
Yet despite this, I still feel there is a reason for hope because this third lockdown ‘is’ unique.

My Dad this weekend finally received his notification for the Covid vaccine, a glimmer that a brighter future is in sight.

It seems to me that there are two essential words in our world; two tiny, beautiful, nouns, which change our lives in the most incredible and profound of ways.

These words hold such power yet look so very disarming, so very insignificant, but mean so very much.

That of ‘Love and Hope’ I have repeatedly written these words, this week, because they really are our everything.

Everything we need to survive this pandemic and life. Except I would like to add one other, that of being ‘Kind.’

To treat one another with kindness and indeed ourselves, as above all, it is people that matter.

To remember that we are in such unprecedented times; that we are only human, we can only do our best, and yes, that is good enough.

I think perhaps that we are always the hardest on ourselves. I know the next few weeks will be yet another learning curve, particularly for me in regards to yet another technological challenge and although I have dipped my toes several times, I have not fully submerged myself that is, until now.

Oddly this phase of my life has become one of such adaptation and change in both personal and professional aspects.

This was something that once absolutely and utterly terrified me but now I see it as one of necessity and of hope and to treat it as such, knowing that there is always someone to guide me if and when I am lost.

There is always kindness…

When life is as it should be there is a phrase I say to my tutor every morning, just before they all go off to their lessons:

“Have a good day, be kind” which is why I love the image above by Charlie Mackesy so much.

I too believe it is above all things. I ‘hope’ when our world heals, this will not be forgotten. It is the thing we desperately need at this arduous moment in time and sadly something I think the world is forgetting, most especially with the recent events in America.

Which brings me back to hope, it is easy to dismiss with the seeming hatred that the section of society demonstrated across the pond this week and that actually, as the song suggests, love is all around.

In a conversation with two old friends, the words ‘love you’ were both given and reciprocated but it caught my breath a little and made me realise how very much I have missed seeing them.

I replied to a tweet online, to a young poet I admire and met at a poetry festival, one who had hugged me and shared a kindness about my poetry.

He had tweeted that he missed hugging friends at these events and he ‘hoped’ it wouldn’t be too long before it could happen again and once more that realisation returned. I too have missed that same kindness.

For me, it is the random hugs I often receive in kind appreciation from absolute strangers and something that always takes me so wonderfully by surprise.

That ‘hope’ we are all so desperately clinging to and why this lockdown is different, now that there is that element of hope.

There are so many exquisite literary writings about this subject and so with the help of others far greater than I, I am attempting to follow their poetical lead just incase you were unsure as to where to find it…

So, despite the sadness in our world at this present time, I feel it is important to remember the smallest and mightiest of words in our vocabulary.

To remember how very special they are and to use each one of these precious words a little more often, we need to hear them, because they matter.

We should also remember, that although it may feel a tad cliche, we truly are:

‘All in this together.’

With Love and Hope,

Joy xxx