FROM THE EDITOR
On Day 1 of the Lockdown the vacuum broke. It felt like a sign, a signal of how things would play out. In the old times, now nearly four weeks ago, this would in fact be a godsend. Sanctioned sloth. But isolation has forced me into a more intimate relationship with my floors. The vacuum cleaner is quite a fancy beast, but also extremely temperamental. It’s like the race horse of home appliances — super-pretty, lean, fast, hungry but hopeless at staying charged beyond a single explosive gallop around a single room. Then it does a little petulant meltdown and demands to be charged. Again. But now, there is no pulse; no sign of life at all. Which means, at less than two years old, it’s out to pasture, because even though it’s still under guarantee, there’s no one at head office and sweet FA I can do. The floors are not in a good way and I know this because I’ve been doing online yoga, which is wonderful for reducing stress, which, let’s be honest is omniprescent unless you don’t have to work and are in isolation at your Lake House. Except lately yoga is adding to my stress because of the floors. When we are in the final savasana, when the guru goddess Nikki Ralston “invites” me to lie down, shut my eyes, I’d love to lie there longer and think of the softness in my heart, reflect on any insights and extend that to all living things, I really would, but all I can think about is the floors and that there is a high chance I will soon be coughing up furballs like a cat. In other breakdowns, other than personal ones: on Day 2 the camera on my Zoom broke meaning in all my meetings I am represented by an Avatar in which I have a sort of crazed fixed grin — and this is not at all appropriate given the nature of some of the discussions in some Zoom meetings. I feel terrible. And then, in a sort of gloriously screwed-up trifecta, this week my car broke while I was out on an essential trip to the dairy for a Fruju. I pulled up at the local park, sat in my car howling for a while, finished the Fruju, went to start the car and nothing. Dead. Not a pulse. It was like a metaphor, for how broken it all feels sometimes. A Level 4 breakdown metaphor. I have a new battery now. The call-out guy said he was run off his feet, driving all over the place to fix broken cars. It’s like a sign. Probably. Namaste.