A simpler past

RAMBLING around the Barwon recently, I spied a discarded small sultana box. You know, those that often appear in school lunchboxes. Determining to recycle, I picked it up.

Carrying that empty pack, my mind went nostalgically back to school lunches at Belmont Primary and the scrummy sandwiches our dear mum would construct, with the occasional sultana pack added as a treat.

Mum’s sandwiches were minor works of culinary art. Peanut butter, chopped celery and sultanas was a regular — very crunchy! On Mondays, sliced cold meat from Sunday’s roast, with lashings of tomato relish. Mum’s sandwiches were always laden with goodness, fillings often spilling out with the first bite.

Must admit though that I used to be envious of those kids who had “thin” sandwiches, with just say jam or Vegemite — so neat and far more organised than mine, far easier to consume. I only discovered much later that those same kids were likewise envious of my out-ofshape, over-flowing lunch fare!

So that little sultana pack rekindled memories of school days and an earlier, simpler life, prompting melancholic thoughts given the months we have just lived through, and indeed those to come.

When the major social-distancing implications of COVID were first enacted, I thought — so, so naively as things are turning out — that there’d be a nominated date at which point everything would just change back to all we considered to be normal life, like a light switch being joyfully turned back on.

One moment when we’d all be allowed back to work, to shop freely, schools fully open, footy crowds back, family celebrations encouraged, church services recommenced, choirs singing again and no restrictions on anywhere else people typically gather in numbers. There’d even be a big community celebration to recognise our “release”. What was I thinking? My hoped-for light switch moment is more like a dimmer being excruciatingly slowly turned from dark to light, and now back to a murky half-light as Greater Melbourne is once more plunged into the confines of Stage 3 — the hoped-for wider re-opening seems greatly delayed.

Hopes for a return in even restricted numbers to GMHBA Stadium this year — a bellwether of better times in Geelong — now looks totally forlorn.

Of course, knowledge of how this virulent virus works, even for the non-medically inclined, has grown exponentially in recent months. There’s broad understanding of the ongoing risks and what we must do to mitigate.

We reluctantly understand that in the absence of a vaccine, it will be many, many months before we can again do all those things to which we never used to give a second thought. Our lives remain somewhat hamstrung.

We will not have a “new normal” but a “new abnormal”. As coined in a recent real estate ad, it’s not “business as usual” but “business unusual”.

Restraining from such simple human gestures as handshakes or friendly hugs when greeting friends remains a frustrating loss. The “elbow touch” is such a poor substitute. You need to turn sideways to do it — not face-to-face as a handshake demands — and the act itself carries little warmth or sense of connection, although is greatly improved with an accompanying smile.

We’re fast learning that things will not be the way they used to be, certainly nothing like we grew up with. Crikey, our temperature is now often taken before we can order even a coffee!

Yet, our leaders are consistent in their messaging that we simply have to get used to such new arrangements — I fulIy get that. But that doesn’t stop this Baby Boomer pining for what used to be normal in our lives.

So allow me to dwell in my “sultana box” days just for a moment more ... good, that’s off my chest!

Last week’s imposition of hard lockdowns of public housing towers, ring-fencing of Melbourne and state border closures isolating Victoria thrust me unceremoniously from melancholy back to COVID’s harsh realities.

As Australian, and indeed world, citizens, it’s clearer than ever that this will not be over for anyone until it is over for everyone.