Covid-9 Capers
by Cecily Lynch--
Ravings from a Restricted life - A personal report on unfolding worlds
A new world has been opened to me during the social seclusion in the Time of Covid.
Let me explain.
There are high forbidding walls surrounding the old Colonial British Houses in my district. Although I have lived here all my life, I have never entered these secluded mansions. Lodge gates have always been locked and formidable mastiffs guarded the orchards.
But during the lockdown the big estates lay open. I ventured inside the elaborate iron gates, embossed with names such as Trafalgar Square, Windsor House, Adelaide Park. Wide avenues lined with trees opened before me. Fountains, and Grecian statues dotted the gardens. Marble steps led up to beautiful 18th century Fanlight front doors.
Who would have thought that behind the main road, bordered with unprepossessing mews houses, lock up garages, boarded up and rusty locked iron grills, there lay such beauty; a beauty belonging to an another age.
I applied one eye to the small cracks in the boardings and saw Victorian gardens spreading out before me bordered by box hedging and aflame with flowers.
Another country I discovered was the Land of the Arts – music, dance literature, theatre, paintings, sculpture. These came to me online and for free. The Creative Arts played an enormously uplifting effect on the wounded soul and spirit.
Literature, sculpture, paintings, readings, ballets classical concerts, all these could be called the Land of Spices… Where creativity and imagination brought happiness, hope, growth and enlargement.
The virtual world of the Arts was both a haven and a spiritual experience. It became a land of delight in the desert of the everyday reality.
Yet another world I discovered was the world of the Animal Kingdom. I came to know my neighbours’ cats and dogs intimately. I had time to observe them.
I heard their various sounds in the stillness of the silent city, the tones of the barking, the distress calls, the mewling, the blackbirds’ song of love, the hope of the dawn chorus.
And with the bounty of the freedom of 2 kilometres from the city, the mooing, the grunting, the squealing and clucking of the farmyard, as well as the cooing and billing of our feathered friends.
How had I missed these other worlds all my life, only to meet them in my old age? I have realized that the Curse of the Covid has had for me a silver lining - making me more aware and receptive, and far more mindful.