This Corona Now.

They predicted mass mental wobbles with lock-in, but most people I know aren’t going insane because they are lucky. They are well, despite the rampaging virus knocking everything askew. They have houses big enough for them and their families to find private space. They mostly have gardens in which to play, walk and, well, garden. Consequently, they are mostly enjoying this period.

Time, they tell me, is an expansive gift, it is as if they are on holiday in an exotic place called home. They are discovering the beauty of simple things, for when there’s no pressure, even painting a huge wall or washing up can be pleasing activities because they are in the moment. Here, right now, if you have sufficient health and money and comfort, is a haven where life is a glen filled with charm, it is a place we ignore much of the time because consumerism has done a good job on making us little machines in its system - working hard to buy the stuff they’ve convinced us we must have.

But there’s lots of folk who have none of these luxuries. There’s the hovel we walk past each day and envy, for it’s much more comfortable than our present situation. Inside they are crammed together and they have no garden, only a pavement. Then there’s those cooped up in tiny flats ten floors up with all their family going nuts to get out and meet their friends and enjoy the rich world out there. And there’s those who’ve been coronaed. Count our tough builder in, he said he keeps falling asleep, but is hoping to return to renovate the house we can’t inhabit next week. No! I told him. Rest for as long as he needs to. Sebastian Coe’s career ended when he continued training when recovering from the virus glandular fever.

When somebody you’ve known for years is blasted by the coronavirus, it brings tears to your eyes. You know that swallowing a bottle of disinfectant can’t cure it, though it might explain why Trump is, well, a trumped-up fool. When you learn their husband, an ex-rugby guy who walks the dog each day and plays vigorous tennis, has spent ten days in hospitable at the same time as she lingered at the edge with a ventilator keeping her alive, you sob for her. You realise this nasty thing which knocked Britain’s bouncy Boris off his peg, could strike anyone at any time.

You pray for her recovery, not that you believe in prayer. Recover she might, but what damage has been done by this silent killer? And I know they’e said it ten thousand times, maybe even a million and ten times, but we have to be really careful. Stay inside mostly and keep our distance when emerging, wash our hands upon return, soap things we buy or leave them in quarantine for 3 days. And keep happy.

That’s how we, who pine for comfort, specifically because I’m not well, manage - we find purpose in every day, for purpose grants happiness and a reason to get up each day. It’s not the latest phone, wearing designer gear, rushing off to fantastic holiday destinations, sipping expensive drinks, but accepting what you can’t quickly change, finding joy in the present, finding your purpose and your capacity to love, with brightens life.