Waiting for the phone to ring, the birds sing
DAY 9: As I stare out the patio doors a magpie appears on the terrace. Panic. How does the rhyme go? One for sorrow? I get to my feet, ready to send this harbinger of doom back to the skies, when another appears. Two magpies. Joy.
They strut around for a while, much bigger than I remembered, far cockier. One comes right up to the doors, stares in at me accusingly, I stare back, holding my ground. Eventually, realising there’s no food to be had, they fly off, leaving the coast clear for my regular visitors; the green and yellow fella, the blue one, and the pigeons, always the pigeons.
Each of us is dealing with self-isolation, cocooning and social distancing in our own way. Some are resorting to board games, family quizzes, in the hope of bringing everyone closer together, of quelling the air of mutiny which grows by the day. Others have taken to birdwatching, to contemplation and reflection, to talking to themselves, answering back if necessary.
And practically everyone is eating their own body weight in chocolate, working their way through the entire Netflix catalogue, and marveling at how this is considered doing their bit for the country.
But it’s the birdwatchers I fear for. Those who, like me, live alone and find themselves completely cut off from society. I’m lucky, I can still go to the supermarket every day, wait in a queue behind real-life people, be part of a shared experience. Not everyone has that luxury, certainly not in these times. I’m luckier still in that my job involves ringing lots of people, video chats, conference calls, human interactions which I’m suddenly a whole lot more appreciative of.
Yet when the day ends, when I close the work laptop and open my own, the loneliness kicks in. Again though, I’m lucky. As night falls there will be more phone calls, recreational ones, idle chats with loved ones temporarily off-limits. There will also be Facebook messages, WhatsApp chats, online games of poker with married friends eager for a break from their beloved. And if I get a little stir crazy, I can go for a walk, return revitalised and ready to binge-watch Netflix’s latest offering.
Come what may, I can cope. But there will be thousands who can’t. People in my community, yours, who find each and every day a living hell. You may be on the brink of throttling your significant other, of accidentally locking the kids in their rooms and somehow misplacing the key, but for many self-isolation means just that: being isolated by themselves.
And those four walls close in that little bit more with each new set of restrictions. There is no more freedom, no more recreation, not for those of a certain age, not for those in the at-risk category. They are now, to all intents and purposes, prisoners in their own homes. One would hope, assume, that these people are being looked after in a physical sense, that food is being delivered to their door, medication, whatever supplies they require.
But, once delivered, those items are left on the porch, in the hallway, their deliverers mindful not to linger lest they break any of the rules, their recipient concerned about the transmission of the virus through the most minimal of contact.
And while many of our golden generation are incredibly tech-savvy, dab hands at facetiming and messaging, there are others who are not, who rely solely on the radio and television for ‘a bit of company’. Their phones don’t light up with notifications from the group chat, amusing memes to brighten the mood. Their phones don’t light up at all.
It may seem unimaginable in this age of connectivity, when those on the other side of the world are the touch of a button away, but a lot of people in this country don’t have anyone. They just don’t have anyone. Not a son or a daughter, a sibling or a friend. Their life, their social world, had been limited to those interactions at the post office, at the shop, at the pub. Now they sit alone, their phone silent and unused. They sit by the window, afraid, unsure, uncertain, and, most of all, lonely. They watch the birds, they count the magpies, and wonder what it means for them.
Our job is simple. We must alleviate that loneliness. We must now deliver something less tangible but no less important. Solace. A phone call, a conversation, that’s all it will take, all anyone needs to get by.