What we learned from 100 days in lockdown
From lust to loneliness, and rows to relaxing, we’ve had to confront our hidden selves, as these writers reveal...
not know. This has forced me to live in the moment, to enjoy my immediate environment and good fortune.
For years i read all those column inches about being ‘mindful’ and now circumstances have forced me to be that way. had someone i love died, had i lost a job, or even had it rained throughout lockdown, maybe i’d be on antidepressants. But as it is, i’m fine. More than fine, even.
Without others to compare myself to, i have what is technically known as ‘stopped giving a s***’. By being imprisoned in my own home i discovered what makes me feel free.
After a lifetime of feverishly gadding about, lockdown has taught me to accept hearth and home, finally grounded at the age of 49. And, when i say ‘accept’, i mean love.
i left my parents’ house at 18, renting until i was 47, my last flat a basement with so many types of mould that an expert said it should be condemned. Part of me yearned for a home but i didn’t let myself acknowledge this, as being able to afford one in london seemed so unrealistic.
Besides, as a feminist, my life was outside the domestic sphere and i was suspicious of yielding to it. i didn’t want to feel trapped in it like my mother and her mother before her. instead, i devoted myself to work and my fabulous, frenetic, exhausting social life.
When my boyfriend and i met, i was 43, he was 40 and we didn’t move in together for another four years. We were certain of each other but uncertain about sharing space; both so independent that cohabitation felt like a vast step. When we did finally commit to our little flat, we decided to share a bedroom, then have a room each so we both had somewhere to escape to.
lockdown meant an end to this arm’s- length arrangement. Suddenly, home was all there was and this opened my eyes to its loveliness.
We have light, high ceilings, a garden full of roses. Where others have bickered, we have relished having time together.
We have acquired new rituals, taken walks together, fawned over our beautiful dog. Somehow i have acquired my dream flat, dream partner, dream hound. it’s the simple life versus the strenuously over- complicated. And it’s glorious.
My boyfriend refers to this as ‘the little world’ after his favourite film, ingmar Bergman’s Fanny And Alexander. To quote its close: ‘it is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world.’
it’s a little world that i have — finally — learnt to love. A private life matters, not just a professional life. And i can have both. By being forced to stay at home, i have come home at long last.
I’M A DOMESTIC GODDESS AFTER ALL THESE YEARS