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As I write this Lockdown is easing where we live. In Ireland we will soon be allowed to travel county wide, rather than being restricted to 5km (previously 2km) from our home. Hopefully county wide will soon become country wide and, in time, it will be safe to travel world wide.
Home schooling for our two boys is winding down as the end of term gets closer and the summer holidays approach. We've had a lot of Zoom calls (including a 'school assembly' Zoom call), we've kept an interested eye on the news and we, like everyone else, don't know quite what happens next. We do know that in some places around the world, they've imposed restrictions again as Covid-19 starts to spread again.
We also know that we have been Living Through History. They (the mysterious, omni-present 'they', whoever they are) will be writing books, making movies and filming documentaries about Covid-19 for decades. There will be all sorts of investigations and inquisitions, accusations and explanations. There will be a lot of people trying to Get To The Bottom Of It. A lot of what they say will be very impersonal and couched in careful language and some of it will be angry and absurd.
But we - you and me - know what it was like on the ground because we lived through it. For us, it was a bit of a pain doing the shopping. But it was also a bit easier because there weren't hoards of other people at the checkouts. We've enjoyed daily family walks in the immediate area and we've seen places near to us that we might never have bothered to go to otherwise. We know that not driving for more than a few minutes at a time has actually been quite refreshing. We know that Just Getting On With Life was the only thing we could do. We also know that some people suffered the loss of loved ones and had to find new ways to deal with their loss.
We've been trying to tell our children about Living Through History but I don't think they really get it. I'm not sure any of us yet get what the consequences to our every day lives might be or how long we might be living with them. What will have changed when it's All Over?
While we've been locked down rainbows have become A Bit Of A Thing and families have spent More Time Than Usual together - at least, those families who live in the same house have. Rainbows have always been pretty cool - you don't come across many people bad-mouthing rainbows - and we've had in the back of our minds to do a rainbow print for some time (there are a many ideas in the back of our minds).
For rainbows, that time is now. So we've done one. Actually, we've done two. They're both at the bottom of this post.
Is it worth celebrating our Lockdown time together as a family? I don't know. But it is certainly worth remembering it. It's something that we've lived through together.
In years to come people will talk about Lockdown with fondness and frustration and funny stories. In some ways Lockdown has brought people together, even while they are keeping their (social) distance. It's given everyone something to talk about instead of football, it's given everyone something to moan about and something to look forward to the end of. It has changed us all but it has given us a common moment in history that we will have in common for the rest of our lives.
'Do you remember when we were in Lockdown, that time when...?' will become an oft used opening to a sentence.
What do you get when you cross a rainbow with a family? This is what we got:
